The Talkeetna Good Times by Emma Turnbull
Sometimes one day is enough time to get a flavour of somewhere, sometimes it isn’t enough to even get past the first page of a place. I had a day in a little town called Talkeetna, and it was long enough to know I would always yearn to be there, a little.
I arrived in Alaska in a heat-wave, on my first day I met a man walking two enormous dogs, he called out to me ‘I can see you checking out my shorts, well- you’re right, these ain’t shorts, these is underwear, I don’t own no shorts, it’s never BEEN this hot in Anchorage.’ I knew then that Alaska was going to be great.
Two days later three of us decided to go to Mount McKinley, Talkeetna was the nearest town. There was a rumour that the TV series Northern Exposure was based on Talkeetna, that it had umpteen quirky locals and plenty of oddball happenings. It sounded ace.
We arrived mid morning and found there were only two spaces left on the tourist flight around Mount McKinley . Being the least passionate about tiny planes I opted out and wandered off to discover small town Alaska on my own.
It was too hot for any major exploring so I wound my way down to the river and sat to read a book in the shade. I sat breathing the clean air and basking in the complete and perfect solitude. I had noticed a collection of tents and camper vans on the river banks. As I sat there dipping my toes in the water a gathering noise began to emerge from the makeshift settlement and then, suddenly, a hoard of naked hippies came hurtling out and went whooping down into the water. They shrieked and swam and splashed about all big and liberated. It was one of those moments when you feel like the life you should have had is being shown to you on a cinema screen in Heaven and God is saying ‘Why didn’t you join in pet?’ I tried not to look at all the nakedness and attempted to cultivate an ‘I too am liberated and cool but today I am expressing it by reading quietly-no I’m not a Nanna-before-my-time’ type of look, it was quite hard to pull off. Anyway it didn’t matter because the naked hippies weren’t looking, they were too busy living.
After a while I sloped off to meet my pals to drive back to Anchorage. They were quite flustered and explained that the car keys had vanished. There followed a whole afternoon walking like someone who had been punched in the guts. Walking like that attracts attention and before long ten passers-by were slumped over scouring the key-less ground of the town. We (literally) bumped into someone from Talkeetna radio and they broadcast the news about the missing keys. By mid afternoon it seemed like half the town was doubled over. As we searched we saw little hand painted houses with vegetables in the garden, lumberjacks, a pretty school with singing kids, a disused train line, people chatting and laughing on the way back from the grocers. It was kind of idyllic and the locals kept finding things that were better than keys but then it started to get dark and cold and a bit of panic started to seep in at the edges.
We went back to the flight centre and a crinkle faced old cowboy was there, he had retired from his money-making life to fly tourists around a big mountain in Northern Alaska. Talking to him I suddenly knew that everything would be ok. He told us stories about his two lives (before and after the move to Alaska) and told us we could sleep in the bunk house where the pilots stayed.
The bunkhouse was very basic and uncomfortable but it didn’t matter, it was warm and safe and despite being there on our own there was a tangible sense of community. We went out for food and found sweet little buns in a little late night bakery. We sat chatting to key-searchers from the day and looking into the dark. It was nothing amazing, nothing life changing but it was one of those little feelings of home you sometimes long for when you’re not there.
I lay in my bunk that night and fantasised about a Talkeetna life, I imagined dropping out and doing something wholesome and good. Before I went to sleep I read the local newspaper, the Talkeetna Good Times. It carried stories from the town and news pieces about Alaska. On the back page was a short story by a local writer entitled ‘Cold’ it was about winter in Talkeetna. It spoke about sitting in a room watching a door knob grow thicker and thicker with frost and hearing trees crack as the water inside them froze solid, throwing coffee out of the door and seeing it freeze in mid-air. It talked about moving closer and closer to the fire as the night moved on and seemed to move in. I was completely mesmerised and suddenly understood something about cramming the summer full of life, I wondered if maybe the people were so warm here because they really understood the dangers of being too cold.
The next morning the break down company broke us into the car. Before they arrived I went to the offices of the newspaper and bought a Talkeetna Good Times T-shirt.
Every time I wear it I remember the support of strangers & that sense of community spirit, mixed with the promise of cold. For me that day in Talkeetna was about the way life could be, it was a window into small town living and an understanding of how every lifestyle is a mix of the warm and the frozen. I wonder about Talkeetna sometimes, half wishing I lived like that; it’s comforting to know it’s still out there somewhere.
