Southeast: Life In The Alaska Panhandle

This is the audio track of the documentary short film "Southeast: Life In The Alaska Panhandle, a photo essay on being a visitor versus a resident of Southeast Alaska.

It originally aired on MarinTV, the non-commercial, community TV station operated by the Community Media Center of Marin in San Rafael, California. It has been shown on 79 other such stations across the U.S. It was an Official Selection of the Western Canadian International Film Festival and the Ketchikan Film Festival.

In this visual essay shot at Glacier Bay, Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg and Sitka, travel writer Dick Jordan transports you to the Alaska Panhandle, known simply as "Southeast" to its 75,000 residents living in widely dispersed pockets of civilization unconnected to each other by roads. 

Dick calls the Panhandle "a land empty of men, but full of life,” nearly all of which belongs to the trees, the bears, the birds, the fish and the marine mammals."

The scenery is stunning, but the weather is problematic, even in summer, and communities are small, and isolated from each other and the rest of the world.

The show prompts you to ponder the same question that has confronted many first-time visitors to Southeast Alaska: Should I move to this beautiful place, or just pay it a visit and leave?