Farewell, gentle friend

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The long goodbye

I came to Skagway with two goals:

1. Conquer Alaska
2. Punch a bear in the face

Lamentably, I was only able to accomplish one of these goals.

The perfect Skagday

Went to bed at 2 a.m. Woke up at 6:12 a.m. to one of my sources calling me. Conducted a phone interview wearing nothing but Carolina gym shorts, shivering. Fell back asleep despite the broadest of daylights.

Woke up for real at 12:30 p.m. Took a shower. Hot water lasted 30 seconds longer than usual. Conditioned my facial hair. Ate leftover salmon salad. Read about proverbs. Considered my future.

Readjusted the rubber jar gripper in the cushion of my destroyed hiking boot. Walked to Pullen Pond to watch salmon fight the current. Learned the difference between king and pink salmon. Admired the beauty of spawning season.

How to fix the most unusable of hiking boots

What you'll need:

• Determination
• A positive outlook
• A rubber jar opener acquired at the Southeast Alaska State Fair
• A hiking boot whose inner padding has ruptured after three months of use such that your fingers are millimeters away from poking through the sole

Instructions:

1. Fold rubber jar opener twice into quarter-circle
2. Fish through war zone of padding, rubber and metal that constitutes bottom three inches of shoe
3. Wedge rubber jar opener into hole
4. Cover hole with any remaining padding that has not disappeared into the abyss
5. Ignore the hole emerging on side of shoe
6. Invest more than $20 in hiking boots next time

A trip down the Klondike Highway

Working at a small-town newspaper comes with a few logistical inconveniences. For one, the newsroom is located above an Alaska-themed bookstore affiliated with the same company, making it confusing for some people trying to differentiate the two. (That the bookstore is called Skaguay News Depot doesn't help.)

A much larger-scale issue is the newsroom's lack of a newspaper printer. There would be no reason to expect a newspaper with a circulation of just less than 1,500 to have its own printer, and like many other small newspapers, The Skagway News gets printed in another town. In Skagway's case, the nearest land-accessible town with a printer is the Yukon capital of Whitehorse.

So for 30-something years, every two weeks, Skagway News editor Jeff Brady has made the 109-mile drive to the Whitehorse Star's newsroom, walks out with bundles of newspapers a few hours later and drives 109 miles back to Alaska. You can imagine what this is like in the winter.

Whitehorse has a population of about 26,000 and feels like downtown Manhattan compared to Skagway. It has movie theaters, Chinese food and a diversified economy, all things Skagway lacks. Everyone is excruciatingly nice. Drivers will let pedestrians cross at all costs. One time while waiting at a street corner, my coworker Katie pressed the traffic light button and the crossing signal instantly turned on. Coincidence, maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if pedestrians had power over the traffic lights.

Yesterday I made the last of four trips to Whitehorse this summer, and as usual, the drive over was even more spectacular than the destination itself.

Little shop of mangos

When I was in Buenos Aires, one of my favorite pastimes was getting mistaken for an Argentine. Each time it happened felt like a small victory in every tourist's fight to not feel like a tourist.

Here in Skagway, there is one place where I can curiously experience the same feeling.

The place is Ports of Call, a quaint market and Internet cafe stocked with all sorts of international foods. I would estimate 95 percent of the patrons are foreign cruise passengers. The shelves are loaded with exotic foodstuffs like cassava chips, guava juice, instant chana masala and, weirdly, Ovalteen. Every culture is represented in a room the size of a living room, with heavy emphasis on Indian, Filipino and whichever culture eats prawn crackers.

Skagway's borderline mythical egg toss

The energy was electric. People buzzed in anticipation as the starting time of 1 p.m. drew closer. But it wasn't until Buckwheat walked to the middle of Broadway with a cart holding several hundred eggs that I recognized the magnitude of what was about to happen.

The date was July 4, and I was about to take part in the annual highlight of Skagway's Independence Day celebration: the egg toss.

River Quest

I offer my apologies in advance if I don't return your calls or text messages this week. That's because for the next four days, I'll be in Canada covering one of the more insane sporting events I will have ever witnessed.

Solstice

There are two things that remind me how far away from home I am. One of them is the time difference, which I don't always realize until I want to call family or friends at night but remember they're probably asleep.

The other is the sunlight.

Tonight is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It probably doesn't mean much to most people, but in Alaska, it is unavoidable. The sun will set here in two hours, at 10:24 p.m., ending a day that will have lasted 18 hours and 41 minutes.

The good life

Like we always do it this time

I go for mine, I got to shine

Now throw your hands up in the sky

I g-go for mine, I got to shine

Now throw your hands up in the sky

I'mma write the Skagway News mama, I'mma, I'mma put this down

(Hey!) Hey (hey!) hey (hey!) hey (hey!)

I'm good

Welcome to the good life

Where homies that sail seas

Can't wait to go zip-lining in they new trees

The good life, let's go on a fishing spree

Shoot, they say the best meals in life are free

The good life, it feel like Vancouver,

It feel like Fairbanks, it feel like Haines Junction,

It feel like Skagway, summer in A.K., 'eyyy

(Now throw your hands up in the sky)

So I'm gettin' a tan

Y'all say betcha can't, I say Ketchikan, quarry

And she got them boots,

I just saw a bear, I got to look, sorry

Yo it's got to be 'cause I'm salmoned

Haters give me them smoky looks, dory

Soapy told me to do it for the benefits

And if they hate then let 'em hate

And do it for the halibut

Now I, I go for mine, I got to shine

Now throw your hands up in the sky

Now I, I go for mine, I got to shine

Now throw your hands up in the sky

I'mma write the Skagway News mama, I'mma, I'mma put this down

(Hey!) Hey (hey!) hey (hey!) hey (hey!)
I'm good

Welcome to the good life

Where we like the guys who ain't on TV

'Cause they got more (beards than the models)

The good life, so keep it coming with the sunlight

'Til she feel snoozed like Soapy in a gunfight

The good life, it feel like Juneau,

It feel like Healy, it feel like D.C.,

It feel like Whitehorse, Glacier Bay, or the A

'Ey, this is the good life

(Welcome to the good life)

Jewelers, tell me what's good

Why I only got a problem when you in the hood?

(Welcome to the good life)

Like I'm new in the town, the only thing I wish?

I wish I stayed year-round

(Welcome to the good life)

You wanna mine some gold, but, but,

You can't stand the cold

(Welcome to the good life)

Soapy told me to do it for the benefits

And if they hate then let 'em hate

And do it for the halibut

The good life

One-month report

One month has passed since I arrived in Skagway. I recognize some people on the streets and a fair amount of my sources know me by name — things that are bound to happen when your town has only 2,000 or so residents and three people putting out the newspaper.

I have a much greater understanding of the town than I did when I was being a tourist my first day, and I've managed to learn a lot when I'm not rubbing my beard or looking at my beard or talking in Spanish with the Bulgarian girl who works at the popcorn store. So here's a brief summary of Skagway as I know it.

Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo

Welcome to Alaska where the players play

And we ride on them ships like every day

Cruise boats, big coats, see grizzlies roamin'

And the sun don't rise 'til three in the moanin'

Run

From the waiver participants must sign to run in the Skagway Marathon this Saturday:

The Skagway Marathon is a long distance race that takes you through different terrains, and where dangers, including death or injury from hypothermia, automotive vehicles, bear mauling, forest fire or other acts of nature, do exist.

Shit just got real.

Extra motivation

Today I did a charity walk for breast cancer research. Eight miles on a winding, dusty road nestled between the mountains and the water. The first rest stop had water and granola bars. The second had cookies and beer. I had to rest really bad at that one.

Somehow, in Canucks country

Last night I was walking by a bar that was nearly overflowing with people. They were all watching Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Many of them were wearing Canucks jerseys and cheering, providing an atmosphere quite different from the night before, when the bar was practically empty as I watched the NBA finals.

It eventually clicked that many of the fans were probably from the Vancouver area and were passengers on one of the many Vancouver-to-Alaska cruises that come to Skagway each day. However, they wouldn't have had to go too far to find local Canucks fans.

Climbing

Yesterday I was bored. I had managed to waste an entire day doing nothing — in other words, a typical Saturday in my world. But by evening, I was overcome by a sudden attack of guilt for having idled around all day. I realized a sixth of my summer here in Skagway was gone and I had little to show for it. There I was surrounded by mountains and I had barely used the $20 hiking boots I bought the day before I left North Carolina. I felt a rare sense of urgency, an urge to do something now.

So I shed my sneakers in favor of the boots, put on my jacket and at precisely 8:12 p.m., with the sky still illuminated, I set out to climb something.

A life in the day

The Skagway News hit newsstands today, so the world will finally be able to read my beautiful beautiful words. I'd link to the stories here, but my editor doesn't put stories online until like a week after the paper comes out. Makes people buy the paper, he says. I laughed when he told me that, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made, and kind of made me wonder if The New York Times and Washington Post would still be struggling to survive if they had just completely ignored the Internet 15 years ago.

Anyway, in celebration of my first issue, I'd like to take you through a busy summer day in the life of Mark Abadi.

Welcome to Skagway

Today I finished writing all my stories for the next issue, so I can take some time to reflect on my first week in Skagway. Many of you are probably wondering why I chose to spend my summer in a tiny Alaska town. I am unable to provide you with an answer at this time, but I'm working on it. I promise.

My first full day here was spent exploring and getting to know the town. However, Skagway is just five streets wide and 23 streets long, meaning I was able to explore and re-explore the entire town multiple times before lunch.

That day was significant for me in that it was the first time in my life I have been interested in history. In a word, Skagway is badass. It was incorporated in 1887 and exploded in population a decade later when word of the Klondike Gold Rush spread across the United States. Thousands of "stampeders" dropped everything and moved to Alaska in the late 1890s in hopes of striking it rich in Dawson City.

Inaugural post

Hello. My name is Mark, and I'm a reporting intern at The Skagway News. I live in a room slightly larger than a Twister mat. My daily commute to work is short, as I live in the newsroom. My newspaper serves a town that 113 years ago was filled with saloons and brothels and was patrolled by an outlaw named Soapy Smith. One of my main sources is named Buckwheat. It is 10:19 p.m. and still light outside. I am surrounded by mountains, water and smiling faces. Deadline is every two weeks. I am at peace with my life. I'm in Alaska, trick.