Journey to ALASKA!
In the Fall of '99 we dedicated ourselves to the pursuit of a dream! ALASKA... the "Final Frontier." This grand and mysterious place has captured our imaginations as far back as we can remember. We grew up never quite knowing where the heck Alaska could be found, geographically speaking, since the majority of your mapmakers feel compelled to place our largest state next to Washington, down by California, or, yes, even in the Gulf of Mexico! We, however, were not daunted by this grievous lack of "Geographical Correctness" and pursued every scrap of information remotely related to the dream of Alaska - no small thing given the fact that we are of the pre-internet age. So, FINALLY, with our boxes and boxes of treasures - Alaska Magazines, newspaper clippings, Alaska videos won at auction on eBay, 10' x 10' world map (with AK in the correct location), brochures & postcards sent to us from coveted Alaskan adventures, a 12 volume set of "Birds of Alaska", music of Native Alaska CD's, and piles of books on Alaskan Cultures - we gathered road maps in hand and turned our eyes to the Great North. And then... reality set in. We were to be there for quite some time, so we made a "TO DO" list of things to take care of before we left, and after the list reached page 137, we wearily placed the road maps back on the shelf...
Still, we were determined to make the dream a reality! All we needed was a plan, so we started at the logical place - our "TO DO" list. We won't bore you with the details, but trust us, it was a long and tedious process! The further we ventured down the list, the longer the list grew and grew and grew... Until, finally, the truck was packed and we were on our way to Angoon, Alaska.
Angoon is a Native Tlingit village located in Southeast Alaska. It lies on a peninsula on the western banks of Admiralty Island (or Kootznahoo, Tlingit for "fortress of the brown bear"). The island is about one million acres of protected wilderness - Admiralty Island National Monument or Xootznoowoo Wilderness. Angoon, population of 600, is the only village on the island. Central to Tlingit culture is the tradition of the "Subsistence Lifeway."
Two weeks and 4,000 miles later, we were ecstatic to see the shores of Angoon. We would like to take you on a photo tour of our journey and share with you some of the wonders of Alaska. ENJOY!
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