Alaska Calls the Machinery Guy

Would you like to live in the Arctic? 

Frankly, it isn’t for me, yet I am fascinated by the TV shows that are popping up like baby penguins–though they thrive in Antarctica, not the Arctic.

The brutal lifestyle of the guys who harvest King crabs in the Bering Sea off Alaska has always fascinated me. I also loved a short series on the boys on the basketball team in a little town called Hooper Bay in the Aleutian Islands, where harvesting sea cucumbers in scuba equipment and playing high school basketball are both rites of passage which can conflict.

The sea cucumbers provide significant income for the boys, but the cruel currents too often result in their death.

I am attracted to these shows that present a lifestyle so foreign to a guy who calls a plumber when the toilet has an alien gurgle and relies on our Mexican lawn maintenance guy, Abundio, who has mowed for us for 25 years.

The shows that illustrate the passion for hunting and trapping animals like moose and caribou for the food and leather they provide also intrigue me. This is not a bunch of guys going deer hunting for the fun of it and the antler trophy. This is hunting and trapping to survive in a dangerous place.

These men and women do not rely on ChatGPT to tell them when and where to go. They use their passed-on knowledge and sense of their surroundings to make decisions.

In the small towns of Alaska there is an attractive communal sense. People know their neighbors. They grow up with them. They marry them. Kids mature together. But because of its remoteness it is hard to make a living. Women are obliged to follow domestic lives, though they may desire something different.

The used machinery business seems to be a million miles away from the demands of Alaska, but occasionally they intersect. I had a call recently from a man in Anchorage who runs a row of small presses making several hundred thousand fishing tackles a year. Some of his cutting dies are wearing out and somehow, using Google, he found me. I happened to know a fellow who could help him and gave him his phone number.

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And now President Trump has his eye on Greenland. Undoubtedly, it has strategic importance. The Russians and Chinese see its value too. And Denmark owns it and does not seem to care if the Lego company develops it or not.

The intrepid Norse explorers actually had settlements on Greenland a thousand years ago. The climate was relatively temperate then, but the Global Warming zealots prefer to ignore that.

Personally, I hope the Americans, Russians, Chinese and Exxoners let Greenland be Greenland. Maybe icebreaker cruise ships will come and Trump’s sons will build a hotel with Saudi money, but I hope the Greenlanders will continue to hunt walruses and whales and fish for salmon and cod. I’ll wait for a good TV show about it.

Question: What extreme destinations have you traveled to?