Over a year ago our little family decided, basically on a whim, to move here to Alaska. Other than desire, there was no particular reason, no extenuating circumstance that lead us here, and no limit to our resources preventing the relocation — the Alaskan landscape simply happens to be stunningly beautiful and completely accessible for Americans like us who are willing to come here and explore it.

Obviously life hasn’t always been so easy. Things have changed a lot in the last four hundred years, and now with so little effort required, people like us take it for granted that fullfilling our curiosity about the beauty in places like this is only a matter of decision making. But it hasn’t always been that way. Before we could defend ourselves against nature and move at will, we lived within a much smaller scope and thrived nonetheless. In the past it didn’t matter what was beyond the horizon — we didn’t belong there, anyway.

We should probably remember that our exploration hasn’t always been so benign — and maybe we should more deeply question our presence in places we are not meant to visit. I often reflect on this while walking along the mountain tops here, where perhaps only a hundred years ago no white man had ever stood.

The irony is always on my mind. It used to generate a certain respect within me, but instead I question my boundaries — and now when I’m traversing the previously unowned land I wonder, ‘should I be here just because I’m able?’