Alaska life

The things you take for granted

My delicious homemade halibut tacos.

Living in Alaska is great. There are plenty of fish to catch and wide open spaces to explore. At any given moment, you may see a bear eating a salmon or a whale jump out of the water. That’s special. However, many of the things you take for granted in the Lower 48 are difficult or impossible for us to enjoy as local Skagway residents. This blog is about that topic.

Going to see a movie

When you want to see a movie at the theater, you probably have about a dozen cinemas to choose from. You can go see a movie at any time of day or night. It’s likely you have a theater in your neighborhood. For Skagway residents, going to the movies takes a lot more effort. The nearest theater is 100 miles away. There are two really crappy cinemas in Whitehorse, which is in Canada. Each has two theaters. The screens are smaller than some people’s TVs and the theaters smell like gravy and body odor. The popcorn tastes like lead paint chips. Probably because lead paint chips are falling off of the theater’s 45-year-old walls and right into the popcorn machine.

There are a couple of theaters in Juneau too. To get there, we have to take an 8-hour long ferry ride full of screaming children or hop on a tiny death plane for a 45-minute flight. Then you have to rent a car because Juneau has no Uber and the taxi drivers are drunk. If you park your rental car in the theater parking lot, it’s probably going to get stolen by meth-heads. This is why I have Netflix.

Going to the supermarket

There is no supermarket in Skagway. There are two small grocery stores and that’s about it. I love a good supermarket deli but there isn’t one so I’m just sad all of the time. During the winter, I like to play a game called “Avocado Roulette.” I spend 6 bucks on an avocado from the store and then cut it open to see how much of it is black and rotten. Fun game. There is a supermarket in Whitehorse and they have this great rotisserie chicken but most of the time I can only daydream about its savory flavor.

Grabbing a taco

You likely have 50 places near your house where you can grab a cheap taco. For $3 you probably get enough tacos to fill your belly and make your dog happy. You aren’t going to get anything in Skagway for $3 except angry stares. You may have to take out a loan to eat a taco. Worse, there’s no place to get one after 6 pm. The ones you get before 6 pm don’t even qualify as a taco in my book. You see, tacos are supposed to have flavor. Throwing bland meat and some cheese on a tortilla is not making a taco but it will make me angry.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Skagway and I love Alaska. Still, every now and then I wish I could grab a taco, watch a movie, and stop by the supermarket deli for a salami grinder. Oh well. At least the whales jump out of the water sometimes.