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.
“I was a barista at Starbucks,” said Hao Tien. He was my walking partner in northeast China.“What was that like?”“Nothing special,” Hao said. “They don’t really need workers. Machines are programmed to do everything.” He mimicked pressing a button.“Did you get caffeinated?”“I’ve had better coffee,” he shrugged. “But I took all their leftover food home at the end of each day. The sandwiches and cakes. I gave them away to my friends at the university dorm. We were supposed to throw it all away.”Starbucks didn’t like that, he added. But he wasn’t working at Starbucks anymore. He was walking with me on forgotten Qing roads into Dongbei, the frozen borderland where Nurhaci, the first king of the Manchus, was saved by crows. When the Ming army had cornered Nurhaci in some reeds, the king pretended to be dead. A flock of crows landed on his back, deceiving the army into believing that the crows were eating the corpse. Nurhaci later escaped. From then on, all Manchus never killed a crow, and kept them as pets.
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
Milestone 93: Encounter
No person was encountered at this Milestone.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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