Solstice in Alaska, the Land Where I First Fell in Love with Unreality

Summer in Alaska is indisputably a time of bounty and bonanza along the coastlines of Alaska. My husband Arron (WAC founder + CEO) often describes it as “go time,” hearkening back to the intense summer months he spent on his family’s aluminum gillnetter named the Mary K, working alongside my late father-in-law Walt Kallenberg, commercial fishing in Bristol Bay. 

But for me, as someone who didn’t grow up commercial fishing, summer in Alaska has always felt more like “whoa time.” I lived in New York City for many, many years prior to calling Homer, Alaska my home, so I can’t help but recall a line from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Poem #20, from his collection A Coney Island of the Mind: 

The pennycandystore beyond the El / is where I first / fell in love / with unreality

“Unreal” is something that felt true then, as I made a life for myself amid the towering buildings, the East River or Hudson River sparkling in the distance, in the city that never sleeps. But as a denizen of the land of the midnight sun — a place where the sun never seems to sleep this time of year — I think that it is perhaps Alaska where I truly fell in love with unreality, for the first time in my life. 

I feel this sense of unreality most strongly around the solstices of the year, a period when time itself seems to bend under the influence of that infinite power source in the sky. Summer is when Alaska feels most electrifying. On the cusp of the solstice, the land-and-seascapes are drenched in long, lingering rays of light late into the evenings, the sun barely dipping under the horizon. It makes me wonder: maybe it’s not time that’s been bent, but rather the horizon itself, stretching up toward the sun, just as the wildflowers do.

This familiar peak of light and life brings me a sense of cosmic comfort, knowing that everything is choreographed by the sun in an annual, ancient dance. When I think about summers in Alaska, I think about days spent tidepooling and beachcombing with my children on the shores of Kachemak Bay. I think about camera rolls overflowing with brilliant blossoms and wildlife. I think about road trips, short-hop flights, and boat rides to fishing towns and working waterfronts across the state, where business and pleasure seem to blur together into what is simply a very Wild Alaskan life, alongside Arron and our children.

As the saying goes, time and tide wait for no one — and nowhere does that feel truer than in Alaska in the summertime. For the people on the water, and for the communities on shore whose lives and livelihoods are intertwined with the sea, this season is defined by motion, effort, opportunity, and purpose. The abundance we celebrate on our plates exists because so many people answer the call of the sun when it arrives in its full splendor.

So whether this season feels more like “go time” or “whoa time” for you, I hope the summer solstice brings a little of both: moments of awe, moments of abundance, and moments to appreciate the people and places that make such abundance possible. And to all those heading out on the water in the weeks ahead, may you find fair winds and following seas; may the season be safe, bountiful, and full of reasons to look up and marvel at the light.

Live Wild,

Monica

Pictured above: Our son in a moment of respite and contemplation, after a day of playing on the beach.