On Not Playing It Safe: The Road Less Traveled and the Alaska Highway
photography·@jscottdavis28·
0.000 HBDOn Not Playing It Safe: The Road Less Traveled and the Alaska Highway
I'm starting this one off a bit cliche, I know...but, I can't help a good road/journey metaphor when talking about things pertaining to the future. This is partly because the road speaks to me and I really hate staying in one place (so far) for very long. Maybe it's the fact that I'm often traveling that makes these metaphors potentially meaningful to me. Either way, I wanted to talk about those things and about one particular trip I took with my grandfather 8 years ago now. We're also coming up on 3 years since he passed away. So, this time of year in general is full of bittersweet memories for me. I'll show you some of my photos from that trip today. I was living in southern Alberta. I chose to move to Alaska for several reasons, one of which was that I really like living in more remote northern regions and it seemed like a logical place to go as my time in Canada was coming to a close. So, I made plans to rent a U-Haul and charted a course from Lethbridge to Fairbanks. My grandfather flew into Calgary from Philadelphia to help out with the driving. His secondary responsibility was finding decent chocolate to purchase for snacks. Our journey on the drive to the start of the Alaska Highway took us through some amazing scenery in central Alberta: Banff and Lake Louise, Jasper. Alberta is one of the most beautiful places I have ever lived in:  The Columbia Icefield (what was left of it in 2009):  Our first stop on the way there was in Grande Prairie, which is a town in northern Alberta that I lived in previously. It's a charming place in its own way, really; and I enjoyed getting to show my grandfather where I used to live and work as we drove through town. The highlight of any trip through Grande Prairie, however, is having breakfast at the Beaverlodge Motor Inn: It's all day breakfast, served till 2. I find that hilarious. Just about an hour west of Grande Prairie is Dawson Creek, British Columbia and the official start of the Alaska Highway. Now, you may have thought I was suggesting by the title that the Alaska Highway is a road not often traveled; but living in Grande Prairie and working at the only Starbucks between Edmonton and Fairbanks taught me that there is a continual train of vacationers and adventure-seekers that take on a sort of pilgrimage each summer. Most northerners will also derisively add that these pilgrims all leave quite abruptly in September when the temperature starts to drop. That being said, I still sort of felt like I was in a Jack London novel. Coca-Cola and moderately respectable cellular coverage notwithstanding, it really is so remote and even haunting driving through northern British Columbia and the Yukon: it's definitely not a trip that you can take on without at least some planning and preparation. Mile 0 in Dawson Creek, BC and Mile 1422 in Delta Junction, AK:  Along the drive, my grandfather and I had a lot of catching up to do. It had been several years since he and I had spent much time together. It also turned out to be, I now realize, the last time he and I ever spent any substantial amount of one on one time together. We shared stories that we had each told many times before and we rehashed the past's hidden mysteries; but we also had ample time to think about and discuss what I was doing (or not doing, for lack of concrete plans) with this Alaska adventure: What do I expect? Where do I to intend to be 5 or 10 years from now? What's it all for? One of the more interesting sights along the way is the hat collection at Toad River Lodge. I didn't know about this gem of Canadiana tucked along the side of the highway until I stumbled across it. We basically stopped at Toad River Lodge because it was the first gas station we had seen all day. We were starving at that point, tired from delays from road work, and nearly out of fuel. There was one point where we waited for over an hour for a pilot car to meet us and then lead us through...nothing terribly dangerous, in my opinion. The absurdity of sitting at a red light in the wilderness is still something I think about every now and then. So many hats, so little time:  After Toad River Lodge, we stopped at the sign post forest in Watson Lake because it was my occasion to be a tourist on this trip--even if only for a few minutes. The need to stretch our legs and buy more chocolate provided a welcome excuse to slow down our otherwise relentless pace toward Fairbanks. I wanted to savour a few of these moments as best I could, of course. I knew I should try. We browsed signs from all around the world and battled mosquitoes the size of dragons at the sign post forest. Between the swatting and itching, I thought about all the people who had traveled this road before me, about their hats and their signs, and the reasons they traveled it. What was it all for? Signs pointing to everywhere from nowhere:  As we continued on, we navigated herds of wood buffalo asleep on the road at night, I swam in a lake so clear I nearly felt like I was flying, and I once more enjoyed the beauty of a midnight sun--this time in downtown Whitehorse. It all feels very magical to me looking back on it, but in the moment it was scary as hell. Yes, it was exciting to be having some new experiences and visiting places I had wanted to see my entire life; but balancing that against the pressure to "be something", to "settle down", to not let anyone down... If I had surrendered these experiences and the courage they required of me for the immediate satisfaction of keeping others happy, of allaying their concerns for my well-being, living up to expectations....where would I be? Perhaps it wouldn't be terribly bad, but this is the path I'm traveling: somehow, someway it leads to something occasionally. Along the way, I try to savour the moments. Midnight sun in Whitehorse:  You see, my Alaskan adventure failed. I couldn't overcome Alaskans' suspicions of outsiders from the Lower 48 or the disaster that was the 2009 job market. With no job possibilities forthcoming, I left my things in storage in North Pole and began to work on a plan B...or was it C or D? Either way, the life that I had assumed I was beginning in Alaska never even had a chance to start off: Just a few months later I was living in a tent in Arizona before I finally managed to find a part-time temp job in Pennsylvania toward the end of November. It's experiences like these and the journey that the metaphor of the road evokes which constantly reminds me that while planning is important, I don't expect plans to be more than a cheatsheet for disaster response and innovative redirection. Anything more is just conceited at best and horribly boring at the very least. Life has a way of dislodging those delusions of control and predictability for those who dare to slow down and enjoy the ride for what it is. I could see so clearly into the darkness:  But driving the Alaska Highway doesn't make one an adventurer. That's not the point.
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