Features
The Summer of My Two Loves
by Susan McMillan
Fairbanks,
Alaska - I've been lucky enough in my life to experience two great love
affairs. Three years ago, my partner plucked me from the arms of my first
love. It turns out, I am still blissfully in love with them both.
In 1996, as a veterinary student, I stumbled
upon an internship in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was a novice dog musher and
arranged to visit in the winter. After surviving a -50 degree cold snap
and four weeks at the clinic, I was offered a job. I accepted without
hesitation because, during that brief internship, I had fallen in love.
This Midwestern girl was finally home. Alaska.
It surely seems that everyone dreams of
coming to this vast and beautiful state. No wonder. Listen to this. Alaska
has one-fifth the land mass of the continental US, 33,000 miles of coastline,
three million lakes larger than 20 acres, and more than half the world's
glaciers. Superimposed on a map of the "lower 48," the tip of
the Aleutian Islands is in Los Angeles, the Arctic coast sits on our long
border with Canada, and the southern tip of the Inside Passage reaches
to Florida. There are volcanoes, hot springs, waterfalls, sand dunes,
and ice fields here. The Yukon River is 2,300 miles long. Denali is more
than 20,000 feet high. The local paper has a weekly earthquake summary.
And remarkably, less than one percent of this enormous land is privately
owned. Oh, and don't forget the Arctic Circle, the Continental Divide,
the Northern Lights, and the Midnight Sun. How could you not fall in love
with this place?
None of this is why I fell in love with
the city of Fairbanks. I grew up appreciating the skillful architecture
in Chicago but I was finally home in this utilitarian (read kind of ugly)
city where blue tarps abound. After years in DC and Madison, Fairbanks
felt civilized. Not culturally but in some more authentic way. Life is
honest here. It is hot or it is cold. Flowers are big. The tundra is spongy.
Denali is tall. The Yukon River is long. Bush villages are really remote.
Buildings are no-nonsense. It is dry, beautiful, and harsh. Summers are
intense and green. Fall is short and gold. Winter is long and white. Moonlit
winter nights are brilliant. Nothing fake survives.
My partner swears it is unnatural for people
to live here year round, yet people do, and they thrive. Fairbanks is
home to 30,000 hearty, independent souls. Every one loves it or hates
it. Those who hate it won't stay long. The rest swear they will never
again live "outside," meaning anywhere outside Alaska. For a
time, I was one of them.
To be happy here, one must appreciate extremes.
Summer days in the 90s are 140 degrees warmer than the typical cold spell.
Winter activities are not cancelled until beyond 20 below. That is real,
not a wind chill. At 40 below, the air in tires freezes and, until it
warms, you feel the clunk of the flat side hitting the road. Hot coffee
freezes in the instant before hitting the ground. School is never cancelled
and, in spite of long snowy winters, some kids have never built a snowman.
The snow is too dry to pack.
Oh, and the daylight! At the winter solstice,
a brilliant twilight lights up the snow-covered hills in a long, soft
show of pink, violet and blue, followed each day by 19 hours of darkness.
In the summer, 22 hours of direct light are chased by a brief twilight,
as the sun officially sets after midnight and rises by 3 a.m. Picture
a full moon in a clear sky and you can imagine how spectacular these nights
are.
Alaskans brag on their long, harsh winters,
but this year will be remembered for fire. It is bone dry here. In mid-June,
28,000 acres were burning, ignited by lightening. Recently, the weather
forecast was for "smoke with reduced visibility to 1/8 mile, continued
warm and smoky." The smoke is the weather since the clear sky is
obscured by ash. In mid-July, over 4 million acres have burned. Storms
continue to produce up to 9,000 lightening strikes, and a few new fires,
each day. This is one hot place.
The fires are a few miles over the hills
beyond our cabin. A towering plume of white smoke marks the horizon. Wind
brings heavy smoke in one day and clears it out the next. On some days,
all outdoor activities are cancelled due to poor air quality. Up the road,
a few dozen people evacuated their cabins when fires threatened. Part
of that meant getting pets and livestock to safety. A temporary shelter
in town was home to 57 chickens, 19 miniature horses, 12 reindeer, ten
dogs, seven goats, four ducks, three geese, three pigs, two llama, two
rabbits, a cow, iguana, and an Amazon grey. How did I ever question Fairbanks'
diversity?
Three years ago, I was entrenched in this
odd and wonderful town. I was alone, content, and in love with my Alaska.
And then, it all ended. One day, I met her. I walked with her. She took
my hand. I have never looked back. This Midwesterner-turned-Alaskan fell
in love with a woman from southern California. I left my home in Fairbanks
to be with her. This summer, as we celebrate our third anniversary, I
see just how lucky I am, to be so in love, with such a remarkable woman,
in such an amazing land.
Susan McMillan and her partner Becky are working and traveling in
Alaska this summer. Becky is a southern Californian to her core and not
in love with the Alaskan winters. They plan to return to Burlington before
snowfall.