Men In Trees - Hope, AK

Yesterday on the way back from Sterling we went to Hope, AK. There is one road down to Sterling from Anchorage and it's a lot longer than it has to be because it goes around the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet (named that because Captian Cook went all the way down the inlet thinking he had found a passage and at the end he found. . . the end, and had to turn around and go back). once you reach the end of the inlet when you're driving you sort of loop around and start heading down away from it at a 45 degree angle, but there is a right turn you can take there to continue following along the water and it takes you to Hope. Hope is 16 miles off of the main road and the road abruptly ends at about 17.5 miles. This road is there solely for that little town. There is no other way unless by sea or air. I found it funny that there was a gas station a few tenths of a mile from the end of the road. No heading to the gas station on the way to your next destination there, you have to specifically drive down a dead end headed away from civilization to get to it. At the end of the road there was a state park with trails and some good camping so I think I'll head back there at some point when I want to hike because the views across the inlet are stunning.

There were a lot of old buildings there and it smelled like fish. It reminded me of the fish house in Swampscott. Like any small town, there is a church, bar, cafe, gift shop and about 12 houses. Don't blink when you're driving by this town. Once again I saw more old junky vehicles. I'm seeing it a lot here. It would probably be a violation in most parts of the country to have a yard that looks like a junk yard, but here it's the norm. One house had two really old cars - they looked like they were from the 30s and they looked like they'd been in the same spot since then, too, with weeds growing up and around a few feet above the cars. Another house had 6 vehicles, as far as I could see. There was one truck I took pictures of because there was something I liked about it and then over to the right of it there were three cars that were hard to catch on camera because of the growth around them, but one was upside down. There was also a thing I couldn't identify, which I'll include a picture of. It looks like part of an old backhoe type thing from a long, long time ago. You'd think it would be an eyesore, but in a town like this it was just a little bit of character added to the yard.

Hope is an old mining town dating back to the late 1800s. The bar/cafe there was built in 1896 and it's obvious that some of the other unused buildings in the immediate area are from around the same time. Because the town was a mining area there were a lot of men there back then, as per usual in Alaska. They were a little restless without any women around to nag them so they started an Alaska men magazine to find mail order brides. That was back in 1896, so who cares, right? Wrong. A little over 20 years ago a woman started up the Alaska Men magazine. I'm not sure if she was doing it as a throwback to the earlier magazine or if she was just trying to ease the male/female ratio in Alaska, but she did it. It's exactly what it sounds like, too. An entire magazine filled with Alaskan bachelors. It's surprising how much of that sort of thing is around. I was looking into a town called Talkeetna, which is on the way up to Denali, and one of their huge annual events is to auction off their bachelors. The profiles were a riot, but they're not up on the site anymore so I can't share them. Lots of beards and lots of funny interests. ABC's show Men in Trees is aptly titled.

Just a side note about the Talkeetna bachelors auction. It's preceded by the Wilderness Woman Contest, whose events are based on the Alaskan man's wants and needs in a woman. You know, stuff like how fast she can make a sandwich, open a beer and bring it to him or how fast she can bring water from the river and still other things like how well she can shoot a rubber bird or catch a fake fish. It's very tongue in cheek and sounds like it would be pretty funny. It's in the winter so I won't be able to witness the glory of the whole contest/auction event. What a shame, I was really hoping for the chance to bid on someone with a father time beard.

Because of the title of this post I'm sure you're wondering if it's true that there are men everywhere here. Eh, sort of. In Anchorage it seems to be pretty even, but when you venture out into smaller towns it definitely leans to a higher male to female ratio. It seems the further away from civilization you get the higher the ratio is. I suppose women just appreciate plumbing a little bit more. As they say here, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.