The Beginning

Like all things awesome, Alabaska has a humble starting point. It was June of 2011 when my girlfriend Raina and I were hankering for a change of pace. The Universe was smiling on us when we were pondering what to do when BAM! we remembered Mountain Jam. This was and still is a three- day music festival located at Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. It was just around the corner on our calendar so we purchased tickets and started making a list of necessities right away. A week before going we came to the realization that finding our way back from the concert area to our tent would prove difficult. With the mix of darkness, our drunken vision and the sea of fellow campers around us, it dawned on us.

We need a flag.

We found some old cloth and our artsy friends volunteered to draw whatever we wanted once we had an idea, the sharing of brain cells commenced. We knew we wanted something original and started mix-mashing states together. Pensyltucky? not original enough. Califorginia? Meh. Flakota? Sounds like a disease or a rash to me. And then it rolled off our tongues in a soft southern twange as if it were the most well known place on earth... Alabaska.  The honey badger, pickle and french slogan were all part of the creativity among Raina and myself, it seemed like just jokes at the time but Alabaska just kept growing on us more and more as we neared the festival.

We weren't the only ones who thought so once we got there. After we were all set up with our mini-living situation we started collecting sticks to create a pole for our flag to fly. Our neighbors, who were complete strangers, at the time inquired what we were up to and noticed the name on our flag.
"What do you guys think of made-up states?" asked Raina
"Sounds cool to us." was the reply from our Bostonian friends.
We gave them the rundown of what and how the flag came to existence. They loved it so much they asked to become inducted as the first Alabaskan's at Mountain Jam.

It was with this handful of people we came to create all sorts of things such as the political system of Alabaska, which is composed of a Grand Marshall who keeps order among everyone. Don't worry there aren't months of campaigns to become elected, the only prerequisite to be Grand Marshall is you must be wearing the fanciest hat and the title is all yours.

We're still all good friends to this day, using social media to keep in touch and share our crazy stories of life and all the little things that go on in it.

That flag was the catalyst to the realization that if we just put our ideas out there for people to see, a lot of good can come from it, the goal now is to keep that momentum going and see where it takes us.