“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.”
--Jack London, The Call of The Wild
You don’t realize how bounded modern life is until you get out and see the far places of the world.
I returned Monday morning from the epic trip of a lifetime. Alaska exceeded all my expectations.
Our 10-day trip began July 15 with a flight into Anchorage, then a guided rafting tour down a glacial river in Talkeetna. We toured the massive Denali state park July 17 via bus, then boarded a train with an observation deck for a 10-hour trip through the wilderness, including an area through which Christopher McCandless passed on a rendezvous with death as told in Into the Wild.
Our train passed by groups of moose that at times felt as prevalent as deer, then rolled through a dark tunnel piercing a mountainside into Whittier. And there waited our cruise ship, from which we departed on a 7-day sea-voyage though the Gulf of Alaska.
We watched the World Cup Final on a huge screen television on the top deck while enjoying buckets of beer. The ship nosed into a sea of floating ice shed by glaciers in Yakutat Bay and Glacier Bay National Park, cold air rolling onto the deck like someone had left the world's largest freezer door open.
In Skagway we were towed by huskies hitched to a wheeled cart, training for a sled they will pull come the long Alaska winter.
In Juneau we saw a flock(!) of bald eagles on a marsh, toured Mendenhall Lake, and did shots in the sawdust-floored Red Dog Saloon, a wild watering hole favorited by John Wayne.
We were inspired by a nature walk in Ketchikan. Saw totem poles dating back to the 19th century and met modern craftsmen forging knives out of old carbon steel sawblades and elk horn.
In our final full day at sea we saw orcas, including one that breached less than 200 feet from the fan tail.
We disembarked on Saturday into the diverse and vibrant city of Vancouver, two satisfying final days that included a trip to the swaying Capilano Suspension Bridge, 450 feet long and suspended 230 feet above a river, before heading back home to the east coast this past Sunday night.
I feel incredibly blessed to have had this experience. My wife and I have worked many hours in stressful situations to finance this type of thing, and at 53 I like to think I’ve earned it, but I also realize many good turns of fortune led me to The Last Frontier. I hope everyone gets to experience Alaska once. It will move you.
I won’t sit here and try to compare the experience of a middle-aged desk jockey on a modern cruise ship and all its luxuries with the hardy souls carrying packs and chasing gold into the frontier more than a century ago. That world is closed. But the magic of Alaska is knowing that there are other worlds than these, without and within. Worlds that make you forget present day circumstances. To again return to Jack London:
"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”
Other worlds, and words, than these…
If you're a Stephen King fan I recommend The Loser’s Club podcast. The hosts are in the midst of a countdown of King’s novels, all 66 of them ranked from worst to best. Entertaining listening and my ears perked when the hosts credited King for coining the phrase “other worlds than these” for his Dark Tower universe. There is a new King novel with the same title due out in the fall.
I wonder if King didn’t pick up that particular phrase from Robert E. Howard’s “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune,” a story by an author he has long read and admired. From that story:
“For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king's gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.”
King is incredibly popular for a reason, but There Are Other Authors Than Him. He’d certainly admit that.
Odds and ends
Not a whole lot else to report this week, and no progress on the heavy metal memoir. That comes next.
- I got some reading done on the plane (on the ride out; not the return, a weary red-eye), and am nearing the finish of The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of new short stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. This has been a mixed read, entertaining if not great. The highlight so far is “Grace” by Tim Lebbon, the story of a crew aboard a space shuttle during the outbreak of Captain Tripps. Great concept and execution.
- I came home to find a print copy of Battleborn #1, a new S&S magazine edited by Sean CW Korsgaard. The table of contents looks great, including a new tale of Hanuvar by the late Howard Andrew Jones, columns by the likes of Jason Ray Carney and Moran Holmes, part 1 of a serial and a comic strip by the talented Schuyler Hernstrom, even a reprinted story from the late Michael Shea (Pearls of the Vampire Queen).
- My friend Matt John, host of the Rogues in the House podcast, has authored a new novelette for The Heroic Legends Series: Cormac Mac Art: Isle of Swords. It was recently published by Titan. Here's your reminder to listen to our podcast episode featuring Deathstalker 2, the most fun I've ever had behind a microphone.
- John Hocking, author of City of the Dead, has been green-lighted for a new Conan novel. Nice.
- A little movie called The Odyssey dropped while I was away. Has there been any online discussion about this? Sarcasm is difficult to convey in the written medium but this is your dose. I am certain I will see it.
What other worlds have you explored, literary or earthly?
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