Juneau is one of the most beautiful places on earth, it's true. But depression is very common there owing to the lack of daylight, both summer and winter. The day of that miraculous sunrise, the sun went behind a mountain an hour later and I saw it once more between two mountains for a little while. Many days have no sun at all because of the cloud cover.
In the summer, days are much longer and you can stay out on your boat for 12 or more hours if you have a mind to. When the weather's beautiful, there is no place I know of where it's more congenial because it's never too hot and you're surrounded by God's most beautiful part of creation. However, the skies are often overcast for weeks at a time. You get a couple of great weeks either in May or June, then it's clouds for days on end, sun for a day or two, then more clouds.
I often had a black mood there that I rather enjoyed. It's hard to explain, but I recommend "Limbo," a movie filmed there. I know you'd appreciate that movie, Poet. cinemamontreal.com The protagonists were marooned at a remote fox farm. While awaiting rescue, the young daughter of the female lead found what appeared to be the journal left by a young girl who had lived at the fox farm. The daughter read from the journal to the two adults. After days and days, it was discovered that the journal held only one entry and the girl was making it up as she went along.
Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see that movie on VHS I know you'll understand the black mood that I'm talking about. It was not a blockbuster, but we enjoyed it, knew the environment which was renamed "Fort Henry" to avoid offending Juneau, and knew several people who appeared in it as extras.
Another movie filmed locally by locals was called "Raven's Blood." It also portrayed the black mood effectively but the cinematography had so many defects that it couldn't be shown in theatres except locally. By defects, I mean the images at critical points were split down the middle, flickered, or had some spot on them. The shots were good, but they didn't shoot enough film to be able to edit out the defects. I wish you could see that one, but I doubt it has been committed to VHS. I knew the guy, Chuck Keen, who did the shooting, and even he said it was terrible. ohthehumanity.com juneauempire.com |
