Cargo Plane's Arrival, 9:30AM, Anaktuvuk, Alaska

Posted by dj.tigersprout (New York City, United States) on 13 August 2008 in Lifestyle & Culture.

i had made it!

it was 9:30AM and still completely pitch-black outside, but i was alive and in good spirits. i had just spent 17 trying hours isolated and alone, completely cut off from the world of humanity that i knew... even now, as i stood, somewhat relieved, on the tiny 1 person porch awaiting the arrival of the same cargo plane that had dropped me off the afternoon before, it seemed an unfathomable experience. the night had been so terribly quite, so opaquely dark, so unchanging still and so long! on several occasions, it was almost as if time had simply stopped, ceasing to progress on the hands of the eerie clock-face that hung in the bunker's common room. i had come back to it again and again, watching it curiously, sometimes untrustingly -- at certain moments, sure i was experiencing some sort of unexplained 'twilight zone' effect. on the few occasions when paranoia flared, i knew it was simply time to go outdoors and let the sub freezing temperatures chill my body and clear my head. the nocturnal arctic cold had been a blessed miracle and had kept me rooted, this side of sanity during uneasy moments when i could have sworn that time had begun to vividly drip down the walls and onto the floor, right in front of my eyes.

but i had survived and was finally relishing the minimal bustle of workers on the landing strip -- people i could talk to or interact with if i so chose. instead, i let them work and wandered around to keep myself warm -- it was still absolutely bone chillingly cold, but the mental oppressiveness of the experience was gone. now it just was a state of reality -- and i knew how to deal with it.

here is a shot of Anaktuvuk from the airport property. a snowmobile, sans owner, also awaits the soon to be arrival of the cargo plane for its goods / packages from central Alaska. the night is still not quite over... it will be at least another 30 minutes until the first photons of light will show themselves as gentle blue glows above the icy mountains and nearby horizon. the sleepy town is still bathed in white and orange lights and by now the long airstrip would be fluorescing an eye-dazzling blue -- certainly an inviting sight to the approaching pilot! just as this sky began to hint at a cold, inevitable dawn i would be far away, thousands of feet above the vast, barren tundra framed by these majestic icy mountains.

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