The drive home: I contemplate the summer that really was, yet never happened

"Really was," because the summer that just ended was one even folks in the Lower 48 would have recognized as summer. After what had seemed to be winter eternal, we basked under unprecedented amounts of sun hung in blue sky. We warmed our bodies in temperatures consistently reaching into the 70s, 80s and even into the 90s, something we had never before experienced in our 32 years in this place.

"Never happened," because I spent almost the entire summer chained to my desk and computer, assembling work I had shot in winter. It is supposed to be just the opposite - I am supposed to spend the summer out shooting the amazing things that happen in this magnificent land and in particular its northern reaches, to break away away now and then to fish, to hike, bike or canoe. Then I am supposed to assemble my projects in the winter when it is cold and dark. Yet, only at the end of summer did I get to get out and spend a fantastic week working in Nuiqsut in early August and then three great weeks back in Nuiqsut and out on the cold and windy Cross Island Beaufort Sea whale hunt. I had no time for personal and family outdoor recreational activities that could not be done in one afternoon in close proximity to Wasilla.

I now have a plan to get on track, to spend October through March intensely working at desk and computer so I can be free to get out and shoot next April through October and to take little breaks to go out into the country and just enjoy. I hope it works.