The author has learned a lot in the last decade, especially about glassing techniques, optics and general hunting. This photo is from an unsuccessful Etolin Island elk hunt in 2015. (Courtesy Photo | Jeff Lund)

The author has learned a lot in the last decade, especially about glassing techniques, optics and general hunting. This photo is from an unsuccessful Etolin Island elk hunt in 2015. (Courtesy Photo | Jeff Lund)

Another decade down

Here’s to the next 10.

End of the year reflections are predicable parts of December, but it’s amplified this year because it’s also the end of the decade. When you start to look at how you’re cruising through life in 10-year chunks, it can be at the same time fun, and terrifying. There’s where you thought you were going, where you actually went, and whether the inevitable difference matters.

Some treat their path like the blue dot on a map app, incessantly looking, charting, gauging and worrying. Others just use The Force. I’ve used both metaphors over the last decade and here’s what I’ve found.

Education never stops.

I spent 40% of the previous decade earning a bachelor’s degree and 25% of this past decade earning a master’s degree. I’m probably finished working toward pieces of paper with fancy writing, but my desire to know stuff has never been stronger. (Except maybe when I was trying to figure out how to cast my fly farther than 15 feet.) The more I teach Science Fiction Literature, the more I am exposed to the results of an uneducated population. The more I know, the more I might feel we are destined to be endlessly mired in social unrest, political posturing and ominous pollution projections, but that doesn’t mean I have to be miserable and doesn’t mean everyone is unhappy. Social media can be a digital Two-Minutes Hate. But that’s not reality. Knowing that is a key to sanity.

Education doesn’t have to happen in the classroom either. Ten years ago, I didn’t hunt and had just started my freelance writing side-hustle. Writing about my outdoor education, particularly with hunting, has been a productive way to vent frustrations, share stupidity and maybe encourage someone else who knows what it feels like to not be one of those expert types.

[Who’s calling who? Lessons from a failed waterfowl hunt.]

Words of the decade: Tantrum, personal-growth

Throwing tantrums didn’t make people want to be your friend in third grade, and it doesn’t work as a 30-year-old. I found as an adult I don’t want to spend my energy throwing obstacles in my own way — life provides enough of those — or go out of my way to worry about how others spend their freedom. A couple of my high-octane, entrepreneurial friends showed me the excitement of living with a reflective, personal-growth mindset. They are producers, not simple consumers. They handled failure, almost sought it, because without some level of failure, what are you doing, right? Additionally, posting motivational material does absolutely nothing toward achieving a goal, and cutting people down because they have different beliefs only outsources control of your mood to someone who doesn’t care. That’s stupid. So is believing that you don’t need positive people in your life.

[Thankful for being overwhelmed]

Decision of the decade

No place is perfect, but the best places are the places in which the brochure is easily accessible. But even then, it comes down to attitude. I can explain to a Lower 48er how wonderful life is in Southeast Alaska, but all that means is I have memorized my lines. What matters is whether or not I am living it. When I moved back to Alaska I was old enough to understand the importance of living on purpose and with a sense of urgency. That doesn’t mean I always do, but I feel that attitude has kicked me outside when I might otherwise have stayed in due to weather. Of all the memories I have of the last 10 years, none include me inside watching Netflix or games. I have watched plenty of shows and sporting events, but those are memories, not highlights.

Highlights involve numb toes, slime, blood, velvet, heavy packs, and unzipping tents above clouds.

To paraphrase my favorite fly fishing writer John Gierach: age is half biology, half attitude. Here’s to keeping the right one for the next 10.


• Jeff Lund is a writer and teacher based in Ketchikan. “I Went To The Woods,” a reference to Henry David Thoreau, appears in Outdoors twice a month.


More in News

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Aurora forecast for the week of March 25

These forecasts are courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute… Continue reading

The aging Tustumena ferry, long designated for replacement, arrives in Homer after spending the day in Seldovia in this 2010 photo. (Homer News file photo)
Feds OK most of state’s revised transportation plan, but ferry and other projects again rejected

Governor’s use of ferry revenue instead of state funds to match federal grants a sticking point.

The Shopper’s Lot is among two of downtown Juneau’s three per-hour parking lots where the cash payments boxes are missing due to vandalism this winter. But as of Wednesday people can use the free ParkSmarter app to make payments by phone. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Pay-by-phone parking for downtown Juneau debuts with few reported complaints

App for hourly lots part of series of technology upgrades coming to city’s parking facilities.

A towering Lutz spruce, center, in the Chugach National Forest is about to be hoisted by a crane Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, for transport to the West Lawn of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to be the 2015 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service)
Tongass National Forest selected to provide 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree

Eight to 10 candidate trees will be evaluated, with winner taking “whistlestop tour” to D.C.

Annauk Olin, holding her daugher Tulġuna T’aas Olin, and Rochelle Adams pose on March 20, 2024, after giving a presentation on language at the Alaska Just Transition Summit in Juneau. The two, who work together at the Alaska Public Interest Research Group’s Language Access program, hope to compile an Indigenous environmental glossary. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Project seeks to gather Alaska environmental knowledge embedded in Indigenous languages

In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word… Continue reading

The room where the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee holds its meeting sits empty on Tuesday. A presentation about an increase in the number of inmate deaths in state custody was abruptly canceled here. (Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Republican lawmakers shut down legislative hearing about deaths in Alaska prisons

Former commissioner: “All this will do, is it will continue to inflame passions of advocacy groups.”

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Monday, March 25, 2024

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Employees at the Kensington Mine removing tailings from Johnson Creek on Feb. 17 following a Jan. 31 spill of about 105,000 gallons of slurry from the mine, although a report by the mine’s owners states about half slurry reached the creek 430 meters away. (Photo from report by Coeur Alaska)
Emergency fisheries assessments sought after 105,000-gallon tailings spill at Kensington Mine

Company says Jan. 31 spill poses no risk to Berners Bay habitat, but NOAA seeks federal evaluation.

Dozens of people throw colors in the air and at each other during a Holi festival gathering Monday night outside Spice Juneau Indian Cuisine. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Holi festival in Juneau revives colorful childhood memories for some, creates them for others

Dozens toss caution and colored cornstarch to the wind in traditional Hindu celebration of spring

Most Read