Day 16 • Dawson City • 0 mi

Rest.

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Today I read John Luther Adams's Leaving Alaska.

As for me: they should have sent a poet.

Alaska is mythologized as the Last Frontier. It's the 49th state. It's bear country, oil country, volcano country, land of the midnight sun.

But Alaska isn't a state, or a location, or a collection of geography. Alaska is a Place. A place with a power and a beauty of its own; a place with its own rules and purpose. You are insignificant to it. Its sheer size and presence overwhelms; you may visit, but it is indifferent to you.

Today is the bittersweet coda to my time in Alaska.

If you visited Alaska and weren't somehow changed by the sheer Place around you, I humbly submit that you didn't visit at all.

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I've shortchanged Dawson City terribly. It's a lovely town nestled at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon rivers.

They sure do know how to do rivers up here.

Dirt roads, wooden sidewalks, Dawson is a piece of frontier history. Built during the gold rush, it's a town with much to explore. On my rest day, I've made it as far as a short walk up the river and a coffee shop. It's been a little rainy and cloudy today, though.

The ravens are unreal.

If you get a chance, spend a few days here.

Total miles: 0 blessed mi
Trip mileage: 2,297 mi