Dear Log,
Here in Ketchikan, the climate isn't much different from that of, say, Seattle. So it's not exactly igloos and Esquimaulx. But one does have the occasional feeling that things here are generally different from, say, Albuquerque.
I feel this difference most often with dogs. The dogs here aren't all that much different in appearance -- except for every tenth dog here looking like it is part sled dog, altho the suggestion of this is often as subtle as just one of its eyes being that nearly-white ice blue color that I've never seen outside of sled-dogs and their mix-breed pups. But the difference in dogs here is more in their behavior:
In Albuquerque, when I lived there, just about every neighborhood block sported a large dog chained in the yard, barking murderously at you, its eyes spinning like pinwheels. In Juneau and Ketchikan, when you meet a dog, it may look at you. It may not. It may slowly perceive you out of the corner of its eye and decide that you do not merit turning the head to look further. It may approach you to be petted, or it may not. It may continue to look calmly into the far distance. It acts as if it is probably waiting. It acts as if it is stoned.
