Alaska

Opposites attract. Alaska could not be any more different from my home in Hawaii, and perhaps that is the reason why I find it so captivating. The following pictures are combined from three separate trips up north, and I don't doubt for a minute that there will a fourth.

---------------------------------------

For me, Alaska means the wide open spaces of nature. The opportunity to see wild grizzly bears in their natural habitat was one of my main motivations for journeying there.

---------------------------------------
Heading south from Anchorage to the Kenai peninsula, breathtaking mountains make for a gorgeous drive.
Even in summer, snow-capped mountains abound.

---------------------------------------
Another view from Kenai.
I love this shot for its hidden implication that man is so tiny and insignificant in a natural setting as vast as this.

---------------------------------------
Lumber waits for export on Kodiak Island.

---------------------------------------
Heading west towards the remote Alaska peninsula to an area accessible only by air. Here is the famed Valley of 10,000 Smokes in Katmai National Park, so named for the region's high incidence of volcanic activity.

---------------------------------------
Across the vast open spaces to the northwest, this is a typical house in the Eskimo village of Kotzebue.
Lots of details make this a rather complex shot, from the dogs standing guard on the property to the seal skin drying in the sun.

---------------------------------------
A collection of whale bones found on a deserted Arctic beach near Nome.

---------------------------------------
Alaska's primary north/south road, which follows the Alaska Pipeline all the way up to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope. This shot was taken just below the Arctic Circle.

---------------------------------------
Two shots of the famous northern lights from above the Arctic Circle.

---------------------------------------
One of the many stunning sculptures inside the Chena Ice Museum.

---------------------------------------
Fur seal rookeries line the coast of St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. Seals have poor eyesight and respond to encroachments on their territory by raising their bodies as high as possible and growling menacingly.

---------------------------------------
Two shots from the far north. On the left, puffins cling to a cliffside in the Pribilof Islands. On the right, the midnight sun shimmers above the Arctic Ocean north of Barrow. I set my alarm clock and stepped outside right at midnight to get this shot.