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© 2004 Evan R. Steinhauser, Anchorage Daily News Introduction Essay for Alaska 24/7 But Then, That's Alaska By Mike Doogan Like most Alaskans, I live in a city and work in an office. My relationship to logging or commercial fishing is like yours: I see pictures. But many mornings, I look to the north and there is Mt. McKinley, a brawny collection of rock, snow, and ice, big enough to create its own weather. There are many photographs of McKinley, but, believe me, there's nothing like seeing it firsthand. The Alaska I was born into in 1948 didn't support much in the way of cities or offices. We were still a territory. About 120,000 of us lived here, and most people earned their bread by working with their hands. My father was a coal miner turned gold miner turned teamster and heavy equipment mechanic. A lot has changed. Alaska became a state. Oil was discovered. The population quintupled. Cities and towns grew and grew. The trip from there to here has been bumpy. Alaska has always been a land of new beginnings and last chances, drawing the dreamy, the desperate, and the dodgy. It got so bad during the pipeline boom of the late 70s that a lawyer I know said, only half in jest, that he was going to make his fortune by offering an Alaska Special to new arrivals: a divorce, a bankruptcy, and a name change, all for one low price. But we survived. And Alaska today is a much different place. How? In many ways, some sublime, some ridiculous. You are holding in your hands a week's worth of Alaska faces and Alaska places that begins to stake out how different. In the Alaska of today, finding the morning's latte is more important to most people than finding the winter's moose. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act brought new respect for Native ways--and new Native economic clout. In today's Alaska, we don't pay any state taxes; instead, we get an annual check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. In many ways, though, Alaska remains unchanged by the hubbub. We're still spread out pretty thin across the land--just more than 600,000 of us in 591,000 square miles. We're still the captives of the romantic notions of people who live thousands of miles away. With oil revenues fading, our best economic prospect, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is blocked by the nation's environmental yearnings. We're still a ward of the federal government, which spends far more in Alaska than it takes out in taxes. Lastly, we're still a tough, argumentative people, but we're generous with our knowledge and our help. If you don't believe me, just break down beside the road. Or lose your belongings in a fire. Help will arrive unbidden. I know there are a lot of contradictions here. What can I tell you? For every statement you can make about Alaska, there's a "Yeah, but...." Yeah, but there is one constant: We're tougher and stronger than the poor souls forced to live elsewhere because, even in the city, we live nose to nose with nature. But then, that's Alaska. Browse    View All    But Then, That's Alaska    Hearth & Home    Hard at Work    Alaska at Play    Reason to Believe    Our Town Photos: 171 Photographers: 34 Towns: 36

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