A different wintery world

I came across this old email I sent when Ad and I were living in Alaska in 2005 and I thought it was worth posting here, it tells of such different days and made me realise our winters here are really not so tough. Happy (re)reading ...

"Hello again from the roof of the world!

I'm sitting in our new cabin looking out over the tallest mountain range in the US. The wind is whipping some snow from the rooftop, little birds dart around the birdfeeder and occasionally there's a squirrel that doesn't know it should be hibernating. Thankfully the solstice is edging its way into the past and we're gaining about half an hour of daylight a week. The path the sun takes is so short that we can watch it rise (around 10:30 am) and set (around 3:30 pm) from the same window.

Just before we moved here there was more snow in 2 days than all winter so far. The owners of the cabin couldn't leave the mountain until the snow plough truck had come through. Hopefully it won't happen again for a while, although the thought of being stuck up here for a few days is somewhat appealing. It's 10 to 20 degrees warmer up here than down in town and today it's around 30 below in town, but I'm guessing it's only about 15 below up here (which is probably why there are still squirrels running around). A few nights ago we came home to some very strange tracks in the snow outside our front door. They were bigger than my hand and had long claw marks. We're not sure what critter is wandering around outside but the candidates appear to be a bear (unlikely because they should be hibernating), a lynx (apparently there are a few in the area) or a wolverine!!! We're anxiously awaiting a flesh and blood sighting (ok, maybe not blood), and as I climbed the snow track up to the road yesterday to get firewood, I couldn't help but imagine a black bear watching me.

Ad's been spending the last few days down at the research station collecting muskoxen poo. Ahh the joys of his work. He comes home at night proclaiming "my next job will NOT involve poo", but we shall see. The long hours of research watching muskoxen sleep are thankfully behind us. The weather was unseasonably warm for the first week of our observations (which was when we had the huge snowfalls), so Ad decided to extend it for another week to catch some cold-weather behaviour. You gotta be careful what you ask for because it then hit minus 50! The little heaters in the hide struggled to keep up and I plugged draughts with toilet paper during the graveyard shifts.

The funding didn't come through so we're living on the breadline, but that's ok. It's a real shame I can't work but I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to slow down. I'm baking and knitting every day, learning how to spin yarn and riding out the joys and pitfalls of being a stay-at-home spouse. We'll probably wrap things up here in a few months and hit the road for a couple of months.

Other snippets of life here in Alaska:

• the Aurora has been really active lately and we can sit in our cabin in the warmth of the log fire and through enormous windows watch the dazzling display of green ribbons stretch and contract across the entire sky, feeding itself in some parts and withering away in others. Better than any fireworks display I've ever seen. Last night I watched it from bed.


• We're sick to god-damned death of SNOW. The roads are slippery (Ad had a prang the other night (at 50 below!), he's ok, everyone's ok, and we've skidded up to more than a few red lights, occasionally slipping all the way through them.
  
• The TV is awful, "Everybody loves Raymond" is on every channel at every minute of the day. WE don't love Raymond.


• The coins don't have denominations written on them, just "dime" or "nickel" and Ad's been here 6 months and still doesn't know which is which.


• There's no town centre, and the concept of a shopping mall hasn't taken off here: it's just a big sprawling mass of streets with each store having its own carpark. You drive to one store, get out into the cold, buy your groceries, go back into the cold, get in your car, wait for 10 minutes for the engine to warm up and dive to the next store, get out into the cold, etc. I figure it's just too expensive to heat a shopping mall.


• Driving is a big thing and it's so cold that the car exhaust doesn't dissipate, but hangs around in big stinky clouds.


• Coffee? I've all but given up. Last week I ordered a macchiato and out came a huge weak cappuccino. Just wrong!


• The scenery is spectacular and everything has frosting: pine trees covered in snow, letterboxes covered in snow, rooftops with a foot and a half of snow on them like the icing on a Christmas cake . Dog mushers dashing through the snow, chimneys, smoke.


• Probably most surprisingly, the people are great! Everyone I've met! They're so keen to tell you to have a nice day and stay warm that you'd think it was just a robotic response, but I really think it's sincere. Everyone is so keen to lend me things, I've been lent books, clothes, a wool spinner. It's a truly hospitable place.

Well, better go refill the bird feeder, need to put on a hundred million layers to go outside.

Stay cool and stay in touch. Lots of love Tan & Ad xx (19 Jan 2005)