Ice Diving in Alaska's Frigid Waters | INDIE ALASKA

I can go out in the forest, climb mountains, go hiking, go skiing in the winter and enjoy being outside, enjoy being in nature, but going underwater gives me a whole new world to look at. We're in beautiful Summit Lake, Alaska at about 1300 feet, roughly halfway between Seward and Anchorage. It's ice diving season so we've got a hole cut in the ice. So we're looking at about 18 inches or so of ice right now and the ice underneath is very smooth and very clear. The ice closer to the surface has snow entrained with the ice so it's white and it's opaque. It's almost like looking through a very, very thick piece of glass with some white translucent filters behind it and in that thick piece of glass you see things like bubbles. As the ice thickens it keeps trapping more and more bubbles over weeks and weeks of time. Really interesting to look at from underneath. My diving history goes way back. I learned to dive when I was I think 14 years old and I was diving in lakes in Georgia that had terrible visibility, nothing to see, and I loved every minute of it. Well diving in Alaska is a lot better than diving in Georgia, I'll give it that. You know diving in Georgia is called, I call it desperation diving. You're only doing it to get underwater. So everybody comes from all over the world. They come to Alaska to see our mountains, to see our wildlife. Another side of that is to see our diving because we really do have fantastic diving in the state of Alaska. This is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. I feel you know everybody wants to say I'm in Alaska and I guess you're not truly in Alaska unless you were born here and I wasn't born here but I'm at home in Alaska. My son Ish or Ishmael, he came to Alaska when he was only about four years old. I'm a big fan of the book Moby Dick and it means a lot to me because Ishmael was sort of this seagoing philosopher constantly reflecting about life and having adventures with Captain Ahab and the great white whale and I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm how I'm next gonna get out on my my next adventure I suppose you would say. Ish sees himself as a big city kid and you know it's interesting he's never lived in the big city but he sees himself as a big city kid and he would love to move to New York or to Chicago or LA. I definitely think Alaska can be a very tough place for kids especially kids that are not real uh enamored with the outdoors and I you know he's his own man I think he needs to do what's right for him just like I did what's right for me. More than anything else I think I'm afraid of getting into a routine existence it's just too easy to to stop trying to do different things and to fall into a routine of a kind of a nine to five job or something like that but I've seen that in other people that I care about other people that I know my parents for example and I don't want my life to go that way. I think if you're spending a lot of time sitting around worrying about whether or not you're happy you're probably not you know it's more something that comes to you without trying and if you're if you're trying it's just probably means that something's missing. Alaska is kind of a blue collar state for some people that translates into a redneck state snow machines and guns and beer but that's definitely not the full truth. I actually find Alaskans to be very open-minded and generally very thoughtful people and also very well educated people. Come here and spend a summer spend a winter if you can get to know Alaska get to know the people spend a lot of time outdoors it will change your life.