"Bearack Obama," as one sign referred to him in Dillingham, has come and gone.
He may have pronounced "Kenai" with a short "e," but Obama communicated a clear and consistent message about melting glaciers and permafrost, increasing temperatures, and coastal erosion during his three days in Alaska.
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as the global rate and the impacts are visible in Alaska. The work of Alaska scientists has bolstered the case in many branches of climate change research, while Alaskans have seen enough rain in winter to appreciate the changes firsthand. Because of this trip and the attention it has generated, the impact of climate change on Alaska will be a greater part of the national discussion in the months and years ahead.
The dominant political message in Alaska may be about economics, but Obama consistently focused primarily on the environment during his trip, frustrating some politicians. Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a recent interview with the Alaska Dispatch News that the Obama administration contends that climate change "science is clear, it's absolutely 100 percent caused by human activity," but "I'm someone who believes that on that definitive answer that the jury's still out."
In fact, the consensus is not that climate change is 100 percent caused by human activity. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, there is a 97 percent consensus among climate scientists who publish research papers that most of the warming is due to human activity. If a definitive answer for Sullivan means that there will be no dissenters, then the jury will be out forevermore.
This was a trip designed with an Outside audience in mind, focused on one piece of the adaptation puzzle -- largely skipping the intractable challenge posed by the contradiction between economic dependence on the fossil fuel industry and the drive to limit carbon emissions linked to accelerating climate change.
During Obama's remaining time in office, it's likely he will continue to nudge federal policies toward a stronger response to climate change, though Congress will continue to object.
In practical terms, Obama's visit may strengthen the hand of Alaska's congressional delegation in pushing for more federal money to deal with climate change in Alaska. It is usually easier to keep something in the budget than to insert it in this no-earmark era.
Boosting support for icebreakers is a plus and Obama's village visits highlighted issues that the rest of the country hasn't heard much about.
This will mean a boost in tourism. It may be impossible to measure, but the cumulative message from the many different ways in which the Obama visit was publicized -- from traditional news coverage to reality TV -- is far beyond the 30-second Super Bowl TV ads trying to get people to visit the state.
Along this line, I was struck by a piece in the Huffington Post, in which Dhyana Taylor said the photos from Obama's trip on Instagram will make "mainland Americans wonder why they haven't moved there yet."
It brought to mind the words of John McPhee 40 years ago about the charms of our largest city: "It might be a sorry town, but it has the greatest out-of-town any town has ever had."
I wrote some time back that Alaska's congressional delegation would do well to declare a unilateral cease-fire of the "war on Alaska" talk directed at Obama.
While Rep. Don Young issued an unfortunate statement about Obama's "song and dance on climate change," Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Sullivan represented Alaska well, despite their political differences with Obama.
The Alaska delegation did object to Obama using Alaska as a backdrop and a prop, which struck me as a hollow complaint. Murkowski said the speech given by the president at the Anchorage conference "reinforced my belief that Alaska is being used as a backdrop for the administration's climate agenda."
When picking backdrops for a climate agenda, the three rules of real estate apply -- location, location, location. If you need a place in the United States to show visible evidence of climate change, Alaska tops the list.
For decades, the members of our delegation have used Alaska as an all-purpose backdrop, whether it is caribou near the pipeline to show responsible development or fishing boats on the sea to show we can manage renewable resources.
Whenever our leaders plead for a certain type of federal overreach, they stand with maps showing Alaska superimposed on the Lower 48 or photos of villages without running water and other basic infrastructure.
"The vast majority of Americans have no idea there are dozens of communities in Alaska that live like this," Sullivan told the Associated Press. "It's unacceptable, and we need to do more to fix it."
Obama didn't use those exact words, but he said much the same thing in various appearances about how we need to help people deal with the problems in rural Alaska. The "overreach" would include more government spending, either redirected from another state, added to the deficit or generated with taxes, but everyone ignores that difficult question.
President Warren Harding may have stopped in more towns during his ship and rail tour in 1923, but advances in transportation and communication made this the most expansive and expensive presidential trip to Alaska in history. Alaskans welcomed the nation's chief executive to the 49th state and treated him with the hospitality the state is known for.
Leave aside the political aspects for a moment. That was one of the most important things that happened this week.