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.
In a world so green it was hard to believe anything was wrong. Chlorophyll was everywhere. Nearly 12,000 plant species. A cosmos of leaves.
But the Burmese forests had been plundered for more than a century. The hot sky burned holes in the canopies. If you knew your trees you’d notice the old teaks were gone. The government had banned the export of raw logs in 2014. But humans still chewed into the forests. Most of the illicit timber ended up in China. Some teak got smuggled to the rich of Europe. For luxury furniture. For the decking on yachts.
Let them come here, to Thickegyin, these pale yachtsmen.
Let them chop their own logs by hand. On a day with air like molten glass. With only a rice ball in their gut. And then burn at night with malaria in a hut. Let them earn their cruises.
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
Myo Minaung
Farmer, 22
Who are you?
“I farm. But being a farmer is not so good. The weather is bad. The droughts. The rice harvests have really gone down. Logging is better. Even for paid labor. You earn maybe 5000 to 7000 kyats a day (about $3 to $5) working on a farm. Logging is 10,000 a day. We do logging to survive. Small scale. That’s allowed. The big loggers with trucks come from the outside. They’re not allowed to be here. We have to go further and further to look for good logs. We’re worried about this.”
Where do you come from?
“I’m from This Sa Phan. It’s that village back there. It’s new. It didn’t exist five years ago.”
Where are you going?
"The same place as you. Sit Ton. Up by the highway.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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