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.
The cicadas were buzzing. They’d been doing this for millions of years. The air steamed.The small town of Simatai looked nothing like its Google-mapped version. Google left China in 2010 to avoid censorship, and its satellite imagery hasn’t been updated. Meanwhile, in the intervening 14 years, the constructed landscape of China has been radically transformed. Immense new urban districts have mushroomed across open fields, and there now are highways, apartment complexes, reservoirs, malls, and factories where once stood a satellite pastiche of lonely village roads or sorghum farms.I had been walking effortlessly through this gone world of China for two years. My GPS tracks bisect ghostly croplands and vanished older structures alike. There was one landmark at Simatai, however, that hadn’t changed or budged: the Great Wall, built in the sixth century. It abides. That one I still had to climb over.
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
Yang Baishan
43, chef.
Who are you?
I’m a chef. I do northern dishes. Baked potatoes. Pork. Corn. I’ve been working here at a restaurant for three years.
Where do you come from?
I’m from Heilongjiang, from Harbin. The ice city. Temperatures get as low as minus twenty degrees there. We’re used to it.
Where are you going?
I plan to stay here. The work is stable and good. Not a heavy workload. And the benefits are good.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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