Fairbanks Day 1 and 2

Well it has only been all my life in the coming, but I’m finally in Alaska! I left Honolulu Monday morning and flew into Seattle, which as far as I can tell from looking down from the plane is beautiful place, though I didn’t get to see the mountain like J did. Both J and I flew into Seattle as part of the first legs of each of our trips (If you don’t know J, He’s a pretty neat guy. He will be in Uganda and Rwanda for the next several months and I’ve linked to his blog over on the right there -->) so that was kinda cool for me. I’ve officially decided that I want to live along the Northwest Coast somewhere from Alaska to Oregon at some point; it’s a beautiful region and is home to tons of awesome languages.

From Seattle I flew into Fairbanks and arrived at around 2am, which happened to be just about sunrise even though it was still light enough outside to appear as though it was 5pm. Crazy. Anyways the flight was pretty cool because as I flew further north it kept getting lighter and lighter until the dark horizon was marked by a thin stripe of rusty orange fading up into a deep blue atmosphere, and then near the end of the trip I saw the “sun set” a bright orange color along the horizon, even though when I landed it wasn’t even close to dark. I then made it to the University and after being temporarily confused for a little bit finally found my way to the dorms and checked in. Then, I was able to talk to J for a few minutes for the last time before he left, which made me happy and then I crashed (in bed). And that was my “first day” in Alaska.

Today, my “second day,” I headed down to downtown Fairbanks for the afternoon just to explore which was pretty fantastic. Fairbanks is called the “Golden Heart of Alaska, because it’s near the center of Alaska and was a mining town initially, and it looks like a mining town but very spread out. The town of Fairbanks is located at the foot of the foothills, basically, and has been built right into the middle of an aspen and pine forest. Literally. If you were to take any national park and start scattering buildings along one of the hills without cutting down any more trees than you had to, that would be the University of Fairbanks; then from there, do the same thing at the foot of the hill but more expansively and that would be the town of Fairbanks. It is really pretty and has the air of being out in the middle of the wilderness because it is. Additionally, I don’t think I have seen so many rivers (like true, big rivers) since I was in Missinipe, Saskatchewan. Seeing the rivers and the streams and the creeks and the brooks winding their way through the forest from the plane was actually really cool! Anyways after figuring out the bus system (which is small but doesn’t come to each stop very often) I made it downtown. Downtown is a small area along one of the rivers with a few shops and restaurants and a little square, it was quaint and reminded me somewhat of a little of Park City, Utah, just much less expensive. After exploring for a few hours I made back to the University, then back down to a more “suburban” part of Fairbanks for dinner and found an awesome bookstore which had an amazing section on the languages of Alaska, including dictionaries, grammars, and comparative dictionaries all of which I would love to own were I a millionaire. It was cool though because I got to hold Steven Jacobson’s two volume Yup’ik Dictionary, which I did a review on last semester using an online PDF copy for one of my classes, then they had an Aleut Grammar and dictionary, and a Kwakiutl grammar and an Eskimo Comparative dictionary and language maps and traditional stories fully glossed with accompanying audio CD’s and in short it was Amazing!

At the time I am writing this post it is now 10:00 in the “evening,” I can’t say night because in my dialect the word “night” is defined by “dark” and its still far from dark and wont ever get dark while I’m here, and evening is also misleading. I guess we could call it “almost sleeping” time? Tomorrow I plan on going to the Museum of the North and maybe checking out the Alaska Native Language Center and meeting people or maybe going to a visitor center/Museum downtown.

I Think the only disappointing part is that I’ve been here nearly a full day so far and I still have only seen a single (1) Husky. Like seriously? And I saw him in a car while heading to dinner. Only 1 husky in Alaska, come-on that’s not right. Otherwise I’ve seen a Golden Lab, and an Australian Shepherd (but they were adorably cute too). All in All, Alaska is beautiful and a great place to be, I could live here easily I think though I’d want to - at least - see Anchorage first to figure where in Alaska I like the most. I still kinda find it hard too believe I’m actually in Alaska, but its been a great time so far and I’m looking forward to the rest of the week here and then my time in Kotlik, which apparently in Yup’ik is “Qerrulliik,” which would be pronounced pretty similar to Kotlik or close enough for now anyways.

P.S. I’ll try to add more pictures as soon as I can.