Five Photographs That I Did Not Take, But Wished I Had by Kathy Adams

#1) Winter of 1975 I got to go to one of Alyeska’s Pipeline camps and while there, we were shown the surrounding country. On this road trip we saw a huge herd of Caribou that came very, very close to the vehicle. You could have reached out and touched them and my camera was not working. This picture will be forever etched in my memory.

#2) August 1980, my mother and I were driving back to Fairbanks from Anchorage and in the distance we saw one of the most beautiful, red, fall trees that I have ever seen. I can still see that tree as if I had taken its picture – but it’s just a memory with no other documentation.

#3) August 22, 1996, my late husband was getting everything ready to fly north with my son and some other friends to go hunting. He was standing beside his float plane and the sun was shining on his face as we said goodbye to each other. That is the last time I ever saw him because he never returned from that trip. I wish I had a photo of him that day as the sun warmed his face and smile.

#4) July 4, 1997, while on a trip to introduce my sons to relatives in Washington State, we got to sit on a river bank in the warm, night air, when it was dark outside (rare in Alaska) and watch the fireworks as they were being shot off from a barge in the middle of the river. I wish I could have captured my son’s faces as they watched the fireworks that night.

#5) Autumn of some past year I was driving to North Pole in the night and the moon had just risen on the horizon and it appeared unusually HUGE and it was orange. It was beautiful and I wish I could have taken a picture of that moon.