Alaska Beat

Alaskans wreck at start of Fla.-to-AK motorcycle ride

According to KTUU-TV, two Alaskans were involved in accidents at the start of the Hoka Hey Challenge, a cross-continent motorcycle endurance challenge that runs from Florida to Alaska, and at least one of them had to drop out because of injury. Jerry James of Cooper Landing reported on his blog that his race ended because of an injured leg, which although not broken, would make the roughly 7,000-mile journey even more grueling than it is already. Read more, here. Incidentally, Alaska Beat notices that the annoying, persistent mistranslation of the Dakota-Lakota expression, "Hoka hey," has again been repeated in connection with this motorcycle challenge. Maybe the mistake keeps showing up because it's coming from the organizers, but that saying simply does not mean, "It's a good day to die." It is actually an exortation, simliar to "Let's roll!" or "Come on!" in English. Basically, saying it means "It's a good day to die" when the speaker is heading for a battle (as the report notes) is the same as saying it means "It's a good day for frybread" when he or she is heading to a pow wow.

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