| "How can you have a wedding without running water?" my girlfriend asked me. ����� I couldn't recall any Jewish wedding tradition that requires running water.� Then again, no one ever mistook me for a rabbi. "How does the caterer prepare the food?" Amy asked. "And what about toilets?" ����� She meant the reception.� That Jewish wedding tradition. ����� We had just found out that my brother Tom was going to marry his fianc� Susie at a former gold mine not far from Anchorage, Alaska.� A local entrepreneur had turned the old surface mine into a minor tourist attraction, but she hadn't sullied the environment with civilized trappings like toilets. � As a wedding location, the mine has a few drawbacks: no running water, no seating, and the possibility that wild bears will maul the bridesmaids.� On the other hand, for $5 the tourists can pan for gold in the stream. ����� An Alaskan wedding, like everything Alaskan, is a long way north of normal America. ����� Alaska calls itself "the Last Frontier," and with good reason.� Humans have barely scratched Alaska's vast landscape.� If Manhattan's population density equaled that of Alaska, then the Sex and the City women could sleep around with only 12 other people.� Anchorage, the state's biggest city, has less residents than Macon, Georgia. ����� I didn't know what to expect from the Alaskan people.� Just imagine: people hardy enough to endure eight months of dark, bitter winter every year, and crazy enough to spend them in Alaska instead of, say, Hawaii. ����� Amy and I flew into Anchorage for a few days of travel before the wedding.� No place in the world can match what Alaska offers to summer tourists: stunning natural beauty, sparse crowds, and sunshine for 20 hours a day.� It's so unlike the rest of America that you feel a momentary start of surprise every time a local speaks English and accepts American dollars. |
| Far North |
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| More Alaska Highlights: Anchorage Tom Dosik Local Beer Coffee Shacks Mat-Su Valley Independence Mine Musk Ox Farm Matanuska Glacier Prince William Sound Sound Eco Adventure Seward Peninsula Snow's B&B Alaska Sea Life Center Exit Glacier Girdwood Chair Five Restaurant |
| Most Unusual Food We Encountered: (tie) Reindeer Sausage Kung Pao Halibut |