I went out on the Tiglax, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge's research vessel, and was able to see a good bit of the Aleutian chain. It's so remote that the only way to get a good look at its beauty is from a boat. We stopped at many islands between Dutch Harbor and Russia, some with villages and some inhabited only by animals. Some islands, like Kiska, have a lot of U.S. history that many people don't know about. It's also a mysterious place because it gets some of the worst weather in the world.
The Japanese were occupying the island during World War II when the Americans decided to take it over. U.S. forces closed in from one side and Canadians from the other. They started shooting and killed 22 of their own people before they realized the Japanese were gone. They had left three days earlier under cover of darkness and fog so heavy that the Americans hadn't even noticed when the Japanese pulled out.
It was a gift to have the opportunity to see such a place.
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In the summer when Alaska stays light most of the night, the people in the village of St. Paul hang out at a karaoke bar to sing, drink sake, and dance. So I went one night to photograph the goings-on.
I was shooting with one camera and holding another in my camera bag over my shoulder. The bag was getting heavy, but as soon as I sat it down a man tripped and spilled his entire glass of sake directly into it. I couldn't believe it. I just picked up my gear and went back to the hotel.
After doing the best clean-up job I could and, still determined to shoot, I took my clean camera back to the bar.
When I walked in, a curious tourist immediately came up to me to see what was going on. In an instant he tripped and spilled his glass of sake on the camera I was wearing around my neck. I was soaked, and the camera was completely drenched.
That was it. I didn't set foot in that bar again. Both cameras and the lenses bit the dust, all due to sake.
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Before I was offered this assignment, I had planned to get married on June 16. But the animals that had been out to sea during the winter return to the refuge to breed during the summer, so June was the best time of year to take photographs. That meant moving the wedding day forward to May.
Everything turned out really well. Our wedding was idyllic. A group of friends joined us for hikes, klezmer dancing, and good times in the mountains of North Carolina. We even had time for an eight-day biking honeymoon in Tuscany before I headed for Alaska. I ended up very happy that we moved the date.
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