Hiking the Glenn Highway through Alaska. Published in Asphalt Pilgrims.
Paul Salopek
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
We came through fields of wheat, fields of onion, down on narrow lanes of mud to the city on the plain. The gas station attendant was named Sameer. He was tough. His grimy, calloused hands curled at rest like eagle’s claws, that strong, and in them he brought us tiny plastic cups of coffee. A reflex of Arab hospitality. Far older than the medieval caravanserai that the Palestinian town once had been. It didn’t keep Sameer from thinking: we were crazy to walk.
A wraparound soundscape at this Milestone
This Milestone’s location on a map
Photos of the ground under Paul’s feet and the sky above at this Milestone
A brief question and answer with the first person Paul meets at this Milestone
Sameer Doleh
Gas station attendant, age 50
Who are you?
I’m just the worker here. I’m from Jenin. I’ve been working at this job for five years.
Where do you come from?
Home.
Where are you going?
Home.
Observations from social media from the Milestone location
Near the location of the Walk’s first truly urban Milestone, we find a linguistic mix dominated by Hebrew and Arabic. Several tweets mention the Jewish holiday of Purim, which fell on March 16 this year. But among light comments and photographs depicting the arrival of spring, a few more somber messages remind us that in this region, checkpoints and other sources of tension are a part of daily life.
Editor’s note — Due to a technical error, we were unable to collect tweets corresponding precisely to the timing of this Milestone. The sample here includes tweets from the nearest date ranges we were able to access: February 24-27 and March 15-18.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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