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My experience with racism...my trip to Kotzebue, Alaska
It was just a short trip…a long weekend…few hours flight…my Mom was a travel agent and said it would be such a great experience. New places…new sights. So, I agreed. I lived in Anchorage back then…yep Alaska. My trip was to Kotzebue…North of the Arctic Circle. So off we went…two pals…a guy and a gal. Plane ride was easy…well at least until we got to Kotzebue. I was looking out the window and didn’t see any runway. Hmmm. We were descending. It was all white…all ice, or snow….I wasn’t sure. We landed on that….that was interesting. We all got off the plane and got our luggage right there….no baggage claim area…no moving belt…just the crew handing out luggage.
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Then…we looked around and there were no vehicles…so we walked into town. Not far at all…but so far it was quite different from flying around in the rest of the US! We had reservations at what I am sure was the only hotel…and it was really quite modern. Phew! Clean…new….and very nice.
It was cold….and I mean, if you don’t have gloves or a hat on you feel you may lose your fingers or ears cold. The gal we were with was born and raised in Alaska and she had on a flimsy jacket…what the heck? We couldn’t walk around as it was too cold for her. What the heck? We finally found a little shop that had sweatshirts and she bought one so all was well. Off to sightsee. Hmmm….ok…not much around…just a lot of white. So, we went to the grocery store to look around. Wow….we all lived in Anchorage, so were used to prices being higher than the “Lower 48”…but this was crazy! Food was at least 3 times more expensive.
We walked out to the main street…not really a street…but more ice and snow and snowmobiles moving everywhere. Lots of locals….mostly folks that had been there for generations…and all the younger set were on snowmobiles. Looked fun. We chatted with a bunch of the locals. The older folks were nice. Then we walked to a local bar. On the way…a bunch of young locals started to follow. They were shouting at us…and making us very uncomfortable. One started to spit. We didn’t have much choice other than to keep walking and pretend it didn’t bother us. They soon gave up and left us alone. We got to the bar and sat at a table. All was going OK and then another young local came over and started chatting it up with the gal we were with saying he used to date her. She smiled and said she didn’t think so. He started the same line with me. The poor guy we were with was trying to just keep the peace without annoying anyone. We were definitely the minority. Probably the only white people for many miles. Why did my Mom think this would be such a great experience?
It was OK though…the drunken young guy at the bar left us alone…the young kids behind us on the way to the bar left us alone and the rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We watched a lot of snowmobile racing. We went to a lovely man’s home for tea and whale blubber….I have put the taste of that out of my mind…thank you very much.
All in all…it was interesting….I had never before been treated poorly because of the color of my skin or because I was not a local and that was an interesting and scary thing to experience. I have never held prejudice towards other folks, but I learned to have even more compassion from that experience...and empathy.
I can’t say there was much beauty up there….much of Alaska is so spectacular…I believe everyone should experience it at least once in their lifetime…but Kotzebue?....sorry….not so much.
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