All Aboard

Patrick Carrico

Patrick Carrico is an author, illustrator, and audio producer whose work strives to capture the darker undercurrents of the North. Operating across the Alaska—from seasonal outposts in Southeast Alaska to the rail and highway corridors of the interior—his writing merges creative nonfiction, illustrative art, and landscape history and has been known to get him in trouble.

As a travel writer, he is the creator of unconventional, field-tested guides including R-Rated Guide to Cruising Alaska and Kesey to Callahan: Cruising the Columbia, which strip away the sanitized tourist-brochure gloss to focus on authentic regional character, industrial history, and localized lore. His recent article for Atlas Obscura has shed light on the ongoing environmental atrocity of the Connell Lake Dam in Ketchikan.  

Carrico co-hosts and produces the podcast Termination Dust, blending archival soundscapes, dark local humor, and sharp cultural commentary. Whether writing, recording, or illustrating, his work remains firmly rooted in the stories of the working class, public infrastructure, and the distinct fringe aesthetics of subarctic life.

About the Exhibit

"All Aboard" is a series of observations gathered while working seasonally in Ketchikan. Today, the Alaskan tourism industry is reeling from informal Canadian and European boycotts, tripled national park pass fees, high fuel prices, and tariffs that herd the vast majority of visitors onto mega-cruise ships. Unlike gold miners, loggers, or pipeline workers, this massive segment of the Alaskan workforce operates with virtually zero oversight or protections. We are disposable, largely uninsured, and doing our best to survive far from home. This series is a sympathetic look at the friends I’ve worked alongside this year and an expression of deep concern for our futures. The media used are tempera paint, acrylic, markers, and beer.