The Number of Drinks That Move Questionable Ideas to the “Good” Column
The Number of Drinks That Move Questionable Ideas to the “Good” Column
Beer in Alaska
After a few days in the backcountry of Denali, eating dehydrated food and drinking filtered water, there’s nothing quite like a beer and a burger.
I found it a little upsetting, though, that I was enjoying that meal in sight of the Christopher McCandless bus.
It wasn’t the actual bus, but a reproduction used for Into the Wild, the film based on McCandless’s life. The bus ended up at the 49th State Brewery, which is not far outside the park. Now, I’m no worshipper of McCandless (I never read the book and thought the movie was fine), but I found it macabre for my two cousins and I to be gorging ourselves on sourdough burgers while tourists sat against the bus and snapped pictures, recreating the famous photo he took shortly before starving to death. I know McCandless said “happiness is only real when shared,” but I don’t think he was talking about Instagram.
No brooding over a bus could stop us from enjoying our drinks. With the first beer, I eyed the bus with disdain. By the third, I forgot it. They had a wide selection for one brewery, and between my traveling companions and I, we ordered only one dog of a beer.
And after those beers, we didn’t want to leave quite yet. We freed up our table to new diners and joined some guys building a bonfire in the courtyard. They were seasonal employees for the restaurant and for nearby guide companies. I’ve done my share of seasonal work, so we compared notes on Moab, the Adirondacks, and travels abroad. My cousins, one of whom lived in Fairbanks, had definitely been around, too.
Travelers and locals and seasonal bums, we all enjoyed our drinks together, and told stories around a fire that was only necessary in the sense that it gave us a place to gather near. Wilderness, like beer, provides us a means of escape. But more importantly, the two remind us that people matter, and that experiences really are better when shared.
Unfortunately, we had to get going. We had a long drive ahead of us, and our designated driver wasn’t keen on sticking around while we drank and the roads darkened. I took one more glance at the bus, which my cousin Eric must have noticed, because he nodded that direction. “Want your picture taken?” he said. He knew my feelings on the matter, so he was just ribbing me. Or he was acknowledging that we had reached the magic number of drinks that move previously questionable ideas to the “good” column. I passed on the offer. My cousins, the beer, the fire, our new friends; that was enough.
I recently asked my cousins if either of them had a picture from the brewery, maybe one of a beer, one of us, or one of the bus. They said no. On a trip otherwise fully documented with cell phones and SLRs, we hadn’t taken a single one.