Alaska is stunningly beautiful, breathtakingly expansive, almost unbelievable in its raw beauty… and yet, there is a sense of sadness. Like a powerful and majestic symphony played in a minor key, it leaves you with the feeling, after the music has died away, that something feels… odd. Behind the cheery facades and the tourist souvenir stalls filled with cruise passengers there was an undercurrent of loneliness, perhaps because of the isolation or the lack of sunlight in the winter.  Perhaps because the majority of people are only there temporarily, working the summer season and those who have stayed, or still stay,…