Why WC Missed the Second Presidential Debate

WC has been off the inter tubes the last couple of days, in southwest Alaska, being a lawyer. It happens sometimes.

But during the most recent presidential debate, WC was flying back, in a Beechcraft Bonanza, a few hundred feet above ground level, through the astonishingly beautiful Lake Clark Pass. The narrow, winding, glacier-carved canyon is one of the most astonishing pieces of scenery in Alaska, and it’s a special treat to fly through it low, watching bears foraging on late-run Silvers on in the river, and waterfalls and hanging glaciers on the near-vertical slopes. However good the debate, WC got the better part of the deal.

Lake Clark Pass is also a place to see climate change happening. The confluence of glaciers at the crest of the pass is long gone. There’s a small lake where that immense pile of ice used to be. The glaciers that made the confluence have retreated quite a ways up-canyon. All that in 30 or 35 years.

Before Lake Clark Pass, WC had an extensive tour of the Lake Illiamna and Lake Clark, including Levelock, Igiugig, Kokhanok and Port Alsworth.  No one in those villages was paying much attention to the presidential debates. They were instead paying attention to canning the last of their 2012-caught salmon, dealing with the first snowfall of winter and greeting the mail plane. Priorities. Something we might all be better off keeping out priorities in mind.

So WC didn’t get back home until, as it were, very early this morning, and as a consequence this post is going up late. It happens.

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