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’d been walking all day up from the banks of the Ganges through vast green quadrangles of wheat. Walking through the lush, soft wheat was like walking through heaven. We walked grinning. We ran our open palms through the sea of swaying wheat heads. The greenness of it all was overwhelming. And when our grandchildren ask us what was it like, this time on Earth when most people could eat, we’ll probably not remember the distant palpitations of five-horsepower pumps bleeding out the last of the pure, clean groundwater.
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
Meera Devi
Farmer, 60
Who are you?
I am a woman.
Where do you come from?
From home.
Where are you going?
I’m irrigating my wheat fields. It’s ok. Now the river doesn’t flood here anymore.
In 1996 the floods were really bad. The embankment came up in 2004. When it used to flood, we could grow rice here. But since the embankment has come up, the soil is not as moist or fertile. Now we mostly grow wheat and maize. From tilling to sowing to replanting, all that work is done by men. We women come to irrigate and harvest. Women also help in breaking these small clumps of soil that form after one harvest, and once the soil dries up a bit.
(Interview by Siddharth Agarwal.)
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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