It has been a quiet summer so far. For the first time in years I haven't had the urge to travel far away. Probably because for the past three years I have had the urge to travel to Alaska and this year I am already here and no immigration laws are forcing me to leave. So I've just been hanging out in Fairbanks. To go somewhere else would mean flying somewhere or driving at least 2 hours to get to the tourist mecca (and beautiful national park) of Denali or driving 6 hours to get to an actual city: Anchorage. Over halfway through the summer, I am starting to get somewhat restless. I need to go somewhere, see something new. How do people stay in one place for years at the time? Luckily new people always show up in Fairbanks as a breath of fresh air and stir up the familiar surroundings. In the summer a lot of firefighters come to town for 3-4 months, however this year most of them have been sent down to Colorado and surrounding states to help with their fires as the Alaskan fire season has been slow. The rest of the year students from everywhere are at the university and a lot of military personnel is in town.
While I enjoy my quiet summer and try not to get restless I read a lot of news to keep up with what is going on and since I am in my Fairbanks bubble I especially enjoy the local newspaper The Newsminer. The articles that that paper manages to publish are amazing(ly bad) and the things that go on around here are always original. Today there is a picture from the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics of two girls competing in the ear-pulling contest:
From: Newsminer.com/Salgu Wissmath
The other day there was an amazing story of a woman who had fought of an aggressive bear with a natural bug spray and a stick while protecting her two nieces and holding on to her dog. And then there was the sad story of two men from out-of-state who went canoeing without knowing how to swim and without life vests. They managed to flip their canoe and inevitably, both drowned.
The other day there was the story of the first possession of bath salt (yes that drug that make people eat other people). A young man of 21 years was arrested carrying bath salt and a machine gun - what a fella. This week Fairbanks' self-proclaimed largest heroin dealer was also arrested - presumably because of the self-proclamation. And then the King Salmon continue to not run in the rivers of Alaska. There are just no King Salmon this year. These are the kind of news we get up here. However if you search around there are also great community stories. Right now the celebration of the Golden Days is happening - people dress up in Gold Rush outfits as cancan girls and miners and parade through town. There is also a Rubber Duck race down the river - several hundred rubber ducks (yes the yellow ones from the bathtub) are sent of down the river, each of them with a number while people who have bought a lottery ticket for one of these numbered ducks cheer them on as they float by. I learned last year that there is a massive wall of people trying to get a glimpse of the ducks and so this year I wisely stayed away.
Happy Golden Days everyone - may you be less restless than I am today
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