So. I went to Alaska (a long time ago)

[Huaco Kid]

It's a drunken IC Light story.

I was at a hotel right up from the airport.

There was a restaurant/bar,  a block up.  I walked through waist-deep snow to get there.

Sitting at the bar,  I saw a bunch of locals at the back table.  Being buzzed,  I get chatty,  and it's what I do,  I went back and introduced myself,  and they offered me a seat.

[Huaco Kid]

Then.  We didn't know.

The owner went on a loud rant and started stapling signs all over...

"NO SMOKING.  ANYWHERE.  EXCEPT ACROSS THE STREET!"

Seems that some employee had flicked a butt and set the neighbor's fence on fire.

So the waitress and the owner had a huge shouting match.  He left, all righteous and huffy.

[Huaco Kid]

As soon as he left,  she said, "Fck that Fcker!"

And she locked the door.

And brought an armload of bottles to the back table,  and we all got greatly drunk for free.

It was brilliant.

 

[Huaco Kid]

I don't remember much.

Walking back to the hotel,  through my own tracks,  I crossed a 2' pile of steaming poo.

I knew there was  moose around,  and I wanted to see him.

But my brain was enough to know to not be there.  So I never saw him.

[Huaco Kid]

I didn't do it.

The hotel had a stuffed wolverine in a huge glass case.

Wolverines aren't small mean badgers,  they are pretty big really mean bears.  Pretty big.

[Huaco Kid]

But by the next morning,  they had moved the whole huge glass case behind the counter.

[Huaco Kid]

And I was taking the train to Fairbanks!  I wanted to not miss it!

I called a taxi at 3am.  He took me to the station.  Dropped me off.

I immediately learned that the station doesn't open until, like, 10am.

At -30°.

[Huaco Kid]

I had adequate clothing.  (Had to unpack EVERYTHING and put it on)

And hunckered down, in a doorway,  out of the wind. 

No fcking coffee, or nothing.

[Huaco Kid]

A half hour later,  the taxi dropped off some Chinese kids.  College kids?

At -30°.

The girls were wearing yoga pants and pajama shirts.

[Huaco Kid]

I gave them all the clothes I had left.

And we sat around and smoked cigarettes.

Chinese like cigarettes.

And waited around, 10 hours.

[Huaco Kid]

I was at my daughter's village for a week.  The morning air-plane guy kept saying that he saw polar bears at the dump.

My daughter and S-I-L were working all day.  And I wanted to see bears.

The island (sandbar) is two miles wide,  and four miles long.  The dump is down, that way.

I trotted off.

[Huaco Kid]

I got, like, 500' from the first dump-pile

And saw footprints as big as my body.

So I left, at a fast clip.

Some 'Mo guys, at work,   saw me later, and called me an idiot,  with no sled and no rifle.

[Huaco Kid]

So I didn't do that.

All the 'Mo store had was,  some stuff,  I bought a 50-pack of frozen (duh) corn-dogs.  That's all I ate.

[Huaco Kid]

Except people would invite you over.

So you ate a lot of seal,  and whale.  And the BEST FISH YOU EVER IMAGINED!

Whale and seal are really chewy.

[Huaco Kid]

Everything is dipped in seal-oil.

Which is kept under the front porch,  in five gallon buckets.

As soon as it hits your belly, you warm up 50°.

It's not delicious.  But you eat it.

[Huaco Kid]

And corn-dogs.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

I'm an American.

[Huaco Kid]

So you needed water,  for the house,  in the 300-gal tank in the cunny-tuck.

(It's a mud-room, in front of everyone's house,  that is always left unlocked,  so when the bears come,  you can always run in there.)

So you had to get the sled from the school, with a tank on it,  and drive to the gas station.  They don't have gas.  It's the exact same pump,  but water comes out.

So you have to pump 300gal of water into the sled,  drive back,  leave the cunny door open,  while you pump it into your house.

But it was -30°.

I put my money into the pump,  but it was frozen solid!  Stole all my money.  They thought it was hilarious.

Someone probably got my water, later.

[Huaco Kid]

The school had free wifi.

So every morning, there'd be twenty kids, at -30°,  sitting on the front steps,  with their ipads and cell phones,  hocking the bandwidth.

[Huaco Kid]

And some Elders would throw ice-chunks at the kids,  and yell at them in a language I didn't know.

And then the kids would chain a sled to your door,  and pull it off.

So they just left the kids alone.

[Huaco Kid]

Once you were 13 or 15,  you pretty much ran the island.\

I think that's how it's supposed to work.