24 June 2010 · 11:58 pm

North to Alaska: Into the Belly of the Moose

We were going to BE in Wasilla, Alaska for a day or two ANYWAY.

Downtown Wasilla, according to “Akmuckraker” at Mudflats, blog on 29 Aug 2008

Business dictated that we see someone in Willow, Alaska, and, by virtue of travel times and the convenience of the motel, we would spend the night in Wasilla, and had a day to kill the next day before checking into our airport hotel in Anchorage after 3 PM.

Wasilla — as all news junkies know — is a hardscrabble Alaskan hamlet, with only one bar in the center of town, and mostly dirt roads, except for the highway from Anchorage to Denali and Fairbanks. A mythic Alaskan pioneer village, redolent with brave and hardy mountain men and fishermen, the constant menace of grizzly bears and, of course, mooses. Taking the rustic six-lane country road to Wasilla, we marvel at the Alaskan tundra and mountains, minus moose and grizzlies. They are much in evidence in conversation, however. Everywhere I go in Moosylvania, it’s Boris Badenov and Natasha — of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame —  except that “bear” has been substituted  for “sqvirrel” in “must find moose and sqvirrel.”

And, of course, “Fearless Leader” has been substituted for with “Sarah Palin.” (OK, maybe Natasha. These metaphors are tricky things, as all journalists know.)

L to R: Badinov, Natasha, Fearless Leader

I figure that if Palin is going to come to my hometown, then it’s only fair that I go to HERS. (See, “Idiocies Palin Comparison,” 26 April, 2010.)

But as in hunting moose or bear or killing fish — and everybody who learns that I was recently in Alaska immediately launches into a soliloquoy about the memories, the envies, the pleasures of killing fish; I who never much liked seafood, excepting pre-mercury-poisoned shrimp, am always taken slightly aback at this almost erotic fervor for murdering water-dwelling gilled creatures — as in hunting any other form of wildlife, hunting Caribou Barbie™ must have rules.

I decided on these: first, that I wouldn’t “ask around” like every other reporter must have, or harass the local citizenry in any way.

Palin shunning the media in her kitchen
(from an excellent article in the “Palingates” blog which you should read.)

Second, that I would not trespass, or invade anybody’s property or privacy.

Third, that I would attempt to track Palin only via publicly available information not on the internet. I had one critical clue:

She had built a Caribou Curtain, initiating yet another soap-opera drama: the whole, long bloviating class tale of Joe McGinniss the writer, the landlord, the Palins’ having rented the house with an option to buy earlier, etc.) to keep writer Joe McGinniss from looking (and, implicitly, LEERING) at her and her daughters — as her ghostwriter wrote on Palin’s Facebook page – before she swam in “the family’s swimming hole.”

Palin’s Facebook caption: Hi, Neighbor! May I Call You “Joe”?

Palin (‘s ghostfacebooker) wrote [emphasis added]:

Joe announced to Todd that he’s moved in right next door to us. He’s rented the place for the next five months or so. He moved up all the way from Massachusetts to live right next to us – while he writes a book about me. Knowing of his many other scathing pieces of “journalism” (including the bizarre anti-Palin administration oil development pieces that resulted in my Department of Natural Resources announcing that his work is the most twisted energy-related yellow journalism they’d ever encountered), we’re sure to have a doozey to look forward to with this treasure he’s penning. Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole? (Facebook, “Just When Ya Think It Can’t Get Any More “Interesting”… Welcome, Neighbor!”  Monday, May 24, 2010 at 10:17pm

The Wasilla Hillbillies aren’t rich enough yet to build a CE-ment pond. But I bet Sarah can whip up a mess ‘o vittles. Yee haw.

And here is the “Caribou Curtain” taken from approximately the same spot:

The Caribou Curtain from the Palin side. Photo (naturally) from Fox News

So: hunting Sarah Palin’s house was less about being cyber-stalky, and more about understanding Wasilla. Understand the beast’s habitat, and you understand the beast, as we brave hunters like to say.

The Caribou Curtain from the back (McGinniss’s/peasants’) side

The universal topic of overheard conversations in Alaska, it seemed to me, was about killing things. The walls of the hotels were festooned with killed and stuffed animals (including fish).

Evidently the Masai concept that you are not a “man” until you kill a lion has not entirely escaped civilized society.

Dead animals at our hotel

If I didn’t find the Palin place, I wouldn’t be disappointed. But, Wasilla — the News Media have consistently reported — is an incredibly small town, and, knowing what the fence looked like, I ought to be able to drive around town and find it easily enough.

I wasn’t going to Wasilla to “stalk” Palin. In fact, I was going to be in Wasilla for — at most — a day and a half with nothing much to do except be a tourist. Seemed like a proper journalistic pursuit to keep my eyes open and see what I could see.

More dead animals

Because journalism — as I’ve watched in practice over the past three decades — is mostly about being intrusive, rude and pushy. And, I am certain that virtually everybody in Wasilla has been interviewed, pushed, prodded, asked, with a “hey buddy!” or otherwise had their lives impacted by armies of reporters working the endless soap-opera that is Sarah Palin and the rest of her wacky Clan. But I will hold the citizens of Wasilla harmless, and leave them be. “Journalism” in the modern sense is best characterized as “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” thuggishness. (Michelle Malkin’s stalking of a twelve-year-old kid comes to mind, see ‘Caught Abusing A Crippled Child, Explains ‘He DESERVED IT!’ ” 14 October 2007).

But I was trained in films, where the ideal is to be there, get your shots, and vanish without a trace to prove that you’d been there. In short, I wasn’t going to use any technology to find Palin that wouldn’t have been available to Mark Twain: a phonebook. Magazine or newspaper accounts and illustrations.

photo of “The Caribou Curtain” from Newsweek.

But, I would take one “trophy”: I wasn’t going to leave Wasilla without a “Wasilla” baseball cap.

It would be my lion.

So:

We take the treacherous interstate the forty  miles to Wasilla. North. Or West. One of those.

My souvenir Wasilla baseball cap awaits, somewhere out there, behind The Caribou Curtain.

Tomorrow:

Moose of Darkness.

Courage.

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NOTE: This is part III of a series of VIII.

The other installments are:

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