where are we all from??

[Narya]

I recently spent 30 years in Alaska

Was it just me who went after reading this and thought how wonderful it is that Narya has lived in Alaska just as our Tangle Leader has done?!

Alaska is one of those places on the map that I would dearly love to be able to visit. Reading stuff by Gary Paulsen with my kids only makes the pull stonger!

Some of the scenes she describes are very Southcentral Alaskan. She may have visited Anchorage while I was there, but to my knowledge, our paths never crossed.

Alaska is that place that many people would dearly love to visit. They come on a cruise to Southeast Alaska, in the summer, and are stunned by the beauty. And they think that is "Alaska". But there are lots of different Alaskas, depending on the locations and seasons. Sitka in the fall (where it averages an inch of rain a day), is a little different than Anvik in the winter, at -60 F (-50 C) and white-outs of blowing snow, or Anchorage, at break-up (spring), when everything is ankle deep in the sudden thaw of 6 months of snow, or Fairbanks in the summer, where it gets up to 99 F (37 C), and is light all the time - you can't see stars for 3 months.

Some people thrive in the harshly different seasons. I didn't. I couldn't handle having a cold, dead, dark, colorless world for 6 months of the year. And rainy, grey summers. I'm much happier in California, where the crummiest winter day here is not that different than a typical summer day in Anchorage (rainy, 65 F or 18 C).

Anyway, if you visit, come in the early summer (fewer mosquitoes) and bring your raincoat!