Lost Bearings

In Yakutat, a native man stopped his truck to tell me that, for huskies, the dogs were very well trained. It was a nice thing to hear. Sometimes because they’re not perfect I get fixated on their flaws and forget how wonderful they truly are. When you’re in heaven, I imagine it doesn’t take long before you forget you are there.

Other than that compliment, port call in Yakutat was disappointing; brutally so. As we were entering the bay, I kept checking my cell phone, hoping to see bars. No such luck. I hadn’t spoken to Brandi since Wrangell the night before, and I was feeling low. After Yakutat, we were heading out to sea, across the Gulf of Alaska, and there would be no talking with her until Whittier. I let the dogs off leash and watched them dive head first into snow banks along a lonely road leading God knows where.

When you are busy shaking a selfish fist at the world, it isn’t always easy to keep in mind that you were the one who put yourself in this predicament. There being no cell service in Yakutat is to blame for keeping me from a conversation with Brandi; never mind the twenty five hundred miles I put between us by taking a job in Alaska. Wireless transmission makes much more sense than buried or overhead cable in a tiny isolated outpost like Yakutat. A wireless infrastructure would be cheaper to install and easier to maintain than a traditional wired one. There is no reason why there shouldn’t be cell coverage here.

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. Later, while I sat on the ferry struggling with the mounting sense of estrangement I felt as we sailed away from just about everything I hold dear, I came up with at least half a dozen technological advances that would have allowed me to connect with the world outside. None of them were going to close the distance, but several had the potential to bridge the gap.

A cell phone is simply a low power radio which transmits its signal to tower antennae connected through computerized exchange switchboards to the cabled phone system. Each cell phone has two channels, one that transmits the conversation and a second that communicates with the cellular system. As the cell phone moves away from one tower and closer to another, this second channel informs the cell phone of signal strength and directs it to switch its transmit frequency from the far tower’s weakening signal to that of the closer, stronger tower.

Since the dawn of communications, repeaters have been used to carry messages over long distances. The Great Wall of China was designed so that each guard house would be within sight of another, so that signals could quickly be sent back and forth along the wall. In fire communications, radio repeaters bounce signals from mountaintop to mountaintop, providing contiguous coverage over vast and isolated ranges. Why not apply this concept to phone networks? Cell phone users in the United States number approximately 200 million. Add another channel to those handsets, and that’s a whole lot of repeaters.

If every mobile telephone handset was enabled to repeat signals, transmissions could be piggybacked through multiple handsets over distances much greater than a low power cell phone could ever hope to reach on its own. Cell phones are idle most of the time; software could be developed that detected nearby mobile radios and essentially turned each individual handset into a separate cell. In all but the most unusual circumstances, there would always be a chain of handsets linking an end user to an exchange.

In theory, that basic restructuring could also help me as I bobbed across the Gulf of Alaska aboard M/V Kennicott. Certainly technology exists that would allow the ferry to offer cell phone and wifi connectivity with the mainland via satellite, but a repeater concept could be utilized to turn each marine vessel into its own floating cell. A message could be bounced from craft to craft down a shipping lane rather than being beamed to a satellite or carried on a transoceanic cable. Would the investment in technology and infrastructure be worth it just to allow me to talk to Brandi? If you asked me that day, when I was cut off from my world by endless ocean waves, I definitely would have contributed my share to make it an option.

Personal concerns aside, it simply makes sense. Our entire understanding of economics requires revision if we expect all to enjoy a comparable standard of living. Traditional models for determining the economic viability of infrastructure development simply don’t account for the duality that arises between the local and global marketplace, between short term feasibility and long term practicability. Calculated vision must drive capital investment, not the whims of consumer demand and commodity pricing. A goal must be set; plans lain; and deliberate steps taken. What it is we are attempting to accomplish should be the compass needle guiding development; not whether an endeavor creates a financial profit over a finite time period.

As we approach Whittier, messages from Brandi stack up thankfully on my cell phone. Sharp biting wind roars down off surrounding mountains and drifts snow against a massive structure on the hillside overlooking the port. Institutional in appearance, the concrete and glass construction is acutely reminiscent of Cold War era Soviet architecture.

That was once the biggest building in Alaska, a fellow passenger tells me. Vacant and deserted, it now more closely resembles the Bates Motel. Ghosts of bygone values peer from behind its empty windows. Previously deemed essential, it is now dispensable; a monolith to the fallacy of economics. Indifferent and unfeeling as dinosaur bones, its fossilized remains pay tribute to the high cost of false vision.

A Film Worth Its Cost

It’s always hard to completely resolve the conflict that arises from using technology as a platform for discussing environmental concerns. The simple fact that one has the technology available to use implies that it was manufactured somewhere out of something. Where did the gold contained within the computer I am using to post this come from? If you don’t know, then I’ll tell you; from a mine. And along with it came all the associated environmental implications that accompany mining operations.

As it was me who created a demand for its product, I am responsible for that mine’s existence. Yes, I would like to tell you that mining has a significant impact on the environment and that I am against the proposed mining operation looking to tunnel under my local wilderness area, the Cabinet Mountains, but that would only serve to further reveal my hypocrisy. “So you’re telling me that you don’t like mines via a network of copper wire.” Yeah, no one is buying that.

Still, here and there, gems come shining through that, despite the impact of their manufacture, speak loudly enough to our sensibilities that they drown out the hypocrisy ensured by their existence. One such example is a recent documentary film about the proposed Pebble Mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay entitled Red Gold.

If you dig deep enough into Red Gold you will find it is filled with just the stuff I am referring to; it took a helicopter to get that shot of the Bingham Canyon mine. But the power of the film is undeniable. Yes, we need gold mines, it says; but maybe we don’t need one right here. Perhaps fish and fishermen have a rightful place beside video cameras and computers. If it takes a film to get us to ask ourselves this question, maybe it’s worth leveling another hilltop to make it.

Someday, we are going to be forced to make some really hard decisions about what it is we truly must safeguard. It isn’t today, but it is definitely coming. At some point, a choice will have to be made between things that sustain us and things that merely convenient. Its inherent hypocrisies (you can’t run a fishing boat or float plane on salmon guts) notwithstanding, Red Gold is just the type of dialogue that needs to take place on the subject. If you get the chance, I highly recommend it. And if at all possible, walk to the theater.