This year’s annual conference of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers was held at UCSB, hosted by the Geography Department. Because of the terrorist destruction of the World Trade towers and Pentagon on the morning prior to the conference, and the terrorists’ use of commercial airplanes as weapons, air travel all across the U.S. shut down for days. Many participants were delayed. Some never arrived. One participant had been aboard a terrorist-commandeered jet, so perished. The mood of the conference was altered, but went forward.
Before the conference ended, 130 people managed to get here, some driving great distances. Two of the Alaskan participants happened to be in the lower 48 states, visiting friends and relatives before the conference. One of them drove from Portland, Oregon; the other took the train from San Diego, California. A van-full of students and faculty came from Sonoma; another van-full from Arizona. The address by The Honoroable Walter J. Hickel, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and former Governor of Alaska, was delivered over the phone. A photo essay of the conference is posted on the [archived] website.
