Alaska -- the land of big salmon, bigger bears and the kind of wilderness that once stretched across a continent unroaded, largely uncultivated, little developed and waiting to be discovered -- is a mythical place for many people in today's busy urban world.

Michigan's Jim Timmons is one of them. He longed to visit. He will not make it now.

Fisherman, hunter, all-around outdoorsman, "Jim is 65 years old, and dying of cancer," friend Mark Lundin said this week, "and his only regret is never having been to Alaska."

"It was a thing my mom and dad always wanted to do," said Timmons' daughter, Laurie Pudell.

She is now wrestling with the reality that her 65-year-old father could be gone any day. This, Lundin added, despite Timmons being a man who as late as a year ago remained so "lean, fit and healthy a 29-year-old had a tough time keeping up with him."

Then the cancer got him. Timmons is now bedridden in a Michigan Hospice teetering on the brink of death. But thanks to Lundin and a bunch of Alaskans, none of whom Timmons knew, the Michigan outdoorsman got to touch a little of Alaska before he began to slip away. He felt the grittiness of Redoubt Volcano ash between his fingers, sniffed the waters of the Kenai Peninsula's Longmere Lake, and rubbed the fur of an Alaska bear on his head.

All of this due to the reach of the Internet and the kindness of average Alaskans. At a time when the ability to shoot words instantly around the globe has led to the Facebook terrorism of half-term, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accusing her political opponents of trying to create "death panels" and fueled the celebrity-driven nothingness of Paris Hilton, an outpouring of support for Timmons has shown how the medium can also serve as a forum for goodwill among men.

Lundin, a deputy sheriff in Michigan, said he tried to get Timmons to Alaska once he realized his friend's cancer was terminal, but by that point it was too late. Doctors pronounced Timmons too ill to fly.

"So, I said, 'Well, if he's not strong enough to get on a plane," Lundin said, "we'll have to bring Alaska to him.'"

Lundin subsequently posted a note on the outdoors online forum Alaska Outdoors Supersite explaining Timmons' situation. He asked people to send pieces of Alaska south. Meanwhile, Lundin got in touch with Sterling friend Paul Twait to ask for assistance.

By way of illustration as to how the Web has changed the world, Twait noted he first met Lundin through Ebay.com -- the online yard sale. "I actually sold him some fishing lures a few years back," Twait said.

Twait and Lundin struck up an online conversation. One thing led to another. A friendship formed. Pretty soon Twait found himself arranging for Timmons to park some vehicles on a friend's lot when Timmons and a gang of Michiganders came north to chase those famous Kenai salmon. The two men stayed in touch after.

The last time Lundin reached out, Twait said, "he just mentioned that a friend was just in bad shape physically." Lundin asked Twait to send some little bits of Alaska south -- soil, water and plants.

"When he got hold of me," Twait said, "I had a little trouble getting the water. He wanted me to get some from the Kenai River, but the river was frozen." So Twait dipped water out of a hole drilled by an ice angler in Longmere Lake near the river.

He had trouble finding any soil, too, because the ground was frozen and covered in snow. So Twait took dirt from his greenhouse. That is Alaska dirt sure to have been mixed with potting soil and fertilizer shipped north from the Lower 48, he said, making the soil he sent to Timmons not only part of Alaska but part of the new globalism that has shrunk the planet just as the Information Age has interconnected it.

While Twait was rounding up bits of Alaska, the Internet started a river of gifts flowing south to Michigan. Little pieces of Alaska arrived at Lundin's address from all over the 49th state.

"It didn't surprise me that people sent stuff," Lundin said. "Outdoorsmen stick together. But it surprised me the trouble they went to to send stuff."