Autumn—wherever it is—is always beautiful; yet Alaska's autumn arrives with a special fierceness, a special purity, and a wild vastness. My reasons for crossing mountains and seas, skirting the Rockies, looping past the Yukon River, and hurrying from Cook Inlet toward the Arctic Circle, are nothing more than a longing to savor this "autumn," the flavor of fall in the far North.
The South has its autumn, of course, but the leaves turn a pale red, the snow falls softly, and the sky's color is wrapped in warm mist, often overcast and windless. Wandering through Seattle's rain-soaked alleys or Vancouver's maple-lined paths, one drifts drowsily along, touching only the faintest chill. The bones of autumn, its soul, its severity and vastness remain elusive, intangible, impossible to taste to the fullest.
