Solstice

The past week had solstice written all over it, which in Fairbanks means 24-hour sunlight and lots of festivities. I decided to take a road-trip with friends to Healy and the 49^th State Brewery’s Solstice Festival. It turned out to be a beautiful sunny night with great music and happy people. We crashed for a few hours in our car – that is, I slept in the car and the other three slept behind it. Somehow I have managed to live in Alaska with all it entails on and off for four years without ever needing my own sleeping bag and mat. Instead I have slept in car seats, trailers, tents, friends’ houses, and strangers’ houses on a sheepskin with a blanket or even a robe a couple times. This weekend was no different and after a couple of hours of sleep we turned back towards Fairbanks. We were lucky enough to get back to town before heavy smoke took over the highway between Denali and Fairbanks as one of the bigger wildfires of this season spread from 9 to 20,000 acres in just 36 hours. I could smell the smoke in my garden last night, but today the winds must have turned and I have yet to see ashes fall from the sky or have smoky clouds cover up the sun. 

I can add to my education in American cuisine after this weekend, as a friend ordered the exquisite dish of waffle fries with melted cheese, bacon and sour cream. Check my photo page for an illustration. I was also told that the bus – on my photo page – is in fact the famous bus from the book (and movie) Into the Wild. It was hauled out of its spot in the wilderness because people kept hiking out to it, get stuck and die. I’m not sure whether to believe this or not, but just in case it was really true we made sure to document. I mentioned it before on this blog, but I think it is hilarious that while people around the world idealize Christopher McCandless as a great example of how to break free of society and materialism, Alaskans think the guy was an idiot who wandered unprepared into the wild and now people are following his example to their own demise. I enjoyed the story, but I see their point. 

Happy solstice everyone!

Transfer Site Treasures and Do-It-Yourself

One of the big differences between life in Denmark and life in Alaska is the “do-it-yourself” spirit that exists in Alaska. Yes, yes I know that America is known for its drive-through restaurants and even drive-through liquor stores and obese citizens who don’t do anything but sit on the couch and watch TV, but this is Alaska: on top of Canada, separated from the lower 48 states (the lower 48s as they are called here). Up here the settler/miner mindset is still strong and if you are thinking of building a house, a garage or a porch you are thinking of doing it yourself.

I don’t think I know anyone in Denmark who has done that. Or who have thought about doing it. I know people who have bought a house that was new. Or painted their garage by themselves. Mostly I know people who have assembled their own IKEA furniture, including myself, and thought it was a pretty great achievement.  Or redecorated their IKEA furniture to give it a personal touch amidst all the white walls and light wood floors of truly Scandinavian design. I like white walls and light rooms, and I miss IKEA just a little. But instead I now dream of designing my own wood house with wood from the forest outside and design mostly assembled from the Transfer Station. Yes, the Transfer Station, which some might also call the dump. In Fairbanks the Transfer Stations are open and unguarded: everyone can rummage around, as they like and there are always great treasures to be found. The house I live in is partly designed with treasures from the dump, like our couches, our coffee table, bed, TV, TV table, desk and huge collection of videos. We also have bikes, garden furniture and wood from the Transfer Station as well as enough glass to build a greenhouse. It’s kind of like a free flee market. Next comes the “do-it-yourself” house or maybe the garage – build with material collected for free.

One of the reasons it is impossible to “do-it-yourself” in Denmark is the enormous amount of permits that one needs to obtain to be able to build just the smallest shed. In Alaska, if you own the land, you can do whatever you want with it: it’s yours, and there is plenty of space, which is another thing Denmark does not have a lot of. I wonder if another reason the dream of building your own house is obtainable in Alaska is the amount of blue-collar workers that live in Alaska. People are used to practical, physical work, in other words know how to use their hands, where Danes, including myself, often spend their days in offices and institutions. Even though we do not have drive-through liquor stores in Denmark, a lot of us are less used to blue-collar work and I wonder who are really the most service-minded people?

The thing to get used to with “do-it-yourself” however is that it might not look like the interior design magazines think it looks, when you actually do it yourself.