A Community with a Lot of Bears and Very Little Law

I'd like to recommend a podcast to you.  If you're interested in thinking about how communities develop nearly beyond the reach of the law, I think you'll like it.

It's called "Out Here," and it's a project of Erin McKinstry, a freelance journalist.  The "out here" the title refers to is the "town" of McCarthy, Alaska, a tiny dot in the middle of the vast wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  (We're talking VAST.  It's the size of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the country of Switzerland combined.)  Long ago a copper mining boom town, McCarthy was abandoned for decades until a few intrepid souls moved there to scratch out a solitary existence back in the 70s.  Over the last several decades the population has slowly grown.  The residents have struggled with change, with development, with community-building -- all in a place so remote that there's virtually no recourse to (or desire for) law.

McKinstry weaves a quiet, lovely narrative with the threads of the stories of residents, some of them old-timers and some of them more recent arrivals.  There's plenty to entertain -- moose and bear encounters, failed and successful romances, and even a traumatizing murder rampage that took the lives of a sizable percentage of the town's year-round population.  Evocative original music.  And, on the show's website, stunning photos of life "out there," like this picture of the mail shack in "downtown" McCarthy.

I really enjoyed it.  Perhaps you will too.  It's on iTunes and in all of the other usual places for finding podcasts.

Comments

[Richard W. Garnett]

Thanks for this, Eric. I grew up in Alaska and actually visited McCarthy (since then, I gather it's become something of a jumping-off point for some mountaineers in the Wrangell-St. Elias Park.) Fascinating.