Teaching Responsible Tourism via the Northern Lights
We love Beth Harpaz’s newest piece in World Hum titled “An Open Window on a Winter’s Night.” Beth takes her 10 year-old son to Alaska after both of them have been dreaming of seeing the Northern Lights. It turns out to be a wonderful experience for both of them and we think a good model for what responsible tourism should include: seeing and appreciating nature in all its wonder. She and her son also bond on the trip, something that warms even our own cold, hard heart, as would happen to any mother of sons. Her writing is lovely:
“A year later we’re still dreaming of Alaska, me and Nat. In school he read Jack London’s “White Fang” and “Call of the Wild” even though the teacher said they were too hard for a fifth grader. A little toy husky sits on his bed, and every night he opens the window wide—even when it’s 17 degrees out—and piles up the blankets to get warm.
“It’s crazy, that open window. I have to sneak in after he’s asleep each night to shut it so the house doesn’t freeze, but I get why he’s doing it. Our trip felt surreal, a winter’s tale in a faraway land, clocks gone mad, lights in the sky. On a cold night, if he snuggles up with a pile of blankets, then maybe, just maybe, it feels real, and my little boy can lose himself in that snowy dream again.”
Now we want to go!
