Cordova shenanigans

Cordova has a maritime, moist climate that never gets either as warm or as cold as Fairbanks. A lot of Alaskan coastal towns remind me of my childhood home of San Francisco--cool, foggy, sea-smelling. Seagulls fly around calling and shrieking, while sea mammals play in the harbors (sea lions in San Francisco, sea otters in Southeast Alaska).

This is the old Cordova school. It dates to 1925, the heyday of Cordova's first existence as the terminus of the railroad that carried out ore from one of the richest copper strikes the world has ever seen.


Nope. Nothing creepy here.


Stephen King wouldn't be interested.

A lot of "older" (even just older than a few decades) structures around here look creepy just because they get weathered so quickly, and they get covered with green moss and other growth. Dead trees fall over and rot and get covered with other plants. Vines and fungi grow on standing trees and block what light would otherwise filter through. I can understand now, really for the first time, why there are so many "lost in the woods and creepy things happen" stories and folktales, and why there are horror movies like the Blair Witch Project. Even peeking into bits of woods from the sidewalk here makes me feel a visceral discomfort I've never felt in the Interior, or in the California redwoods of my childhood.


My eyes say 'super pretty', my heart says 'no thanks!'


This stairwell was almost tempting, but isn't that where Johnny and Becky went up to make out, and they saw a shadow and green lights, and were NEVER SEEN AGAIN?!? (They say that if you say "Bloody Mary" three times in front of a mirror at midnight on a full moon, you'll see what happened to Poor Johnny and Becky!)

The woods in Interior Alaska are not even remotely creepy. I mean, you could get hypothermia, or get attacked by a bad person or wild animal, but there is no feeling of anything otherworldly or supernatural. There is such little opportunity for growth, with the limited growing season and nutrient-poor soils, that the trees grow tall and straight and don't branch out until the very top (where efforts made toward leaf production for catching light get maximum return). There is no such thing as speckled light. Light in Fairbanks is often low and off-color--pink or orange sunlight, or pale white moonlight--but it's still and direct and doesn't play games. Everything in the Interior is hard and clear and has clean edges. There is no room for ghostly shadows or creeping goblins. Maybe that's why, despite a rough-and-tumble Gold Rush history, there are hardly any ghost stories. Ghosts have no credibility in the crisp Interior. (It could also be that the Native Tanana and Koyukon peoples were historically a peaceful sort, unlike their constantly warring neighbors to the South).