The near-constant* light of an Alaskan summer came on fast this year. A night person since I was a kid, I always feel this way to some degree. I’m at my most creative, my most me, late at night when it’s dark, quiet, and I imagine the rest of the world sound asleep. A state-of-mind that’s hard to achieve when it’s 10 p.m. and I’m just sitting down to eat dinner.
But this year, during a winter of quarantine, uncertainty, and necessary and intense upheaval around the country, things felt very dark for an awfully long time.** So the light surprised me even more. It felt more manic, more what are you doing with your life? It’s Thursday the 6th and we’re already clocking 16 hours and 44 minutes of daylight here in Anchorage. (We gain five more minutes of light tomorrow.) The urge to be out doing something most of the time has erupted and summer hasn’t even started. Then it seems like all of Alaska is always out doing something.
For a transplant from NYC and NJ, it’s not really a natural state of being. Growing up my family went down the shore a lot. Long Beach Island, to be exact. The pace of a summer day there was always somewhat liquid. Late breakfast spilled onto the beach into a bike ride to the arcade to spend whatever quarters we could scrounge off our parents spilled into ice cream lunch spilled back to the beach…and on and on.
And as an adult in NYC? Same kind of spillover from thing to thing and, while there was activity and hiking and things, it’s not really the culture to do all of it in one day. There was also a lot of just sitting around talking. Here? Go fish go hike go camp go go go…
That push to enjoy time outside without wearing loads of layers is, of course, understandable. Summers don’t stretch into September here. Instead, winter reaches backward and snags some of the month for herself. Seven years into living here full-time, it still throws me off a bit.
But the lack of humidity? The rarely-too-warm temps (though there was that summer)? The salmon? The camping? The chance to see a bear with her cubs (not too close, please)? A single day of fishing? Late-night road trips? Fields of fireweed? Hiking with friends? KAYAKING?
Oh hell yeah. All of it.
Hmm, maybe I have gotten used to it.
*I say near-constant because, in Anchorage, even the longest day of the year features four hours and 38 minutes of twilight (give or take 30 seconds). Fairbanks gets 21 hours and 50 minutes of daylight on solstice. The winner on the wow, that is a lot of light front is Utqiaġvik, which stays light for two-and-a-half months.
**More daylight or not, we’ve got a lot of work to do in this country. I’ll fill you in now and again on issues that might not make news where you live (or that deserve a great deal more attention). First up…
What is #MMIW?
For several years now, the hashtag #MMIW has made the rounds on social media. If you’ve seen it but just scrolled on by, I invite you to take a few minutes (hopefully longer) to learn about the meaning behind those letters. They stand for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and it’s a serious issue across the United States and Canada that deserves a lot more attention. In Alaska alone, there are currently 149 Native women and girls who are missing, according to a “baseline report” from Data for Indigenous Justice.
President Biden declared May 5th as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day and it’s about damn time the issue was declared a priority in this country. But we can all do something to help: Learn more from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center and this FB page run by Native Peoples Action and Native Movement. Donate to help NIWRC move forward here. You can also buy a t-shirt featuring artist Sarah Whalen-Lunn’s original art with partial proceeds going to support Anchorage-based Native Movement.
This week, even as people gathered on Zoom and elsewhere to discuss #MMIW, a man was arrested in Anchorage in connection with disposing of a 27-year-old woman’s body. Later that day? He headed out to play frisbee golf with friends. I cannot wrap my brain around that brutal and heartless series of events.
(Apologies for the very odd transition here but I promised to always finish up with…)
The Alaska Dog of the Week
(Want to make other people smile by gazing upon the joy that is your Alaska dog? Send a photo of your pup, her name, and three facts about her to jenna@jennaschnuer.com.)
See you next week,
Jenna
p.s. While the weekly newsletter will always be free, paid subscriptions will be rewarded with bonus issues and extra bits of fun. Cancel at any time—though, hopefully, you’ll want to hang around Here in Alaska for a good long time.
p.p.s. Please share the newsletter with your friends. As for the podcast? Three weeks to go. Episode 1 goes live on June 1, 2021. Details soon.
Brava, Jenna.
Thanks for the heads up about #MMIW. I will tune in.
My favorite line? "Summers don’t stretch into September here. Instead, winter reaches backward and snags some of the month for herself."
That Bailey, what a cutie pie.