Wild Alaska

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The unfolding story of the death of Ted Stevens reminds me again of what a different place Alaska is (and of how much I’d like to eventually visit there): rugged, remote, vast. It’s the subtext to the whole story.

Alaskans use air travel in a way we don’t in the Lower 48. Steven’s first crash in 1978 was on a flight from Juneau to Anchorage: you can’t drive between the state capital and the state’s largest city. Yesterday’s crash was near Dillingham, which is also inaccessible by road from Anchorage. On a map of Alaska, Dillingham looks relatively close to Anchorage, and it is — but in this case relatively close still means more than 500 miles away.

Even the plane Stevens was on, a vintage 1957 DeHavilland with pontoons for landing on water, evokes the wild Alaska of bush pilots and of remote hunting and fishing lodges. Evan McMorris-Santoro talked to a bush pilot who is with familiar with the plane that crashed and calls it a “beautiful and well-maintained airplane.”

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