Nature is the best cure for human haughtiness. Every time I step outside into the real wilderness of Alaska I am reminded of my insignificance, which means I should do that more often. If it was a prescription, once a day would be the right amount, just to reset the arrogance clock back to 00:00.

One of the best places to humble yourself infront of the magnificence of nature is Denali National Park - 24,585 sq.kms of pure unspoilt back country. Home to bears, caribou, moose and North America's tallest Peak - Denali or Mt.McKinley, it begs for the widest of wide angle lenses. Otherwise you'll have to bring your 'other' lenses, the ones behind your pupils.

How can I convey to others the wide screen splendor of Denali without a wide angle lens? The answer is, cultivate good friends, the kind who'll let you borrow their tripod on a weekend for no charge. And voila, your lowly kit lens could be used to shoot panoramas that might motivate people to visit Alaska, bolster the State's economy, thereby single-handedly administer CPR to the ailing airline industry, make Chinese banks restart lending to Americans,...haa I believe in the power of dreams(dollar is sinking anyway) and panos.

( Here comes the panos )



( More Panoramas )
This post is sponsored by Photoshop CS3. As far as stitching panoramas goes, CS3 shows a world of improvement over CS2. I was fighting a losing battle with CS2 till I realized that I could get a trial version of CS3(now maybe even CS4), which turned out to be so intelligent that with a little modification it might do laparoscopic surgery by itself.

Denali Highway is the Route 66 of Alaska. Once the main thoroughfare through the untamed wilderness of Alaska, now virtually abandoned to hunters and wild-game after the new highways replaced it in the early seventies. Currently it is a gravelly pot-holed 135 mile road from Paxson to Cantwell, traveled by a few. It is closed(you can still travel, but at your own risk) from Oct 1 to mid-may.


An 'Alaskan' pond. On the Denali Highway somewhere near Cantwell
This is not the most scenic part of the Denali Highway, it is just one of the numerous lakes/ponds that dot either sides of the highway. It just happened to catch my eye on one of our rest stops on the way. It is a beautiful road, a piece of real Alaska you can experience on four wheels, if you trust your wheels.

(Click here for a detailed mile by mile description of Points of Interest along the Denali highway. Not many guide books cover this road.)

If you could visit only one place in Alaska I'd suggest Homer in summer. It is not the guide-book or the celluloid Alaska that many are familiar with or expect to see. It is not noted for its In-to-the-Wild hostile tundra that would coldly snuff out McCandlesses. It is too warm for polar bears except those made in China and found in curio shops. It doesn't have enough magnetism to charm some Aurora Borealis(s) it's way. A winsome little fishing town pointing its geographical finger into the waters of Kachemak Bay, the only claim Homer makes is as 'the halibut fishing capital of the world'.

I have been smitten with Homer ever since I visited the first time. Please click here to read an account of the trip we made in 2004, serves as a good Homer primer if you are interested. Last weekend we ticked off one of the must-do-Alaskan things, fishing for Halibut in the high seas. Before you dismiss it as 'Bah, fishing!' let me tell you I am not a fishing enthusiast either. I have fished for salmon before and didn't find much pleasure in donning the waders and communing with a fishing rod for the better part of the day with zero results. Unless there is a salmon run(which is like Kumb Mela or the Carnival in Rio of the salmon kind) there is no guarantee that the rare masochistic salmon will choose your novice rod to impale itself upon. Unlike that, halibut fishing is a highly rewarding experience, it looks like no one returns empty handed from a halibut charter. If you have a heart strong enough to handle a few dead fish and bandwidth to justify your bravado,



Deckhand Tim readying the rod and the hook.
( Meet the keepers Davy Jones' Locker )

The four horse men are taking a time out, they are not going to come and get us, but the Apocalypse is still on schedule. Are you ready for it? What are the essential items you should have in your survival kit? Read the next sentence uttered by the modern prophetess Naomi Klein and check the things you have.
"Me and my friends are going to be fine. We have SUVs, we have generators, we have air- conditioners, we have bottled water and we bought land in Alaska." Five out of five and you should be fine.

A ski resort sells for 90 cents. Boys are disappearing from native communities in the Arctic. Here in Anchorage we had rains in January instead of that fluffy white stuff that used to fall. Same story on the other side of the ocean. Rivers break open in the middle of winter in the high arctic. Yeah yeah yeah, you know all that(pfftt...anecdotal evidence) and you are still voting for Michael Crichton.

Every generation has its treasured doomsday predictions and blames itself for having squandered the earth beyond repair. Are we just one in a long line of generations who have been forecasting our planet's cursed ride to hell in a hand basket? Or is it for real this time?

Forget global warming, take the population. The earth is supposedly 80 years old in human years. An attack of a strain of flu virus which could take a week to clear out for a 20 year old person might prove fatal for an eighty year old(Not my concept heard it from some scientist, forgot his name.) This time the virus under the microscope is us – the humans.

The human population was 978 million in 1800. All that population explosion ever since Adam's incident with the apple or the ape-man evolution (whichever one you prefer) had only been able to produce ~1 billion people by A.D.1800. By 2000, a mere 200 years hence we multiplied almost 6 times to almost 6 billion, thanks to progress(which is not a bad thing, but the population is.) Just between earth's 79th birthday and 80th birthday, the virus count increased by 5 billion. The newer strain is more polluting, venomous and uncontrollable than the previous one. Such high counts are enough to kill anyone in a jiffy. How much longer will this 80 year old earth survive and how long is a jiffy?

While top scientists around the globe race to calculate the length of the jiffy to the nth decimal you can read some inspirational literature. Especially if you want to be one of the privileged few who will ride out in to a brand new sunrise when everyone around you is being mercilessly wiped out, thanks to their own actions. Your inspirational literature of the day is sponsored by the prophetic Naomi Klein(again.)

"We are looking at a system of climate apartheid. The waters are rising. Some people are going to be left to drown - a lot of people. But there will be people who'll be able to drive out, not everyone would die and those people will build their global green zone, where - Alaska? But this isn't a joke. The land in the Alaska is getting more expensive. And I think that is clearly the direction we are going. I'd not say human extinction. But it is going to be a genocidal logic, I suppose the survival of the fittest but more what it is about is, me and my friends are going to be fine, we have SUVs, we have generators, we have ACs,we have bottled water and we bought land in alaska....."

-Naomi Klein

In these times of tumbling real estate and unstable markets the only hope is to drive North to the Future. There is more inspirational literature about the last place on earth(if you want to survive that is) plus an old uplifting photo from my archives. Here goes,

"Alaska, come because of the scenery, stay because you're f#*king lost."
"Alaska, nobody you know lives here."
"Alaska, it's goddamn cold."

A few photos from the park next door - Woodside Park(Eastchester). Alaskan fall is predominantly yellow(I remember tko_ak mentioning that) and its slight variations. Not many flaming orange trees here.



( 2 more )

We met Kirmani yesterday. He was a black man. What stumped us was when he spelt out his name, K-I-R-M-A-N-I. You might ask what's the big deal about it? If you do, you are probably not from India. African Americans are known for rummaging thru' the entire set of African languages for innovative names - Kijani, Shomari, Dakarai etc, this must be just another name from that bunch, right?

Wrong. The guy although he is a black man, does not consider himself African-American, he is a West-Indian. Those people almost take it as an insult if you ever call them African-American. In their company you've to acquiesce that reggae is the rhythm of life and rap is c-rap. Then as fellow 'Indians', albeit from the extremities of sun's path, we do share a lot in common - the benevolent looting of our lands by the British monarchy, dal, coconut, spices and cricket. Cricket, that's where the name comes from, can you believe it?!!

West Indies was a mighty force to reckon with in the cricketing world in the late seventies and eighties. If India was playing West Indies it used to send shivers up our spines, but then the Prudential Cup happened(I still have the yellowed newspaper cuttings that I would almost cry over with pride. lol). Alright before I lose myself in the trail of happy tears let me come back to the guy we met. Somewhere in the West Indies, a boy was born sometime in the early eighties. His father happened to be a big fan of the game of cricket and decides to name his baby after a cricketer. The funny thing is that he didn't call his son Vivian or Gordon after the famous West Indian cricketers, nor did he fancy the name, Kapil – the illustrious Indian captain but he named his precious bundle of hope, after one of Kapil’s Devils – the Indian wicket keeper Syed Kirmani.

So people, give it away to the black Kirmani in da house. Btw will the real Kirmani please stand up, please stand up – is he still the chief selector of the Indian team?

N took this picture while driving south, from Anchorage. I was lounging in the back seat. Turnagain Arm is an arm of Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet opens out into the North Pacific.


( the picture )