Just Another Jim's

Alaska Journal

Ch. 2: Carlism

Posted July 7, 2006 by James E. Nelson

It was Bob Carpenter, the recently retired pastor, who invited us to Fielding Lake for Labor Day weekend. He wanted me to meet Carl Hanson. I already knew Donna and the kids because they were usually in church. Carl was more illusive and this seemed like a good place to meet him because this was a more natural environment than church. Carl used to come to church. Not that many years ago he served on the session (the congregation’s governing board), but his attendance was now limited to special events. Carl loves the outdoors and the surprising thing about him is not that he dropped out of church, but that he ever got as involved as he did in the first place.

Interior Alaska attracts the outdoors type. Corporate types may spend big bucks to hunt caribou and moose or fly into some remote fishing lake, but they rarely stay past the first hard freeze. There is a hardness to life that is inherent in the far north. The deep, dark, cold of winter chills the soul as well as the body. The combination of huge distances, isolation, and lack of anything beyond the basic economic infrastructure means that Alaskans are generally not very wealthy. Fishing, hunting, sled dogs all take so much time that those who are involved in such activities do not have the time to be on the corporate fast track. The corporate types who do come to Alaska tend to congregate in Anchorage where the weather is less extreme and the amenities of life are more available. People who have come to interior Alaska for the outdoor opportunities the state has to offer don’t claim allegiance to Anchorage because it is truly a different world and different way of life. Some of the interior folk refer to Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley as suburban Seattle.

The basic interests that brought most people to Alaska, coupled with the astonishing beauty and endless outdoor opportunities mean that nature mostly replaces religion in the value system. A minister is somewhat of an anachronism. Even the most basic of ministerial duties—weddings and funerals—are co-opted by secular institutions. Justice of the Peace weddings were at least as common as church weddings in Delta. A fraternal organization called the Pioneers of Alaska has a funeral liturgy that is complete in itself, thus removing the need for a minister to preside. Given this sensibility, the beauty of the Alaska Range is not only startling, it’s sacred. A journey to Fielding Lake on the last great weekend of the summer is not only a way to pass the time, it’s a pilgrimage with quasi-religious significance.

This sort of thinking—I’ll call it “Carlism”—might be considered problematic for the Christian Church. Carlism would need to be argued against because its value system is skewed, centered on creation rather than Creator. It’s activities lead one away from the church building rather than toward it. And in the end Carlism does exactly that, but not necessarily because this Carlist sensibility is inherently bad or anti-Christian. It certainly focuses on different things; it certainly has different priorities. But as I sat around the campfire that Labor Day weekend with Carl, the rest of the Hansons and the former pastor, a rather different perspective on Carlism began to develop.

Let your guard down and Alaska will kill you. It’s not only the climbers on Mt. McKinley, it’s not only the bush pilots of the interior who are in danger, it’s everyone who drives from Delta Junction to Fairbanks on a bitterly cold winter afternoon. It’s everyone who has taken up a rifle against a moose or put a dip net into the salmon-rich but treacherous waters of the Copper River. But that’s the price that must be paid to see the glories of Alaska and to eat of its bounty. Carlism is a somewhat domesticated form of the original pioneer spirit that brought the white man to North America in the first place. It’s a gamble with nature; it’s appeasement of nature, and those who are willing to take up the challenge are paid dividends that no bull stock market can equal.

One might call it a sacrificial religion. Carlists understand they can never beat nature. At best they can come to terms with it, function within its boundaries, and in turn, reap the bountiful harvest it has to offer. This is at the heart of its sacrificial character. Alaskans, in general, reap rich harvests of goods, pleasure, esthetic value, and fulfillment from the land in which they live. The price that is paid for such bounty is that some Alaskans die before their time. Every year some Alaskans will be harvested by the cold. Every year some Alaskans will be harvested by the oceans and rivers. Some of the stupid ones (generally those from Anchorage) get killed by brown bear or moose. That is the payoff for living in this place so rich, but so close to the boundary between creation and chaos.

American Christianity is a domesticated creature, largely in service to the sensibilities that grew up around the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the hubris of the American spirit developed over 200 years of expansion and technological success. Medicine has overcome the historic killer diseases. Technology has overcome most obstacles of life: Air conditioning opened up the Sun Belt, Electric Lighting made the twenty-four hour playgrounds like Las Vegas possible. Great dams have mostly tamed the great rivers. Doppler Radar at least warns us of killer tornadoes.

Where Americans used to die of terrible and unpredictable diseases such as polio and influenza, most deaths now are attributable to our own lifestyle choices, such as heart disease, or subtle human-caused environmental influences, such as the suspected agents of cancer. There is this sense of control in our lives previously unknown to humanity. There is nothing with which a little bit of technology, education, and self-control cannot deal, and as the technology advances even self-control becomes less important.

Christianity, and especially Protestantism, following the lead of the culture, has largely become a religion of technique, education, and personal fulfillment. Since science and technology is busily removing the mystery of the universe, Christianity is getting out of the business of mystery and into the more lucrative business of the mastery of our own destinies. In the end this great American hubris is sadly mistaken. Already the circuitry that makes this civilization work is beginning to corrode. Carlists are fleeing a flawed value set for one they perceive to be closer to reality. And once you leave that corporate American value set behind, it becomes all too clear that the traditional church is part and parcel of that social system.

And that was part of the reason I found myself slapping mosquitoes at Fielding Lake on the Labor Day weekend. Any thinking Christian could see that Carlism and the church I represented were at odds. Fielding Lake was neutral territory. It was a hallowed spot where, hopefully, retrenchment was possible. Alaska was also such a place; it was Fielding Lake writ large. This was an opportunity to see the sacred from a different perspective. The challenge was to critique my values, not so that I might too become a Carlist, but rather that in the presence of the critique of Carlism, I might truly become Christian.

Three families gathered around the campfire telling stories of Lake Trout and Moose, grasping at the fleeing light and the fleeing season as the flames danced their primeval dance above the firewood: As the deep shades of autumn twilight engulfed us, I realized that this was indeed a religious pilgrimage, not only for the Carlists, but for any thinking (or should I say, feeling) person.