geography-of-north-america

"We are in possession of all your information (email, address, telephone ... everything),"

"But in the West today public places are no longer named after military victories. Our war memorials depict not proud commanders on horseback but weeping mothers, weary soldiers, or exhaustive lists of names of the dead. Military men are inconspicuous in public life, with drab uniforms and little prestige among the hoi polloi. In London’s Trafalgar Square, the plinth across from the big lions and Nelson’s column was recently topped with a sculpture that is about as far from military iconography as one can imagine: a nude, pregnant artist who had been born without arms and legs. The World War I battlefield in Ypres, Belgium, inspiration for the poem “In Flanders Fields” and the poppies worn in Commonwealth countries on November 11, has just sprouted a memorial to the thousand soldiers who were shot in that war for desertion—men who at the time were despised as contemptible cowards. And the two most recent American state mottoes are Alaska’s “North to the Future” and Hawaii’s “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness” (though when Wisconsin solicited a replacement for “America’s Dairyland,” one of the entries was “Eat Cheese or Die”)."

"Nobody is accidentally in Alaska, the People who are in Alaska are there because they choose to be, so they've sort of got a real frontier ethic. Those people are incredibly friendly, interesting, smart people - but they also stay out of each other's business."

"I've got 290 Days a year that I don't see anybody else. So, I need to make sure I have enough food to make it."

"To The Lover of Wilderness, Alaska is one of the most beautiful places in the world."

"I Like Alaska for the salmon fishing - It's fantastic there. I usually stay in a Log Cabin with no one around for miles. I like to go with friends, but I'm also happy to be on my own with Nature."

"This is probably the freest life you could live."

"Fools-to-free-the-world, they go, Primeval hearts from Buffalo. Red cataracts of France to-day Awake, three thousand miles away, An echo of Niagara The cataract Niagara."

"Flow on for ever, in thy glorious robe Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on Unfathomed and resistless. God hath set His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud Mantled around thy feet. And He doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him Eternally—bidding the lip of man Keep silence, and upon thine altar pour Incense of awe-struck praise."

""Niagara! wonder of this western world, And all the world beside! hail, beauteous queen Of cataracts!" an angel who had been O'er heaven and earth, spoke thus—his bright wings furled— And knelt to Nature first, on this wild cliff unseen."