I moved here in 2004, driving the Alcan highway from Seattle, to take a new job in Anchorage. I came with legitimate concerns about Alaska’s winters, its unfair ratio of men to women, and its hyper-conservative political culture. But, I also knew what I was in for.

During the summer of 1992, I lived in Sitka, in the state’s Southeast, where I worked as a newspaper reporter. To my surprise, I sailed through my first Alaska winter 2004-‘05 in Anchorage without a hitch, thanks mainly to my love of skate skiing and perhaps a love of winter I’ll credit to my Finnish genes.

My latest home town, Anchorage, is the state’s largest city. Some ridicule the biggest northern metropolis of the United States as “Los Anchorage,” as the community sprawls wildly on a peninsula at the base of the scenic Chugach Mountains. For all its many ills—soulless shopping centers, the absence of a coherent urban design, the utter dominance of automobiles—the city still has many charms. For instance, I share the city with some 300,000 souls and several hundred urban moose, who are both cute and annoying on city trails and streets. Where else can you see moose running through the downtown of a small-to-mid-sized city. Well, this happens in Anchorage.

More than any other feature, Anchorage is blessed with amazing geography, sitting next to the wild and painfully scenic Chugach Mountains. The unspoiled areas I can access just 40 minutes or less by car from my home are as beautiful as any I’ve found in the Lower 48.

Best of all, during the winter, when the snow isn’t crusty or cruddy, the city is a wonderland for cross-country/skate skiing. The city’s world-class cross-country/skate skiing areas are linked by hundreds of miles of trails. (Go here for detailed maps: http://munimaps.muni.org/trails/reference.htm.) In 1996 the American Hiking Society awarded Anchorage the designation of "Trail Town USA." Anchorage was selected as runner-up out of 100 nominations as the most trail friendly area in the United States; Runner’s World magazine put the city on its list of the top 25 running cities in the country in 2005 as well.

In the winter, I literally can strap on my skate skis on my front porch and hit the trails after work. (See my skate skiing diary for my impressions of why Anchorage totally rocks for this sport.) In the summer, I can drive less than an hour and be in bear-infested wild lands that still dazzle eyes that have seen much of this planet’s many splendors on five continents. Now having lived here a year, I can say unabashedly that Anchorage ranks with any community anywhere in the world for access to world-class outdoor recreation.

Enclosed you will find a few photographic sketches of this most beautiful of states. I used a Leica M6, my Nikon 35mm equipment, my Contax G1, and frequently my cheap but efficient Canon low-end digital, which is a reliable tool for quick and fun photo story telling, particularly the kind I do.

What’s missing are important state issues that I will not address in this forum. Also missing are the compelling Anchorage stories I have yet to tell with my camera: the lives of Filipino and Samoans who now call Anchorage home, life on the front lines at the city’s public health clinics, the mean streets for Alaska’s drug and alcohol abusers – many who are Native Alaskans, and the unprecedented rate of violence and sexual assaults against women. I hope to add some more compelling social commentary stories in the future.

Visitors from the world over flock to the Frontier State to discover a raw, natural beauty, which is now so rare on this crowded planet. The hundreds of thousands of annual tourists to Alaska seek unspoiled nature and transformative encounters with all things wild. Most visitors seem to find the “Alaska” of their imaginations, and they find it in spades.

This should not come as a surprise. The ecosystems of the state’s lands and waters house some of the world’s most charismatic critters: sea otters, humpback whales, sea lions, orcas, brown bears, polar bears, caribou, eagles, moose, wild salmon, wolves, and crafty ravens. Some four-legged residents, like wolves and brown bears, are hunted for pleasure (thousands of dollars are doled out for guided hunts) with the state’s encouragement; other critters like moose are bagged for their trophy heads and delicious meat. Federally protected cuties like sea otters and eagles are always winners with picture-taking tourists.

Nearly everyone loves Alaska’s rich salmon stocks, particularly sports and commercial fishermen. Salmon and halibut fishing in Alaska is the Everest for most anglers the world over. And who doesn’t like to eat wild salmon? The state also boasts North America’s tallest mountain (Denali, at 20,320 feet). Mountain ranges of limitless beauty and diversity dot the state, as do glaciers, crystal-clear streams, and vast stretches of forests and tundra. Adventure seekers attain their personal Valhalla upon reaching the northernmost state. What’s more, the land has been home to Native Alaskans for more than 10,000 years. Their cultural footprint can be found everywhere in the state, adding yet another layer to the state's rich tapestry.

For others, Alaska is the battleground royal between promoters of fossil fuel development and those who seek to save the last pristine stretches of the arctic coastal plane from industrialization in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. With crude oil selling at more than $50 a barrel, the multinational energy companies who operate on the North Slope are making record profits. The largest companies—ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips—took home more than $5 billion in profits from North Slope in 2004. As I write this, it is all but likely Congress will approve enabling legislation in the fall of 2005 that will open the refuge to energy exploration, to the dismay of most environmentalists in the United States.

Overall, the state is overwhelmingly pro-development in the energy, mining, and industrial tourism sectors. Real power is concentrated among large business interests and business promoters. The prevalent politics is Republican. The most powerful U.S. Senator in fact is Alaska’s beloved Ted Stevens, the Republican statesman who some Alaskans call “God” for his finesse at tucking pork into federal legislation that benefits his home state.

At a personal level, Republican-leaning Alaskans embrace a self-reliant attitude that has no apparent conflict with the enormous federal largesse that supports the state at a per-capita level more than twice its closest state competitor. What’s more, oil-generated wealth deposited in the state Permanent Fund (valued at more than $30 billion) lets the state dole out checks each year to every Alaskan ranging from about $900 to $2,000, depending on the fund’s returns. Anti-government Alaskans have no problem cashing those checks each year from the state-managed fund. Despite these odds, Democrats, off-the-grid types, and progressives can be found in all communities, making it possible for birds of different feathers to live together, though some times uncomfortably. Overall, those who stay seem to find a niche to call their own.