For those of us who chose Alaska as our home, curious relatives inevitably visit. Helping loved ones from the Lower 48 take in Alaska is always interesting. It requires a combination of playing tour guide and standing back while letting them do their thing. Sometimes the weather cooperates. Much of the time, it doesn't.
A few weeks ago my one and only sister, Emily, who is four years younger, visited me for the first time since I moved here in 2008. She doesn't vacation much because she's usually juggling work and school (and maybe sleep), so this was a significant visit for both of us. She stayed a week.
Emily and I are very different. The easiest thing to pinpoint is that she's a fair-skinned redhead, and I'm a quick-to-tan brunette. When in a new social situation, she coolly observes people and takes them in, not saying much at first but later making accurate, sometimes scathing but always hilarious observations. I talk enthusiastically and awkwardly until I trail off. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, which I hear has a music scene, trendy bars, and many celebrities. I live here. There are mountains here, and I climb them.
Emily is also more fashionable than I ever hope to be. Although she's a natural redhead, she changes her hair color about every six weeks. I trim my hair bi-annually, if it's lucky, and my only request is "please make it so I can wear it in a ponytail." My sister, a host at a popular restaurant that attracts a lot of Nashville celebrities, owns more leggings than we have right now in all of Anchorage. I regularly wear exercise leggings under dresses at work and call it good enough. Apparently, Taylor Swift complimented her on her necklace recently, although Emily insists that the necklace was an "ugly statement piece that I was forced to wear to work." Nothing at all like this has ever happened to me.
Emily is a runner but she doesn't go outside in Nashville this time of year. It's "disgusting", to quote her -- hot and humid. So, when she visited here in mid August, the cool fall weather was a welcome change and a shock.
Her only requests before visiting? Hike some mountains, and not get mauled by a bear. I told her I'd see what we could do.
Not killing the visitor(s)
Here's a friendly reminder, and consider this a note to self: What feels normal for us Alaskans is not normal for many people in the Lower 48. Staying up until 2 a.m. in the summer and then getting up at 7 a.m. for work is not normal. Hiking up everyone's (kind of) favorite backyard mountain, Flattop, is actually kind of a steep climb. Carting around snacks, extra socks, wind layers, hats, hand warmers, and extra water is something people with children usually do, not adults who just like to play in the mountains.
Also, for people who come from places without them, bears are kind of a big deal. When I told my sister not to worry because we'd carry bear spray when we hiked, she thought at first I was joking. When we got to our first trail head and I said I'd left the bear spray at home, she also thought I was joking (I wasn't). A little ways up the trail, a fellow hiker with bear spray strapped across his chest offered a friendly heads-up that there was a "well behaved" black bear up the trail a ways.
That was enough to turn us around; 10 minutes later, we were back at the car. "A well behaved bear," Emily muttered. "What does that even mean?"
The next day, I took her up Arctic Valley to Rendezvous Peak. This hike starts out up a gentle incline to the ridgeline, but the hike up the mountain is steep. Emily is in good shape, but hiking up a mountain is different from going on a city run or lifting weights at the gym. She gasped her way to the top with determination, and then gawked at the 360-degree view, letting her heart rate calm a little before lifting her phone and exclaiming how good her Instagram game was going to get during her visit.
There were long fall shadows, reds and oranges. Tiny silhouetted hikers moved along the ridgeline behind us. The sun set on the city in front of us.
Trying new things
Having my sister in town helped me see Alaska the way I did when I first moved here. And, I decided to use it as an opportunity to do something new.
Emily and I drove down to Homer, which is a known quantity and an excellent place to bring people. However, I'd never gone across the bay to Halibut Cove. We made dinner reservations at the Saltry and booked our spot on the Danny J ferry. Then we gawked.
I know I can speak for both of us when I say we never saw any whales on our way to dinner while growing up. No puffins either. I can't remember a dinner experience ever including a visit to a community of roughly 35 people, and an open deck on a boardwalk with a cliffside essentially forming the back wall and a fire going. Then there was the food.
After dinner we walked boardwalks and hiked up a short road to the top of the hill, looking out over whales in Kachemak Bay.
My normally dispassionate sister thumbed into her Facebook account that "this is a place everyone should visit at least once." I agree, and I live here. Sometimes the best way to visit your home, especially an enormous place like Alaska, is to play host. I'm proud of my sister for climbing mountains.
And I'm proud of both of us for not getting mauled by bears.
Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.