Day 1 / Día 1
Anchorage
It was after midnight when my plane from Newark descended into Anchorage, giving me a first image of snow-capped mountains and luminous sky (it felt as if it was 6pm, and not six hours later). On the plane I was surrounded by Paul Bunyan types, with disheveled beards and flannel checkered shirts. I wondered about their lives, and the reasons that would make someone decide to live in a city as remote as this one. Did that man over there came here to escape from his past life or to hide a terrible, dark secret?
My host, Sean Licka, from the University of Anchorage, was waiting for me at the baggage check area. He was the only one who had replied to my inquiries as I had been trying to find help over here. Sean, a Joseph Cornell lover and a seemingly testy but ultimately warm Greek-American artist and art professor, drove me through town as we passed various banks and businesses owned by the local Native-American communities, as well as oil-industry buildings. Gas is affordable in Anchorage, but the city, in it of itself sparse and with nondescript architecture, doesn’t seem to get much of the revenue that comes from the oil industry based in the state. The region, isolated by the great mountains and distances, remains as a separate entity, almost in every respect. As I took in those first images within the car, with the surreal light and surrounding landscape, Sean said: “Alaska is more similar to Canada and Siberia than it is to the United States. Siberians come to spend their vacations here, as if we were Miami”.
As we entered his house, Sean smiled strangely and told me: “you will now meet Papito”. Papito turned out a ceramic bust of a smiling cholo, standing in the entrance. I am not sure why, but the image of Papito would stay with me throughout the whole trip. Just the fact that Sean had referred to him as a person or a pet said something to me about how people in those latitudes relate to things and places.
I went to my room and sat in my bed, still confused and energized by the absolute silence and the light coming out of the window at 2am. I sensed the weight of natural forces. That was, I supposed, the feeling of being at the Last Frontier.
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Anchorage
Mi avión descendió en Anchorage, dándome aquella primera imagen de las montañas nevadas y el cielo luminoso de medianoche. Estaba rodeado de pasajeros de aspecto misterioso. ¿Qué vicisitudes de la vida, me preguntaba, harían que alguien acabara en esta tierra inhóspita?
Mi anfitrión Sean Licka, un profesor local de origen griego, me llevó en coche por las calles, llenas de arquitectura anónima de aquel lugar, mientras explicaba: “Alaska se parece más a Canadá y a Siberia que a los Estados Unidos. Pero los siberianos pasan sus vacaciones aquí, como si esto fuese Miami.”
Entré a mi habitación y me senté en la cama, aún confundido e infundido de energía por el silencio absoluto y la luz viniendo de la ventana a las 2am. Sentí el peso de las fuerzas naturales. Esa era, supuse, la sensación de estar en la Ultima Frontera.