Anyone who has traveled in remote Alaska knows how treacherous it can be. The solution for most is energy intensive transportation: power boats, snowmachines or four-wheelers. Done to the extreme that solution causes increasing insulation from the natural environment. And with that insulation people become physically soft and spiritually distant.
McKittrick and Higman purposively rejected the high r-values of civilization's hydrocarbon-hungry toys, walked away from the grid and into the daunting domain of the wilderness under their own power. Many urban Alaskans put a toe or a foot into the wilderness from time to time, but total emersion is rare. To be sure McKittrick and Higman used some high-tech gear such as dry suits, polyvinyl rafts and an ultra-lightweight nylon tent. And they carried store-bought food, resupplying in the towns and cities they passed through. But nights were spent in a tent, days were spent putting one foot in front of the other and meals were cooked on a little wood-burning stove whatever the weather.
Higman grew up in Seldovia so he intuitively understands the North Pacific landscape and what the seasons can bring. McKittrick, however, was a city girl who brought to the team the important element of asking the right question at the right time: What are the consequences of this or that action?
Their odyssey recreates the definition of home indigenous Northern peoples have understood for centuries. What we today call wilderness is not a foreboding place, but a place to live.
At Dena'ina elder Pete Bobby's funeral a few years ago, his grandson-in-law, Barry Solie, told the story of coming across Bobby in winter 20 miles or so from Lime Village, one of the most remote places in Alaska. Bobby was broken down, and Solie and his party on snowmachines invited him to hop on figuring he would welcome a ride back to the village. Bobby's response was, "why?" Even at an elderly age he could not comprehend why he would leave his stuff out there. He could hunt for food; he could sleep in the snow. To him wilderness was home. A few days later Bobby returned to Lime Village as calmly as you and I returning from the supermarket.
McKittrick, Higdon and others like them are embracing the idea of living in wilderness for long periods. In doing so they accrue an awareness of Alaska that is far deeper than anything gained in a city or a classroom. You cannot understand Alaska unless you travel over the landscape under your own power during all her seasons.
Now, according to Daily News writer Mike Campbell, the couple is off on another episode in wilderness immersion. With 18-month-old Katmai (conceived near Katmai on the first trip) and with McKittrick five months pregnant they plan a 200-mile hiking trip from Cape Lisburne to Kotzebue. Like the first trip, which was meant to understand the affect of development on coastal British Columbia and Alaska, this one will focus on issues like climate change and Bering Sea coastal erosion.
Some question the wisdom of taking a toddler on such a journey with a pregnant mom to boot. The couple will certainly have to make some adjustments. Higman told Campbell that after several practice hikes they learned they'll be traveling by Katmai's schedule. But for people with skills and sensibility, such travel is not wrong and it is certainly not abusive.
Wilderness travel with children would be unquestioned in former times. In Alaska and throughout the North, whole villages would travel, usually in winter, on visits involving hundreds of miles. Men women and children would snowshoe for days, sleeping in tents for a potlatch or simply to visit. A dramatic scene from the 1930 H.P. Carver film "The Silent Enemy" captures such a journey of a northern Ojibwa village on the move in winter. Tough people, skilled people, Northern people.
Good luck and safe traveling, Erin, Brentwood and Katmai. May you again find enlightenment, understanding and inspiration and reaffirm the meaning of life in the North: shared outdoor experience.
Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College.
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