The bugs are out in Alaska. Along its circuitous route the sun dips only ever so slightly below the northern horizon, and it never truly gets dark. Salmon are running in the Copper River. Tour buses and RVs have inundated Tok, and motel rates in Anchorage have doubled.
There is a cycle to life. It is undeniable. It ebbs and flows, its flux as constant as the tide, and fighting it is futile.
A member of my dispatch staff, a native emergency hire named Sherlene, asked for a couple days off to put up the sixty salmon she had gotten from a friend’s fish wheel. Although there are a stack of fire records yet to clean up, I couldn’t help but acquiesce. The sustenance the fish will provide through the long cold winter is more valuable to her family than the money I am paying her. The paperwork could wait; the salmon would not. Spreadsheets don’t rot. Everything in its own time.
Like a spawning king salmon, my Alaska run is nearing its end. Monetarily, the experience has cost me more than I have earned, but I don’t believe that was ever really the point in coming. What I have gained is easily more valuable than what I have lost. My immersion in Alaska has been more akin to catharsis; shedding old skin for new. For the kings, the journey upriver contains a much greater sacrifice. Compared to the salmon, I’m getting off easy.
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