Should reductions make us more or less optimistic for the tractability of a problem?
What is missing from the analogy is some notion of the relative distances involved.  Let's replace Alaska in our analogy with the moon:

You're an explorer, searching for a bridge between the North American and Asian continents. For many months you have tried and failed to find a land bridge from the mainland United States area to Asia. Then you discover that the mainland US is connected by land to the moon.  You are already confident that the moon is a vast distance away from Asia, so you can now be confident that North America is also a vast distance away from Asia by the triangle inequality.