A Man and His Blue Tarp: It's an Alaska Thing

There's a saying here in Alaska: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.  It's about the ratio of men to women (more men here).  And I think it might apply to that fetish of all Alaska fetishes: blue tarps.  The odds are really good you are going to see one up here.  Did you know you can buy blue tarps by the caseload?  And if that's not enough, you can get 40' container pricing for all your...uh, I'm not sure why or what one would need a forty foot container of tarps for.  Though judging from the vast quantity of tarps I've spotted in my jaunts around this great state, someone could turn a pretty profit setting up a roadside stand on the New Seward Highway.

Perhaps this cheerful spring pansy is as blue as a blue tarp?  I don't think so....

Recently I was grousing a bit to friends about all the bright blue tarps.  I speculated that it must be a plague indigenous to Alaska, as I don't recall seeing too many blue tarps on my travels.  A visiting friend cut in dryly, "Well, there are plenty of blue tarps in Tacoma, judging from the bird's eye view I had during takeoff."  Blue tarps in other locales are a small comfort, I'm afraid.  Maybe we've just spread the "blue tarp love" down to the Seattle area.  I don't know how much of the country is infected.

Is this flower as blue as a blue tarp?  Nope. (Geranium 'Johnson's Blue')

Having blue tarps on the brain made me notice them more often.  I saw quite a few colors and styles covering woodpiles, campers, and shed roofs.  And boats, hot tubs, and small planes.  It's so ubiquitous in Alaska that I'm thinking of having a sidebar feature on the blog entitled, "Tarp of the Month," with an accompanying photo.  (this idea was too fun to pass up, check it out) 

Most original use:

I don't even know what this is covering.

Is there something inherently bad about a gray tarp or even a brown one?  My Alaska-raised husband and I came to a compromise on the issue of tarps.  "I must have one," says he.  "We are not tarp people," says I.  After much (heated) debate, we settled our differences.  "Fine, you can have a tarp, but not a blue one!"  He came home with a green one and proceeded to wrap our teak outdoor dining table with it, making a large chrysalis wound with that other Alaska fetish: duct tape (see this post for photo and duct tape lowdown).  Sadly, inevitably perhaps, he did succumb to the blue tarp addiction.  As explained to me, after the fact, "But hon, that's the only color they had at the store!"

Is this Delphinium as blue as a blue tarp?  Maybe....

What is it about the color of a bright blue tarp that is so jarring?  Is it the fact that it is not a color commonly found in nature?  Or maybe we're just used to looking up into the sky to see a color that intensely blue and when we see it looking down (covering a woodpile for example) something in us revolts and says: "That's just not right..."    I'm trying to think of garden flowers that are intensely blue ("tarp blue" as a selling point?) and I can only come up with Delphinium, Corydalis, and Meconopsis (blue poppies).  We grow blue-flowered plants here in Alaska very beautifully.  So maybe that's the answer.  For many gardeners that rare blue color is a holy grail of sorts, very uncommon in nature, thus highly desireable.  And then there are those who take it one step further, or backwards, depending on your view of things, and decide that such an unusual, intense blue is also good for covering the shed roof, '79 Camaro, woodpile, and the lawnmower.  There was a home next to a major road here in Anchorage that for years had a gigantic blue tarp weighed down with cinder blocks covering the roof.  That was a lot of blue.  I think it finally wore out (or the neighbors revolted) because a new gray roof tarp made it's debut a couple summers back.

Not blue enough for blue tarp folk: Gentiana septemfida var. lagodechiana

One thing about tarps: Alaskans will use them.  So to suggest we all go cold turkey would be futile.  I'm just humbly asking, when out shopping for tarps, give the brown, green, or gray consideration before automatically reaching for old blue.  Your neighbors will thank you.  And those flying into Anchorage International Airport will, too.

Oo-dah-la-lee, that's blue!  And (gulp) it's in my yard!

Local quirk or nationwide (dare I say worldwide) disease, you tell me.  Where have you seen blue tarps?