The Los Angeles Times reports that one Alaska woman is taking it to the tundra to voice her support for the national "Occupy Wall Street" movement. While offshoots of the New York movement have already shown up in some of Alaska's larger population hubs like Anchorage and Fairbanks, it's a photo of one woman's lonely vigil near one of Alaska's more remote communities that the national movement is coalescing around.
Diane McEachern of Bethel, Alaska -- still one of Alaska's larger communities -- had a friend take a photo of her on the outskirts of town with her dogs and a neckwarmer and hat to ward off the chill while holding up a sign that says "Occupy the Tundra," with a smaller "99%'r" written off to the side, a reference to the Occupy Wall Street protestors' assertion that they are the other 99 percent who do not dominate the nation's wealth.
The photo's caption reads:
A lonely vigil in remote Alaska. I'm wearing a muskox neck warmer (that is not a beard on my face) and I am a woman. The dogs are rescues. The tundra is outside of Bethel, Alaska. The day is chill. The sentiment is solid. Find your spot. Occupy it. Even if it is only your own mind. Keep this going...
The photo has been shared more than 4,000 times and generated more than 1,000 comments. McEachern, a professor at the University of Alaska's Kuskokwim campus, told the Times that she was following the movement around the rest of the country and took to the Tundra to voice the things that were important to her. Among them is an issue that is important to many in southwestern Alaska: the proposed Pebble Mine.
"... I'm not well-versed on the larger economic system," McEachern said of her opposition to the proposed mine, "but I can relate to the idea of corporate wealth being lopsidedly in the hands of so few, when so many are struggling."
McEachern updated her photo recently with her intentions to continue her protest in Bethel on Saturday, which has been designated as a worldwide day of protest. Read more, at the Los Angeles Times.