Alaska (1980)

Overview

Alaska is the visual artifact of a two-week trip, in 1976, to Homer, Alaska, where my sister was marrying the son of a homesteader. Many of the issues that drove Concern for the City are present in this film, which preceded and inspired it. As compared to New York City, the setting for Concern, Alaska is a place where nature still overwhelms and has to be respected, where man and his works remain just a tiny dot on the rugged landscape. This is changing, of course, and the Alaska mindset is to try to control, vanquish and feed from the natural environment. Yet it is a far more even contest in the north.