Not long ago, as I mindlessly scrolled through social media, I came across a meme that resonated. Stung is probably more accurate. It said something like this:
Out of office messages in Europe: I’m off camping for the summer. I’ll respond to your email in September.
Out of office message in America: I will be out of the office for two hours today as I undergo kidney surgery. If your matter is urgent, you can reach me on my cell. Otherwise, I’ll respond to your email as soon as the anesthesia wears off. My apologies for the delay.
It’s meant to be a comically exaggerated look at how our cultures prioritize work and personal time, though the reality is, it’s not terribly inaccurate. Even before Covid, many American workers never really checked out — answering emails at all hours, stepping away from dinner to take a call, preparing for the next day just before tucking ourselves into bed.
In this still new-ish but looking more and more permanent environment of remote work, it’s even more difficult to separate professional time from personal time. Many of us, myself included, don’t really leave the office. No matter where I am in my home, I’m never more than a few steps from my laptop or phone. Work is more accessible than any electrical outlet in my house.
Despite this, I know it’s essential to unplug. To reconnect by way of disconnect. And my goal is to be a bit more European in doing so. I haven’t mastered it yet, but I was able to spend last week at Lake Clark National Park in Alaska. No roads, no electricity, no cell service, no Wi-Fi, and hardly any people.
The bear population is easily double that of the human population — most of which is made up of day trippers from nearby Homer, or commercial fisherman who cast their nets in the Chinitna Bay on certain days of the week. The park is only accessible by air or by sea.
It’s also massive. Lake Clark National Park protects over 4 million acres of critical habitat. It’s one of the least visited national parks in the country, with somewhere around only 18,000 humans making the trek each year. Compare those stats to a park most of us are familiar with — Zion National Park — which spans about 147,000 acres and welcomed over 5 million people in 2021 alone, and it becomes a little more clear why the “out of office” reply is essential when visiting Lake Clark. It was not a check-in friendly vacation.
It also wasn’t exactly a vacation, at least not in the truest sense of the word. I was there on assignment for a travel magazine I contribute to, highlighting a unique brown bear viewing experience. There are worse ways to earn a living.
As the story goes, a homesteader named Wayne owned a few ocean-front acres on the Alaskan coastline. He didn’t care for people much, preferring to spend his life in nature’s uninhabited — and largely uninhabitable — wild. In 1980, the national park was established, carving its boundary around Wayne’s tiny slice of land.
When bucket lists in the lower 48 started to include bear viewing, Wayne partnered with a local tourism company, providing the first and only over-night accommodations in the area. Wayne passed away and after several years of offering tours, the local company was ready to move on.
In February, Natural Habitat Adventures, the conservation travel partner of World Wildlife Fund and the world’s first completely carbon-neutral tour operator, acquired the land and took over bear camp.
Of course, the wildlife hardly minds the boundaries between national park and private land, coming and going as it pleases. Despite sometime being only a few feet away from a bear, a glance in our direction or sniff of the air was the only indication they noticed us — until mamma bear strolled by us with her two rambunctious and curious cubs.
When she was roughly 20 feet away from our clustered group, she gave her cubs a motherly stare every kid knows and dreads. Their transformation from cheeky to obedient was instant, and they dutifully complied with her silent commands to move along and not stare at the weirdly furless mammals who insist on walking upright. It was a privilege to witness.
Getting to the park was a chore. Getting through several days of work emails will be a, well, a bear. But getting off the grid like that… it makes me want to be European.