I’m fairly sure this is the northernmost Occupation in the world:
Saturday marks the two-month anniversary for the Occupy Fairbanks movement. Instead of the police crackdowns seen elsewhere around the country, the Interior Alaska protesters are contending with punishing cold and local grumbling about the legality of warm-up tents.
Brent Baccala, a 41-year-old self-described preacher and software designer from Maryland, continued his vigil at Veterans Memorial Park sporting a donated Northern Outfitters blue suit and matching boots Friday. He slept in the nearby tent as overnight temperature dropped to minus 36, Thursday, three degrees cooler than the record low for that date, set in 1969. It was the second time this week area temperatures set new daily lows, according to the National Weather Service.
Baccala, who’s been in Fairbanks two weeks, said he felt a religious calling to join the movement while reading about Occupy Fairbanks in Juneau, where he’d been preaching to tourists. People should live the Christian life of “giving, forgiveness and generosity,” he said Friday. “My focus is the immorality of capitalism.”
John Watts, 50, had ice forming on his mustache Friday as he explained his motives for supporting Occupy Fairbanks.
“Elements of the tea party are connecting with the thinkers,” he said. “Something is wrong. Media wants to set it up to look like the solution is either we are free or not free, the far left side or far right.”
Baccala and other protesters contend the First Amendment’s protection for free speech implies a right to stay warm in the process. The Fairbanks North Star Borough, which maintains that protesters are squatting on downtown space, prohibits camping in its parks, except specific camping sites.
I went to school there and believe me, that’s cold. It’s also brave. Fairbanks is the home of Tea Party senate candidate Joe Miller and his gun-toting fans. (He was once the attorney for the North Star Borough, where he famously conspired with Sarah Palin.)