Vastness of Alaska

I'm gradually gaining an idea of the vastness of this state from what the students from different parts of Alaska tell me. It's big enough that there is great variation in climate and geography. I've seen or heard of tundra, of rivers, of valleys, of mountains, of glaciers, of floods, of forest.

"Tundra" suggests like a frozen waste, but in the summer, at least, it's a green grassy place that's nice to be in. A student told me how he and his family travelled for two hours to get to the tundra, just to enjoy being in it and having a picnic there. Also, I've tried "tundra tea," made from a grass that grows there, and said to have medicinal qualities.

The distances make travel expensive. For some of the seminarians, a visit home would cost $800 to $1000 for the round trip. For a family of five, that runs up quite a bill.

Each year the Orthodox Diocese of Alaska holds regional conferences, where clergy and laity from an area gather and have workshops dealing with music and other church topics. I'm considering attending the one in the Yukon River area this summer. It will be in either Pilot Station or Marshall, AK. This year, one married student, with his family, and the one single student attending the seminary, were from Pilot, as they call it.

To get there, I would fly from Kodiak to Anchorage by jet or turboprop, then to the hub town of Bethel by the same, and from there to Pilot or Marshall by small plane. Thus it would be a three-leg journey. If I were travelling from the island village of Port Lions, there would be in addition a flight by small plane to get to the hub town of Kodiak, making that a four-leg journey.