Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
—15 —
Shop 'Til You Drop, Alaska Style
WHERE I GREW UP,
in the village of Seldovia on Kachemak Bay, there were no stores ex-
cept for the grocery store. We shopped out of the catalogue and everything came in by air.
The town was so small and the bay so narrow that from school we could hear the mail
plane roaring into a final approach at eleven-thirty every morning. By 12:01 p.m. we were
at the post office, listening to postmistress Susan Bloch English rustling around in back.
When she had all the mail sorted, she'd open the top half of the Dutch door protecting her
from the public and we would surge forward en masse to check our boxes for that magical
pink postcard that announced the arrival of a stack of 45s from Fifth Avenue Records in
Anchorage, books from Shorey Book Store in Seattle, go-go boots from Sears, Roebuck.
So you will understand when I tell you that today, my idea of shopping heaven is a cata-
logue, a credit card, and a phone. I would have bought my washer and dryer this way if the
Sears catalogue hadn't gone out of business (amid much weeping, wailing, gnashing of
teeth, and tearing of hair in the Alaskan Bush, I may say).
However. There is one place I will actually leave the house to go shopping. It is the Nat-
ive Arts and Crafts Fair held every October at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention,
when Alaska Natives from all over Alaska congregate for a week at the Egan Convention
Center in Anchorage to discuss and debate serious issues like sovereignty and subsistence.
That happens upstairs.
Downstairs is the arts and crafts fair. Downstairs is where Native artists and craftsmen
from Kipnuk and Palmer and Savoonga and Fairbanks come to sell their work. Downstairs
was where I was headed.
I was on a mission. My friend and fellow author Val McDermid was having a baby and I
wanted to find some baby mukluks for her. I'd waited for
AFN
because I knew the arts and
