The Van Log was a good companion in 1994. A battery-operated
one-speaker cassette recorder/player, a confidant, and a witness to a
cross-country trek of four Hoosier youths in search of adventure and fortune in
the fish processing industry of Valdez, Alaska.
Adventure is easily had for such an optimistic and desperate
troupe as we were, equipped with a knack for being entranced by nearly anything
to be found outside our small hometown in Indiana. The notion of finding
fortune (the other goal of our journey) in fish processing is, of course,
absurd.
We might now be judged to have acted foolishly or naively, but
the truth is that while we sought adventure and fortune, we did not really care
that much whether we succeeded or not.
Three of us had made various parts of the journey before, so
we knew ahead of time some of the possibilities and hardships that lay before
us. So, with nothing to gain or lose, we hoped for the best.
In 1994, the Van Log was nothing new however. The idea of
the Van Log was originated in 1992, by a different group of travelers, two of
whom returned for the 1994 trip. The term "Van Log" was originally
derived from Star Trek's "Captain's Log," and some of the entries
include reference to "Van Date," an attempt to transform a clear
statement of date and time into a confusing jumble of numbers, in imitation of
the star dates on Star Trek. At some point, the jumbled van date is abandoned
in favor of just saying what time it is.
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| Van Log O.G.s, 1992: Mel, Todd, & Ross. |
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