Alaskan berries

While in Denali last weekend we discovered that a variety of delicious edible berries grow wild across the state.

We were admonished, however, to never ever eat the white Eskimo berries, which John Krakauer (“Into the Wild”) theorized was the culprit in the tragic death of Christopher McKandless in 1992. 

The teenager wanted to check the veracity of what we were told about the infamous “white berries” so I did a quick Google check and stumbled across an article by Iris Brooks, entitled, Alaskan Berry Magic. 

Much of what Ms. Brooks wrote in that article captures the essence of what I have experienced while in Alaska, specifically…

Ø     Alaska resonates with stillness

Ø     Named after the Aleut word “Al-yes-ka,” meaning “the great land,” [Alaska] is a wide-open expanse with subtly shifting light

Ø     Traffic lights are rare but signs about moose are common

Ø     The feeling of endless space is exhilarating

Ø     One has to be a rugged individualist to survive in a place where snow mutes the land and schools close only when weather conditions are truly risky, with temperatures plummeting to more than 50 degrees below zero.

While I have yet to experience “winter in Alaska,” the last statement reminds me of when the teenager wanted to write a letter of complaint to the superintendent of the Laramie school district when he didn’t close schools the morning we experienced negative 50 some degree temperatures. 

The teenager said it was too dangerous for kids to attend school (and no, he just wasn’t whining about having to go to school).

He said many kids walk to school (and it was too cold and dangerous), and that others couldn’t make it because their parents could not start their cars.

The teenager also told us that almost half of his classmates were absent from school that day.

I guess he's feeling lucky he doesn't live in Alaska.

Tomorrow we leave for Seward, where we will fish and take a cruise, hopefully to see whales, sea lions and a glacier.