At the edge of somewhere: journeying on the Dalton Highway

Abstract

Some journeys need to be made. In At the Edge of Somewhere, the writer embarks on a cycle ride from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's remote and dangerous Dalton Highway. Drawn obsessively to the Arctic sea ice some years earlier and, now, onto "the road," her journey attempts to bring closure to the long-standing need to be on the move, at once not able or even wanting to settle but also seeking a place within herself, and therefore a physical location, she might call home. She travels with a found notebook, acquired unexpectedly at the start of her ride, which reveals the heart-wrenching story of Samuel Morgan. As she journeys through boreal forest, high alpine and tundra, we learn not only of Samuel's abandonment to boarding school as a young boy but of the writer's traumatic childhood. Painful memories, reminiscences of working on "the road" and new encounters blend with Samuel's search for peace amid an encounter with the artistic works of an 18th century German Romantic painter. Touching on themes of trauma, art, and their relationships with the landscape, both the writer and Samuel reach Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean ready to let go of their pasts.