Eulogy For Alaska

When I was finishing up first grade, my parents decided that the best thing for us to do at the time would be for us to move up to Alaska. My dad was going to start a construction company alongside my grandpa, and it would be an adventure that we would remember for the rest of our lives. We had visited several times previously, but this would be different all together. Here are just a few of the things that I noticed were different in Alaska from California and other states that I’ve visited. In June of 2004, after first grade, we packed up a trailer to drive up there. We were driving to Washington and then taking the Ferry from there to Haines, Alaska. Since we drove, I was able to watch how the scenery changed as we got further north.

The first time we went out on a boat in Alaska it was so different then going out on a boat in California. The water is extremely cold there, so if you fall in you have a chance of actually dying. You have to dress very warm as we went by glaciers and the boat ride was very cold. I remember waking up that rainy morning and wearing jeans and a heavy coat and still being cold occasionally, it’s so incredibly different than what we were used to. Thankfully my grandpas boat has a cabin so we were able to stay nice and toasty on the way out. It was a fantastic experience that you would not experience fishing in California. The fish are tough to pull in when you’re only 8, you just reel it in and fight as hard as you can to try and keep hold of the pole. Then when you finally win the battle and have the fish in the boat the feeling is amazing, you are surprised you accomplished it and anxious to eat it later in the day. Later that year, I asked my grandpa to take me fishing for my birthday, and we had an amazing time. The fish were biting so much that my dad and grandpa had a hard time keeping all the lines in the water. There were so many salmon that they would follow the other salmon up to the boat, and seemingly wait for their turn to come into the boat. This is an experience that I will never forget. You haven’t had fresh fish until you go out that day and eat what

People will wave and stop to help someone with car trouble. In California, people are in such a hurry to get where they need to go, they aren’t very friendly on the road. My church was much more conservative up in Alaska than California. I went to a small Christian school with 30-35 students in grades K-8. All the kids would play together and got along, whether it was a 1st grader or 8th grader. We would build giant snow forts in the winter and mud forts in the summer. We would pull on all our warm outerwear and go out to play in below zero temperatures. I had not lived in the snow until we moved to