The Glittering Lens That Brought Me Back to Alaska

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

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 knew what to make of it as a kid. Its sharp, polished clarity and geometric precision seemed an incongruous conclusion …