Fairbanks is the perfect place to live on the cusp of the New Age. Weirdness and isolation have bred a homegrown heartiness of spirit and vigor of intellect that can only be registered as freakish elsewhere. Especially by Lower 48 standards. Not many statesiders have the gall or intestinal fortitude it takes to visit this town in winter. Those who do never fail to stagger back home with a satchel full of snappy anecdotes about encounters with the exotic local flora--namely, the citizens.
The Tanana Valley is home to a boggling variety of twisted subcultural cliques driven funny by the weather and the constant bombardment of high intensity charged particles from the HAARP project. Alaska Independence terrorists plot bloody coups in the hills, and the ridges echo with the happy sound of machine-gun fire. In the frigid dales of the Goldstream Valley legions of unwashed neo-hippies sit in rickety A-frame cabins incubating enormous crops of maximum potency mutant marijuana, playing "Doom" and freaking out every time an airplane passes overhead.
The die-hard dog-musher fanatics rev up for the fast-paced, more than fascinating winter contests that drive the sport. To be a modern Alaskan is to know the mind-numbing experience of watching dogsled racing on television. Only one thing, other than golf, should be banned as a spectator sport, and mushing is it. Although, it does contribute to the only other winter sport worth mentioning; drinking.
More than the Germans, certainly more than the English, just below the grog-swizzling par set by the Aussies, Alaskans are known for setting a punishing swillpace and sticking with it for the duration of the winter. Drinking is the one element that brings us all together, the great equalizer. Even the North Polacks, Born-Again Bluenoses and rural psycho-rednecks drop all personal enmities in order to guzzle the winter away. 50 below zero don't seem so cold through the warm haze of a shotgunned twelve pack of Lucky Ice.
While the millenium looms, life in Fairbanks continues on its loopy x-country skitrail to parts unknown. Times change, people change, hairstyles change--hemlines go up and down as regularly as the tide. Old legends take on new meanings and tomorrow's myths are formed in the seemingly unimportant minutiae of the now. People drift apart and collide at random -- the social tectonics that describe the volcanic actions of attractions and the minor tremblors of dislike stirs the stone soup that is the gravy stock in the malnourishing stew of public life. Throughout all of that, River City rocks on.
I always suspected that if we waited long enough, the world would come to us. The acceleration of time and event inherent in the coming convergence has all but guaranteed Fairbanksans reserved ringside seats at the eschaton. But if the century turns and we miss the cataclysm, with the nifty new developments in entertainment technology we can catch it same day on Pay-per-view. Don't be fooled by the starnosed moles who insist there is never anything to do in Fairbanks, all you have to do is open your eyes to see the pepper on the pudding--this is more than a place, it's a state of mind.