Life in the Last Frontier is like living

in a big small town

April 3, 2005

Guest Columm/Sammye Pokryfki

A theory created in 1967 by sociologist Stanley Milgram is known as the "small world phenomenon," the idea that every person in the United States is connected by a chain of six people at most.

You have probably heard of the John Guare play "Six Degrees of Separation" (or perhaps you caught the movie starring Will Smith and Stockard Channing), both of which illustrate Milgram's theory that all Americans are connected by six or fewer stages of circumstance or acquaintance.

I know this much is true: Here in Alaska, the six degrees theory does not apply - it's more like two. If there are six degrees of separation between any two people in the U.S., there are only two degrees of separation between any two people in Alaska.

I have to wonder if this isn't just a product of living in a sparsely populated state; perhaps it is also because the intense nature of life in Alaska encourages relationship-building. Simply put, we Alaskans tend to make friends easily, and because of those tendencies, our other Alaskan friends seem to somehow know each other.

This is the part of the story when I give you specific examples and invite you to think of examples of your own.

I started a new job in Anchorage this month and, after meeting my new co-worker, Ricardo, we were hardly through our first meet-and-greet before establishing that he was a college roommate of (1) Dan, who plays softball with (2) my son Nate.

I also had barely met Rosie when she informed me that she is best friends with (1) Shirl, who has worked on the North Slope for more than 20 years with (2) my husband Vince.

I would be willing to bet that at any given time, you could draw connections that go no deeper than two degrees of separation between you and just about anyone in Alaska.

And just to make it more interesting, it seems that Hawaii is an extension of the "Alaska two degrees" theory.

Walking along the almost-empty beach in front of our rental last week on vacation, we stopped to pet a dog and meet his companion, Barry, whose family has lived on that beach on the North Shore since 1941. Turns out that Barry visits Alaska every summer to fish with his longtime friend who, you guessed it, is an acquaintance of Vince's.

Eating dinner in a small Mexican restaurant in Haleiwa, we struck up a conversation with our waitress, who naturally has friends in Talkeetna that we know from when we lived there.

Alaska is a big small town (with Hawaii as a suburb), where everyone knows somebody who probably knows you. Live here long enough and you sometimes feel as if no one is a stranger.

I bet most of us have had that déjà vu moment when we suddenly suspect that everything is connected and realize that even our smallest actions and most superficial relationships will come back to either help or haunt us in the future. Perhaps you have even experienced the regret of snubbing someone who later turned up as your co-worker or the parent of your child's friend. At those times, it is tempting to wish for additional degrees of separation to protect us from ourselves.

Milgram's theory would suggest that there is wisdom in the adage "Don't burn your bridges." This is good advice in Alaska, where it truly is a small world after all.

Sammye Pokryfki is a longtime Valley resident and former executive director of the United Way of Mat-Su.