The Voyage Home

The Glittering Lens That Brought Me Back to Alaska

Heading Home In Search of One of the World’s Most Remote Lighthouses

Cape Spencer, Alaska

One of my favorite places as a kid was the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, where I never got tired of ascending the vast spiral ramp at the entrance that ran its way around a large eagle-aeried spruce tree. At the top of a ramp was a Fresnel lens from the Cape Spencer lighthouse—hundreds of glittering crystals in an intricate brass frame reaching higher than my head. I never quite …

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