Alaska by Daniele Somenzi

Alaska

Having landed in Whitehorse in Canada, Donato and I rent a car and head towards Alaska. There's snow everywhere, the cold is biting: -27 degrees in November. But it doesn't matter much; we're in the car with heating and everything. We asked for the smallest car but, as often happens, they hand over a bigger one; this time they even gave us a sporty automatic 4000-cc car, a monstrous power; in fact I often enjoyed doing powerful accelerations, with the odd squeal of tyres.

There's sun; the white snow with the blue sky leads us to take many photos and film; very beautiful mountain landscapes. At a certain point, after a hundred or so km, we find the Canadian border, and after showing our passports without even getting out of the car, here we are in the United States. Yes indeed, Alaska is in the States. From there, shortly after, the snow thins out until it disappears. Down in the valley between the high rocky mountains, we reach the Pacific ocean in the town of Skagway.

A photo at the town sign and we immediately discover that the little village is made of parallel streets in a square grid, with very few people visible; it seems a ghost town, but we understand that the cold discourages walks outside the warm.

We look for a guest house to sleep and find it immediately. The lady, a widow, to earn a few dollars rents out a couple of the rooms of her house; so it's as if we enter a private home: very thick carpets, the usual cat, and pictures of every kind. The heating comes in the form of hot air arriving from small grates scattered all over the house on the floor.

In the evening we ask the lady whether we can see the northern lights, at which she replies with a "probably", maybe. So during the night I had a look at the clear sky to see them, but nope; the aurora only appears in particular circumstances. I had already seen it, but Donato hadn't.

The next day we go early in the morning to the port with the car, and there we buy a one-way ticket for the ferry to Juneau, the capital of Alaska.

We leave the car in the port car park; I don't think they'll steal it — the thieves would have to go through the only border road. And anyway it's insured against theft.

We set off for 6 hours of ship, which first stops in the neighbouring fjord, in the town of Haines, to load cars and people.

We keep watching the sea to spot whales, but nope; here it feels like being among the Norwegian fjords. The icy wind forces us to stay inside in the warm.

6 hours pass quickly; we arrive in Juneau at sunset with the sea always calm — and I believe it, between the mountains to the right and left it couldn't even be rough; it's as if we were in a lake.

We get off the ferry and by taxi reach the Best Western hotel.

Here, talking with a lady who lives there, we discover that we're in a city where there are no roads going outside and consequently there are no car thefts, nor violence or other kinds of crime, and this precisely because the thief is caged, he can't escape; they'd nab him at the port or the airport.

Despite the cold, many Americans move here, precisely for this reason.

Here the car plates have Alaska written on them, and my brother, given his collection, would surely have wanted one; so I ask, but unfortunately time is short and I didn't find one.

The next day we phone the airport for a scheduled flight to Skagway; fortunately, in two hours one departs, so we book it for 2 seats. But the surprise when we arrive at the airport is that the plane isn't big, but a 4-seater like the one in Cinquale — in fact, exactly, it's a low-wing Cessna like the one at Luni used a couple of times to drop me by parachute.

What luck: with the pilot and the 2 of us, there was only one free seat.

We walk to the plane accompanied by the pilot, a young man who was accumulating flight hours so that one day he could fly with the airlines. We get on board; Donato behind and me next to the pilot, so if he faints I'll fly.

The single-engine piston plane starts; the scene is fabulous — Juneau with its bay and a glacier in the background is a really beautiful city, a shame about the cold.

We fly over the peaks of the snowy mountains for an hour; I film away. These scenes with sun are rare to see; then he slips down, slowly descending into the Skagway valley, and with gusts of wind, in the end we land on the asphalt runway.

Back at the starting point we say goodbye to the pilot and discover that the minus 15 degrees instantly freeze our hands.

The girl at the airport, with the minivan, takes us to the nearby port — fortunately, because on foot the cold would have frozen us.

We open the car and discover that the bottle of beer Donato had bought was ice.

The car's battery is flat. The first attempt fails. I understand there's only one more left; either it goes or we're stuck.

I try, and while there's the last piston turn, fortunately it starts.

Off we go! We stay still for 5 minutes to warm up the engine, recharge the battery, but above all to get hot air for us.

We enter the main street of the little town, which in summer is the destination of many cruise ships, and we stop a little further on at the post office for a postcard to Vicini of Casalmaggiore, and then off towards Canada.

Shortly after we're back into snow and ice, and we say goodbye to Alaska.

bye bye