I served at the Pentagon and at Fort Leavenworth - my job was video cameraman, and that allowed me to travel to places like Korea, Japan, Alaska, Germany and the Netherlands.

There's one place, and one place only, to see polar bears in America. You have to travel to the country's northernmost point, the very apex of Alaska's North Slope, to the permafrost shores that stretch out on either side from the Inupiat town of Kaktovik.

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

I'm thankful for Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid, which taught us that Alaska is not in a box off the coast of California.

My mom, dad and me were a compact group. They instilled in me a love for the outdoors. On school breaks, we'd go fishing for a week in the wilds of Alaska or Canada. The land was always in their souls.

I've seen a few wild grizzly bears, mostly in Alaska and British Columbia, and always from a distance. But each grizzly I've caught sight of was as fearsome and sublime as the last. You never get used to their raw power and massive bodies, or the mysterious intelligence in their dark, close-set eyes.

I consider myself a product of Alaska. The love and the debt that I feel to my home state, you always want your hometown to be the proudest of you.

Alaska is what happens when Willy Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope, buy a place together upstate, renounce their sweet teeth, and turn into health fanatics.

John Muir, the famous naturalist, wrote in his journal that you should never go to Alaska as a young man because you'll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live. And there's a lot of truth to that.

I've been making pieces dealing with environmental issues at least since 2004; I mean, I did stuff for the Sierra Club and the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge even back in the 1990s. But somewhere a little after 2004, Hummer hits me up. I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?'

Every year, tens of millions of salmon return to the pristine shores of Bristol Bay in Alaska. They linger in the bay's cool, shallow waters before charging up nearby streams to spawn and create another generation of wild salmon.

We've been some cool places fishing. My parents and my family all went up to Alaska. We fished for king salmon, and that was really neat.

Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'.

I've always heard that heli-skiing in Alaska is amazing. I would love to be able to do that at some point in my life.

It was as if we'd only been gone the weekend. Or had we been gone a lifetime. Part of that was because when you've lived in Alaska, living in other places seems easier, less challenging, less threatening. Alaska had enlarged each of us. No one is ever the same after coming back from Alaska.

Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'.

To the lover of wilderness Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

I'm thankful for Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid which taught us that Alaska is not in a box off the coast of California.

'Not again!' I thought to myself this morning as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons and then blamed when things don't go right.

I consider myself a product of Alaska. The love and the debt that I feel to my home state you always want your hometown to be the proudest of you.

Alaska is what happens when Willy Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope buy a place together upstate renounce their sweet teeth and turn into health fanatics.