State of Things

Fire season has finally arrived in Alaska. Broken Snowshoe is burning outside of McGrath, and Tok Area’s very own Old Man Fire has grabbed the number two slot on the National Situation Report. Both burns are near human populations, the only real reason to fight fire in Alaska. Old Man is burning in thick black spruce forest, north of the town of Chicken. A classic example of stand replacement ecology, nothing is going to stop the fire until a heavy rain falls or it exhausts its supply of fuel.

It was only a matter of time. Weather has been warm in Alaska since the beginning of May, and during one particular heat wave early in the month, temps reached record levels. A few systems have moved through, cloudy and cooler but without any measureable precipitation. All that was lacking was an ignition source, summarily supplied by some afternoon thunderstorms over Memorial Day weekend.

Brandi was here for better than a week. It was great having her visit, even though watching her walk off into Fairbanks International Airport was absolutely heart wrenching. We went on several grand adventures, and learned quite a lot about Alaska, ourselves, and one another. Brandi wrote an excellent essay summarizing our exploits, so I won’t share them here, other than these two valuable lessons. There aren’t as many campgrounds along the Parks Highway as one might suspect and always top off your gas tank at every available opportunity when driving across Alaska.

To be frank, Alaska has been kicking my ass. Unless you are in Anchorage, where life is downright cosmopolitan, living here is pretty much an expedition into the wilderness dotted with sporadic internet access and occasional cell coverage. I have run myself almost completely out of gas and fought dark clouds of depression. The dogs have gone native, regressing back to their predatory roots. Tensaw is as fixated as a junkie, constantly sniffing the air and regularly leading the charge in search of rabbit scent and caribou herd. Alaska is an incredible place, but there’s a constant sense of the struggle for survival. Livin' never comes easy here. It’s a battle I feel I wouldn’t win, even if I had a mind to fight it.

Montana is the greatest state in the Union. It boasts every resource imaginable, its wealth of raw materials second only to California in scope and magnitude. If each of the United States was its own country, I believe Montana would boast the wealthiest citizens. Its freshwater reserves alone would seem to dictate as much.

If Montana looked to fulfill all of its own needs from within its own borders, there would be little to want for, and much with which to parley. A fraction of Montana’s current hydroelectric capacity is enough to power the entire state. There is wheat and beef aplenty. Freshwater abounds, including the headwaters of America’s greatest river, the Missouri. The only staples lacking are cotton and corn, with oil, coal, gold, silver, timber and wool as trading stock.

This, however, is not the state of things in Montana. Rather than benefiting Montanans, this abundance of resources is controlled by outside interests, and residents receive little capital gain from them. Land value is exaggerated in Montana, and the cost of living is high compared with the prevailing wage. Little headway can be made by the average worker in the face of foreign capital. Most Montanans scrape by as servants and laborers. They toil to export their valuable commodities for pennies on the dollar, all the while paying market rates for items from their own backyard.

I wouldn't be suprised if one day Montanans take arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. Most of us are much too content to rock the boat, and should it be overturned by a violent sea, we would rather tread water somewhere recognizable than paddle into the unknown, so I'm guessing secession is a long way off. Until then, Montana's still the last best place to live, poor in cash yet rich in wide open spaces, and I for one can’t wait to get back there to her loving arms.