Dogs, dogs and dogs with a little ice thrown in

Well, the sunlight has come pouring back and daylight savings time has certainly helped. We are gaining about 6 minutes a day and now it gets light-ish at about 7 am (I don't have to wear a headlight whent aking Fred out for his morning walk) and dark-ish around 8:30 pm. And it was getting warmer. We were waking up int he teens and then hitting mid-twenties during the day. Until this weekend when it went back to the mid minus twenties.

During the "warming spell" folks actually broke out their sleeveless tops to wear indoors under sweatshirts outdoors. Saw many kids in cut-offs and even a man in sandals and socks. But now it is cold again.

The Yukon Quest, the Best long distance race, started on February 14 in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada and ended in Fairbanks around the 27th. Since this is the organization I work for, I had a ring side and back stage seat for all the activities. What an amazing adventure. 1000 miles of back-country sledding day and night averaging about 3 hours sleep every couple of days...and the first and second place finishers came in within 2 minutes of each other. It was quite an exciting race and all about the dogs. Each time a team came in and stopped at the finish line, and teams of "petters" were assigned to each pair of dogs. Then after a few minutes, the dogs would settle down and curl up for a rest.

After all the musher have come in, including the Red Lantern (or last place finisher) who came in about 5 minutes after the next-to-last place finisher, the only thing left was the finish banquet which I was responsible for.   400 guest, losts of awards, great stories, and even two rare steaks for the winner's lead dogs. The Quest office used this as a fund-raiser and one of the things we tried to sell was this fur coat.



Now that the Quest is over, things have quite calmed down since I am now working only one job full time at the University. That is quite wonderful since I no longer have to run from one place to the next every day.

David had the chance to go on a survying trip to Tok for a few days, but ended up getting a "stomach thing" which took all the fun out of the chance to be away.

The Iditarod started out of Anchorage on March 7 and David and I were there. We left Fred home and stayed in Anchorage both for the ceremonial start on the main streets in Anchorage on Sat. and then the real start on Willow Lake in Willow on Sunday. The ceremonial start is like a big party where each musher loads a paying customer (the Idiar-rider) into his basket and drives them a few miles out of town. They bring snow in to make a trail down the main street of Anchorage and there is a lot of festivity. / The dogs are all transported in "dog trucks" which are pick-up trucks with boxes on the back with compartments for each dog. Dogs are hauled out or shoved in depending on their needs, then curl up and wait for the next activity.

The favorite musher of the Yukon Quest was Newtown Marshall, from Jamaica, of all places. Here we are at the ceremonial start of the Iditarod.

Then on Sunday morning everyone packs up and goes about 2 hours down the road to Willow Lake where there is a whole different ball game. Now there is no party, just serious mushers, many, many barking, jumping dogs and a real race. Every two minutes one of 67 mushers is sent off for his 9-12 day journey. Wow! Here is a shot of the staging area where all the dogs will get attached to their proper lines.





And they're off! The weird thing is that this is taking place on a lake!!



Back home we now have the Winter Carnival with the highlights of the Ice Carving Contest and the sprint dog races.  We have a world class ice carving competition here with single block and multi block competitions.  The carvings are all displayed in an RV park and lit up at night.  A large part of the park is devoted to ice slides, and climbing things for kids.  Lots of fun and quite beautiful.  This attracts carvers from all over the world.                



                   

     

Now it has gotten cold again...a bit windy and in the -20's once again.  And its the middle of March!  Brr!

What's 96 degrees between friends

Well, from New Year's Day until about January 13 we have been at -45 and lower every day. Of course, from Christmas Day we have been at -30 and lower. Friday, January 16 we hit +51. By my count that's a 96 degree difference. 

Check out David out surveying on one of the colder days.  Notice he looks a bit hazy.  Here in Fairbanks, which is in a bowl, we have the wonderful ice fog whcih develops because the air does not absorb moisture in such cold temperatures, there is no wind to dissipate it and the cold weather creates temperture inversion.  Science aside, it is mind boggling.  We live in the hills and do not have ice fog.  We come down into Fairbanks on a long, hill and the town virtually disappears.  I mean, you cannot see your hand in front of your face.  Our house..blue sky, bright sun.  Fairbanks.. nothing!

Taking my glvoes off to pick something up outside results in red, red hands.  HOWEVER...everyone goes on quite normally.

Now...at 35, 40.50 ab0ve zero.  Everyone is grumbling.  The snow has melted and the trees have lost their magic.  We spent two nights lying away as the snow avalanched off our roof making the hosue shake.  Now there is no snow and the skiers and mushers are getting quite cranky.  Since the ground is still cold everything is slippery and now we have many accidents.  Fred and I are outside in light clothing.

Several funky things about cold, cold weather.  When I threw hot water into that cold air, it vaporized. And, a banana set outside until frozen can be used to drive a nail into a tree.

David and I went to Chena Hot Springs in the cold, cold.  What a hoot. 104 in the water and -45 on the outside.  Look at the new do's for us both.

On a lovely ride last week in our continuing exploration of the area we came across a mama moose and her youngster.  Fred was extremely well behaved and did not make a sound!

We have one car which means that David and I go to work together each and every day.  To his credit, David does all he can to expidite a speedy exit for me..he makes my coffee, breakfast and lunch.  But, in my defense I have to get dressed. make-up, jewelry and take Fred for his morning walk.  So, I am not always ready when David hopes.  How do I know?  As I am running around gathering up this and that to take with me, all I have to do is look to the bench by the door.And there he sits, silent as a tomb, waiting, waiting and waiting.  I keep telling him not to get dressed so early, but I guess hope springs eternal.

On we go!

And on we go.

Faceless in Fairbanks

Well, it is December 30 and it is truly cold...and has been for the past 3 days. It has gone down to -40 and seems to be staying there.This is how I look now when I go outside.  Its no easy task between getting me loaded up with clothes and then Fred outfitted as well.  We had two neighborhood families for dinner the other night, and between taking clothes off and putting them back on, many minutes went by.

We actually did go outside and throw boiling water up into the air and watched it evaporate.  Wow!  Quite funky.  Of course, nothing changes.  Life does seem to go on.  However, if it does not "warm" up to -20 by next Saturday, we cann ot go ice fishing.  We have reserved an ice house on Chena Lake, with 4 holes, two seats and a wood stove.  However, the borough won't auger out the holes if it goes below -20, and since we do not have an ice auger, we might be out of  luck.  Oh well.  Only time will tell.

On Christmas day we went to North Pole to see their ice park sculptures as a pre-curser to the big show downtown in Fairbanks in February.       the highlight, for me, was the ice slide, which, of course, I just had to try.The big baby strikes again!

We have been to several great holiday parties, the latest at our neighbors.  All are potlucks with great, great food.  Not only wase verything homemade, but the turkey we ate was home grown and the berries on the pies were picked this su

mmer!  Great fun at gift exchanges which are always chinese auctions where you can "steal" a gift if you don't like what you have chosesn.David made quite a hit in his Vietnamese holiday vest.

In the category of "Only in Fairbanks". this was posted in freecycle the other day:  A woman was giving away a dead goat to be used for dog food.  Quite a popular item around here since there are so many dogs.  Usually we see offers for freezer burned meat to be given away.  This was the first time I saw a newly dead goat offered up.  YUP!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Winter is Here

Well, it is now December, the solstice has come and gone and we are now gaining seconds of sunlight rather than losing minutes of daylight.  we now have about 3 hours and 45 minutes of sunlight which means that the sun rises around 11 am and goes down about 2:45.  however, the dawn is quite long as is the dusk and the dark is wonderful.  Bright starry nights with the moon twinkling on the snow and auroras lightly skimming the sky. 

David has a job with Design Alaska which is a general engineering firm right in Fairbanks which is quite community minded and is a prominent sponsor of the symphony and public radio.  The folks that he works with are all very interesting, as are all of the people in Fairbanks.

I am still working two jobs, one a the Yukon Quest and one at the University while hoping that the University job finally comes through as a staff position rather than a contract one.  I finally had an interview, and now am waiting to take a computer literacy test, of all things.  The wheels of acadmia grind very slowly.

The job at the Yukon Quest has offered some amusing moments.  I am now in charge of events and put on a Hawaiian Lua fundraiser in December full of sand, leis and, as you will see, coconuts.  We had to come in costume and David, we did not have his photo taken was in shorts and long underwear bottoms and a Hawaiian shirt which he insists on wearing to work.

The Yukon Quest 1000 mile race is coming up on February 14, so to get prepared David and Iwent to a 100 mile race that started about 10 miles up the road from us.  Silly us.  We thought that sled dog racers were spectator sports, but about 10 minute after we got there, after asking what we could do to help, we found ourselves holding lines while dogs were snapped on, holding dogs, and then running like crazy while haning on to lines and dogs while the sled drove to the start line.  That was quite scary because 12 dogs on a line are so, so powerful; there were too many lines and too much bumpy snow and too much speed to cross a tiny, short space.  I was scared I would fall and get my leg snapped off. 

The dogs were incredible.  Silent as could be when they were in the dog boxes atop the trucks and howling, jumping and screaming when they were on the line waiting to go.  But all good natured and friendly, allowing one and all to haul them around. this is a shot inside a dog box and the next shot shows the dogs outside the box. Once they were at the start line, off they went! Here are David and I as we watch the race. Notice, you can see our eyes, nose and mouth.  This contrasts nicely to the next outfit we were wearing.  I, ignorantly asked what next we could do and was told that we should man the nighttime road crossing.  Well, this involved waiting for a phone call which told us to be a the point where the trail crossed the main road at a certain time and then making sure that we stopped the cars and tracked the teams as they crossed to road for their two hour home stretch.  This was after their 5 hour first leg, 4 hour layover and then about 3 hour trip back to the road crossing where they would thent ravel about another 2 hours to the finish line.  Didn't seem too bad. 

The call came to be at the crossing at 10 pm for the first team that was scheduled to cross at about 10:30.  2 pairs of long underwear, lined pants, 2 long underwear tops, sweater, snowsuit, 3 pairs of socks, jacket, neck gator, scarf, hat, hand warmers and mittens for each of us.  We were unrecognizable...but it was -8.  What we did not know was that, although the first team would, indeed cross at 10:30 (Lance Mackey..the reigning champ), Lucy, the last musher would cross 5 hours later!!!  BRR!!!

Would we do it again.  You bet.

A few weeks earlier, we had decided that we too could be mushers and borrowed a harness for Fred and bought a child's plastic sled from WalMart,and went to Dog Musher's Hall where the real mushers go.  First we let Fred run with the harness and just the sled.  Then I sat on it...and he sat down, turned around and seemed to say, "What the hell?"as you can see, Fred and I make quite a team!!!

There seems to be a common expression here which goes..."only in Fairbanks" and the other day that seemed to be true.  I was downstairs in the Yukon Quest building, which is a lovely log cabin on the banks of the Chena River when one of my co-workers called down the steps..."There's a lady coming through the doors with a reindeer.  Of ocurse, the rest of us came crashing upstairs, and sure enough, for no apprent reason, a woman had walked in leading her pet reindeer by a red lead.  Coca was quite friendly and cow-like and very tiny with giant, thin antlers.  We took a photo and then she strolled on out and we all went back to work.  Yup!

 

We are quite enchanted with the scenery since the angle of the sun on the winter trees is magnificent.

This is also the beginning of ice sculpture season, with many businesses having them sprout in front of their entrances.  This was taken outside of David's office and on Christmas Day we are going to North Pole to see their ice park.  The big festival is in Fairbanks in february and we can't wait.

Life in Alaska

David and I spent the greater part of September and part of October looking for a job.  This meant that every morning we would get up and try to 'share" the computer as we did our job search work.  Many resumes and many letters of inquiry liberally mixed with walks in the woods and trips around Fairbanks.

The people here are so nice and have been so helpful.  Everyone we have spoken to has given us job leads and suggestions and they paid off.  David has started his job at Design Alaska, a very community minded long time all purpose engineering firm in Fairbanks.  I was directed to do volunteer work at the Yukon Quest, the 1000 Whitehorse to Fairbanks ( or vice-versa every other year) which has been very satisfying.  The people in the office are wonderful and, of course, the dog sled is so quitessentially Alaskan.  And the vocabulary...mushers, dog drops, check points, handlers, vet checks, pilots to fly dogs here and there.  And the stories.  One woman musher has been on dog sleds since she was a few months old.  Her mother, a musher, lived on a trap line 50 trail miles from the stores.  Once she was strapped to the sled and her mother lsot the dogs and off they went.  The little girl was found a few miles down the trail still in here little box that had jiggled off the sled.  Or the musher who found she was pregnant whilerunning a race in which she had an accident and got a concussion...and, by the way, found she was pregnant. What a world.  But I can bring Fred when I go in and he is quite a hit.

I really want a job at the University.  I met a woman at synagogue whose husband helps chair the Resilience and Adaptation program and she suggested to him that I would be a good coordinator.  Thsi is a wonderful PhD program that takes an interdisciplinary, holistic approach at training scientists, policy makers and advocates and academians to look at problems affecting the circumpolar north.  I went to an all day colloquium during which some of the students presented their papers.  Wow!  Traveling with carabou; working far out in villages; looking at water issues for folks who pump water directly from rivers and on and on.  Right now I am working as a contract employee putting together their website, hoping that I can apply for the coordinator job hen it is offered. 

Lots of fun, but now we have very little play time.

We took a wonderful trip into the White Mountain area outside of Fairbanks before we got our jobs and spent a day in snowy mountain paths.  We also went past a gold dredge.  In the course of a conversation at the Obama headquarters with one of the field staff we told about our little trip and the gold dredge.  She said, "Oh yea.  My mother owns it."  and then she just kept talking.  'Stop!"  We shouted.  Go back and explain.  And sure enough, her mother a historian, bought the thing and 50 tailings acres to save it from being torn down.  We will get a tour.

We also stopped at a campground and saw a spooky, empty tent covered with snow, and then, further down the trail a snow cat. Strange.

The next weekend Fairbanks held an Obama rally.  David and I volunteered to stand on a streetcorner with signs advertising the rally.  Street corner standing is what you do here. Not my favorite activity.  But the rally was fun, especially the pig.What was even stranger is that everyone knew the pig and the woman who owned her.

Having great fun and looking forward to Thanksgiving in Homer.