Chapter IV More of Life in the Great North

 CHAPTER IV

More of Life in the Great North

(December 2021)

1.  Quirks and Curiosities 

Alaska is loaded with things you don’t see everywhere.  Some examples.  You go to Costco.  And what do you find standard on the shelf?  Bear Spray, of course.

You find other Alaska stuff at Costco.  They have those wagons people buy to haul their stuff to the park or the beach.  And next to those wagons?  You have sleds.  Not sleigh riding sleds.  But utility sleds.  Because if you’re in Alaska, and you need to haul stuff, you’ll be hauling it over snow and ice most the year round.

As everyone knows, hunting and fishing is big up here.  Freezers are full of salmon, halibut and big game.  If the Church hosts a ward dinner, it will likely be a fish fry.  As in our Chugach Foothills Ward, below.

And what have we here for dinner at the USO?

It’s moose chili.  And caribou chili.  To be honest, all spiced up, I couldn’t tell the difference between the two of them.   Nor the difference between them and beef.   But both were delicious.

B. Autumn Events

Reflecting upon Autumn 2021, I find a couple of events worth remembering.

The Attorney General of the State of Alaska, Treg Taylor, is an active member of our Church. As are many state and local figures. The Church, as a whole, is well respected and has excellent relations with government, education and other organizations in this region.

On 11 September 2021, one of our stake centers hosted a 20-Year Memorial of 9/11 attacks. The Governor of Alaska, Michael Dunleavy, attended and offered remarks. As did conservative and liberal politicians, choirs and speakers from several faiths, and representatives of different racial and cultural groups. It was a great event. With a theme remembering the fallen. And fostering a democracy with a respect and tolerance for the views of others.

Below is Governor Dunleavy enjoying refreshments in the Relief Society room. And speaking in the Stake Center chapel.

And here is an LDS Polynesian choir.

Also worth mentioning, is the Alaska State Fair. It’s like most state fairs, with the usual midway of rides and high-fat food concessions. And overall, the farm animals and agricultural produce don’t quite match those of states with longer and warmer growing seasons. But the long days of sunlight do make for some whopping pumpkins. Like this 900-pounder below:

  And the lumberjack competition is exciting.

C. Winter is Coming

Perhaps the locals find it all tedious.  But to me Alaska weather is exciting.  This Fall, North America experienced what some call a “weather dome.”   The “Lower 48” were under a ceiling of high pressure with record highs — continuing from last summer — in lots of places. While record cold clung to the upper North.  

I guess the bear and the moose knew the cold was coming.  Before the big blizzards hit, the bear disappeared — presumably off hibernating.   And the moose were out by the roads, chomping the last of the grass before it got buried.

On Veterans Day — November 11 — we got two feet of snow.  Here’s the scene from our deck:

By early December we’d had lots of snow.  And lots of temps well below zero.   One evening Doll and I were out making visits on base at 13-below.  (It wasn’t bad.  Actually kind of fun, if we made it quick in and out of the car.)   Some mornings we got temps like these:  23 below, over at Eagle River, where we often attend Church.

Cold yes.  But amazingly beautiful.   Here are the icicles to the left and right of our deck:

And pretty much everywhere you turn you have “over the river and through the woods.”  Numerous scenes like these right on our base:

An added bonus is the hoar frost.  Which we see a little of, now and then, in Utah.  But is kind of a special reward for the cold up here.  It does make even dead twigs kind of magical:

Or here you can see the snow and hoar frost doing its magic on our otherwise rather drab neighborhood:

Russia is just across the Bering Sea, and Russians were the first whites to explore this region. They warred, and traded, and married with the Inuit and other tribes. They brought Christianity. And much of their Russian culture remains. Anchorage has sizable Russian Orthodox community here.  This Church, about a mile from where we live, adds mood.  Especially in winter it's like a scene out of Doctor Zhivago.  

Doll and I have visited this Church. The Priest and people were mostly dark-skinned mixtures of 

Asian, Native American and Russian ancestry. They welcomed us warmly. And we hope to return often.

And that’s a question we’re asked by folks back home.  How long does it stay dark up there in Alaska?  Well, this picture helps explain.

There you have it. On 21 December, our shortest day of the year — the sun rose in Anchorage at 10:14 am, and set at 5:41 pm.  In short, the sun was up, clinging low to the southern horizon for about 5 ½ hours.  And on a clear that day, we’d have had that many hours of daylight.  And if it was stormy or overcast — with the sun that far south — it might have felt like a few hours of gray twilight between a long dark night.