anchorage

The Anchorage effect: any regular occurrence in another city is exponentially more novel and cool, in our group¹, because it’s occurring in Alaska.

Our Uber passed an outdoor event. We inquired about the event. Turns out, it was a Juneteenth celebration — one that the entire Black and non-Black community seemed to show out for. A rapper spit the lines “yeah, I’m from the double A”² as we chewed the fat with a Northern Eskimo woman, whose son was currently on a hunt and whose dog was the size of a medium wolf.

Seeing a community was cool. Seeing that community, and knowing it was somewhere as faraway (mentally) as Anchorage was even more interesting. Hearing about all the micro-communities — Albanian forest workers to Thai culinary trailblazers — passed the time before the backcountry well, before our little micro-community prepared to escape from all remnants of civilisation, before leaving the double A behind. Two Ubers well taken.

Footnotes

1. The few Alaska companions who were patient enough with the rust of my navigational skills. ↩

2. Anchorage, Alaska. Not to be confused with the A — who I assume took the letter first — Atlanta. ↩