Last Saturday was church day, and while heading up we noticed a strange sight in Stevens Village; two white guys walking by the post office. They weren't Troopers or Fish and Game, which made the sighting extra peculiar.
As we walked towards the church we met the preacher heading back out to knock on more doors and he told us a couple of guys from Denmark were attending church that day, which explained the white guys.
Back in September, a gentleman from Holland knocked on my door looking for a place to spend the night, and now two guys from Denmark were here; our village of 50 was apparently an underground European travel destination.
I introduced myself to them in the church and within 5 minutes Alice, who had been suffering a bit from the isolation, found out they were staying the night and invited them over for dinner. I followed up later with offering them a night at the school with access to the showers and a mattress, as opposed to sleeping on the banks in a tent with the mosquitoes.
They had been canoeing the Yukon River and were planning on going all the way to the Bering Sea; another 1000 miles beyond our village. This apparently is a thing to do; they mentioned 3 Norwegians and a German who were heading down the river, and we saw a Frenchman on his own a few days later. A couple from Seattle stopped by our house on the 4th to get some quarters for the showers, snacks, filtered water, and a few minutes of internet. They had kayaked from the lakes in Canada beginning the end of May (they had to kayak through some ice) and hoped to make the Bering Sea by the end of the month.
Back to the Danish guys; they must have thought we were doing them a favor in helping them out, but it was pretty selfishly motivated. They were both in their early 20s, pleasant, and were from a Scandinavian country, a stone's throw from my mother country Norway. I'm 4th generation American, so the genetics and culture are pretty removed, but I like to think it's closer.
We spent the evening, after the meatloaf, picking their brains about what it was like to live in western Europe in general and Denmark/Scandinavia in particular. For wannabe world travelers like us, it was fantastic. We learned about their system of taxes, their economy, their education system, what they were proud of (Vikings and the oldest monarchy, and Legos, although they didn't mention that until later), how they felt about the rest of Europe, how they viewed America, and so on.
They had questions about America as well; fast food culture hasn't quite sunk its teeth into Denmark, and they wanted to know for future reference if refills were free or not. Then they wanted to know, honestly without sarcasm, why people bought the 32 oz cups if refills were free. The idea that these cups are sometimes cheaper than the small ones was interesting to them as well. I love having the oddities of our culture pointed out by people from another country.
A few other things struck them as odd; how easily we can go into debt (what they called a credit card in Denmark was really a debit card that, after your bank was emptied first, allowed some borrowing of up to $5000), the idea that you can buy a handgun in a grocery store, and that graduating high school isn't something that everyone does. They also didn't know America had army bases in Germany and didn't quite understand why, although they were obviously unimpressed with their own military. Apparently, on their own account, the thing it does best is surrender; the strategy in Denmark seems to be to stay friendly with the Americans just in case a military is needed.
We kept them up pretty late talking and then we made them play Pictionary with us; we had a bit of a cultural advantage. English was their second language, and while they had it pretty well mastered, it was interesting to see what words came up that stumped them. They got to experience the Wii before we finally let them go, but not after inviting them over for breakfast and one last hot meal before they got back on the river.
We were still throwing questions at them about what it was like to live in Denmark all the way through breakfast and approaching noon when they asked if they could spend one more night at the school; one of them needed to get a letter back home and wanted to stay until Monday when the post office opened. Starved for company over most of the past year, the idea sounded fantastic to us, and we invited them back over for dinner, which they offered to cook for us with some camp food they had brought. Camp food didn't sound too exciting, but they insisted, and to their credit they made the beans and rice work out pretty well.
Alice made some warm bread and we supplied the milk, two things we discovered they loved in Denmark and hadn't gotten in several months. They had left Denmark sometime around February with three other 20 year olds to begin a world trek to Russia, Mongolia and China, and we got to see the photos to prove it.
They had spent 3 weeks in Mongolia being driven around (it's cheaper to rent the driver with the car in Mongolia since the roads are so treacherous) and had seen the Gobi Desert. They had spent a month in Russia and had survived a mugging and an unexpected snow storm that hit them while camping on an island. After sleeping through the storm they woke to deep snow and trees knocked over, covering the path back. They had to trudge 12 anxious hours through waist-deep snow following their GPS and eating uncooked oatmeal and fish oil. They had rented a 2 person apartment in Beijing to share between the five of them, walked some of the Great Wall of China, and had taken amazing photographs of the area. After these adventures, one of the five went back to Denmark, two went to Borneo to enjoy the beaches, and these two came to Alaska to enjoy something Denmark doesn't have, wilderness.
They had gotten their share; after being flagged at the airport and patted down by security (welcome to America), they had bought a patched-up canoe in Eagle and started drifting down the river, sleeping on gravel islands to avoid grizzly bears. Not that this helped any; they packed up one morning and followed the river around their island and spotted a massive grizzly that had shared the island with them that night. Grizzly bears swim like dogs; 500 lb dogs, that is.
They hope to make it to the Bering Sea, but would be fine if they don't make it there, and then are planning on meeting back up with the other two Danish citizens who were coming into America from Borneo via Los Angeles and driving up to Alaska. They'll tour the lower 48 before, I assume, heading back to Denmark. They asked us if there was anyplace they absolutely had to see in America; we settled on Cedar Point, the Milwaukee Zoo, the Chicago Art Museum (and pizza), Williamsburg, Virginia and thought they should catch a show in Nashville.
Besides the warm bread and milk, we were able to supply them with media for their iPhone that should keep them reasonably entertained for the rest of their trip. They also watched Avatar the last night; it had been some time since they had watched a movie. I can partially relate to how doing something as normal as relaxing on a couch must have felt after being in the Alaskan wilderness for weeks. When we took two weeks living in a car to get to Stevens, I remember fondly the days we took off from traveling, and when we were at a hotel instead of a campsite.
We had them for breakfast one last time on Monday and they packed up, probably grabbed one last shower, and we snapped some pictures with them before seeing them off to the Yukon. Our hospitality hopefully did them a lot of good; having company certainly did quite a lot for us. We also have a note on our fridge that lists their contact information and says "A Home in Denmark..." if we ever make it that way.
By the way, there are teaching jobs available through the federal government at army bases in Germany and Japan. Just saying.
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