The publisher makes a new best friend on a recent trip to Alaska while running from all of his problems.

Don’t worry, I’m not writing about the state of the country yet. I don’t have it in me. There’ll be plenty of time to rant and lament, but not yet.

I’m going back to where I just went.After the election, I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska, and from there took a bus up the highway from seasons 3 through 6 of “Ice Road Truckers” to a town called Coldfoot, two hours inside the arctic circle. “Town” is actually generous, it’s mostly a truck stop; there’s an inn, a diner and gas pumps.

I highly recommend literally running from your problems. It was great.

To further encourage you, there are musicians from Alaska! At least two of these you’ve almost definitely heard of!

Jewel — “Who Will Save Your Soul”

I actually had no idea Jewel was raised in Alaska until the catastrophically bad “American Song Contest,” NBC’s attempt at an American “Eurovision” that was downright painful to watch.

Usually, when I’m writing a locale-based list, I limit it to people who were both born there and grew up there. That doesn’t work in Alaska. A cab driver told me that a majority of Alaskans moved there from somewhere else, and most people born in Alaska eventually leave, and I have no reason to doubt him. Cabbies know things.

Portugal. The Man — “Feel It Still”

There are a lot of bands I don’t like—a lot of bands—but Portugal. The Man is probably for the most petty reason: I really hate the punctuation in the band’s name. Somehow it’s in the most pretentious possible spot. How can a period be pretentious? I don’t know, but that one pulls it off.

I understand that’s not fair, so inspired by this very entry in this very column I decided to look up what and why they did that. This is what frontman John Gourley said: “A country is a group of people. With Portugal, it just ended up being the first country that came to mind. The band’s name is ‘Portugal.’ The period is stating that, and ‘The Man’ states that it’s just one person.” He went on to specify that the one person is any of the band members.

That made it worse. I dislike the band and its name even more now. It bothers me so much.

Marian Call — “Anchorage”

If you’re a nerd, you already know Marian Call. She’s one of the preeminent nerd singer-songwriters along with artists like Jonathan Coulton, The Doubleclicks and Molly Lewis.

If you’re not a nerd and you don’t know who any of those people are: Shame. Shame! They’re all great and you should look them up. You’ll like them all, I swear. But for right now we’re focused on Call, a former West Coaster who moved up to Alaska after college: Especially listen to her.

Bearfoot — “Jump the Gun”

Now we’re digging a bit deep, by which I mean the part where I look through lists of Alaska musicians and go, “oh, hey, I didn’t realize that’s where they’re from.” Though in this case it was, “Oh, I forgot about them!”

Bearfoot was an excellent bluegrass band that expanded to Americana and it’s all very good. The band won awards at a bluegrass festival. The other feature of digging deep is that my knowledge of bands goes from detail to “I like them a lot.” Sorry, there really aren’t many Alaska bands big enough to cross my path.

Pamyua — “Take U Places (Version A)”

I shouldn’t have used Pamyua in a recent column so I could use it now. I wasn’t going to use it again so soon. But I caved and used it again. It’s my column, I do what I want.

I famously like bands that mix disparate influences, so when a band calls itself “tribal funk and Inuit soul,” I’m absolutely listening. I listened to Pamyua on the flight up to Alaska to get me in the mood!

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.