This and That in Interior Alaska

Today is December 19th 2008. Big day tomorrow in Fairbanks. We will be celebrating the winter equinox downtown complete with caroling,
Events include
Window Decorating Competition
Gingerbread Man Chase
Rudolph the Real Reindeer
Fireworks over the Chena River

This sounds almost as exciting as the mother daughter look alike contest I attended in Nenana during their Ice Classic. More on this exciting event in a later post.

My wife and I plan on attending tomorrow nights event, and hopefully I can take some meaningful pictures for a future post. The most important thing is the fireworks. Reminds me of when I first arrived here. I was listening to the radio and the announcer was all excited that she was going to the lower 48 during the 4th of July. And for the first time, she would see fire works on the Fourth of July when it is dark! Without that pesky sun being in the way.

One thing I would like to discuss is the animal life here in the Interior during the winter.



During the summer this place is bountiful with wild life, especially the birds. I used to drive 50 miles to Grand Island, Nebraska, just to see some Sand Hill Cranes. Here all I have to do is look across the river and see them grazing in the grass.


From our home in the winter, the only wild life we see are moose, chickadee (see picture), ravens, and once in a while the occasional resident squirrel, Rocky. I am sure there is more out there, for I do see the occasional rabbit, in their winter coat, run across the road.

Now in the summer, we have seen from our home, porcupine, coyote, fox, ducks, Great Horned Owls, mink, otter, beaver and the winter residents.

One other animal we get here starting in December through March is tourist. Yep you heard me right tourist! This year we expect about 7000 visitors from Japan. This started in 2004 and has increased every year since then. Japan Airlines (JAL) fly’s a direct flight from Japan to Fairbanks. The reason is the tourist comes here to see the Northern Lights.

Starting in December to March, we get little cloud cover which makes viewing of the Northern Lights ideal. Here is a good post on why the Japanese are fascinated with the lights and why it is just starting to take off. This article was written in 2007.

Oh one more thing, by the official count at the airport we have 28.2 inches of snow, 6” below normal. And right now it is -10 degrees. And we received a moderate snow fall in the past 7 days. Monday, I tried to capture our snow fall. If you look at this picture you can see in the background the white in the atmosphere, which is our snow. It comes down as a single or two or three flakes combined together. Very fine snow.

Well that’s about it for now. Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas. Looks like a lot of you will have a white Christmas in the lower 48 with all that snow, ice and wind. Better up here where you are all welcomed

The Misses and I will be having dinner at Two Rivers Lodge

Jim

December in The Interior

Thought I would start out with a picture from our back door. This looks down to our garden, and then down the Chena River. Right now It is a - 4 degrees F with snow flurries. We have received about 8 inches of new snow this past week. And unlike New Orleans, whose snow has melted, ours will stay here till April, giving us plenty of opportunity to play.

Thought I would discuss what surprised us about December here.

When we first arrived in North Pole 5 1/2 years ago, we noticed that a lot of people still had their outside Christmas decorations up. Well we thought maybe a lot of rednecks had come here to escape the south. That September, we were sitting in the Badger Den talking to this gentleman, when he said he had to leave to go put his Christmas decorations up.

I asked him why so early. His reply, I would rather do it in 50 degree weather than in December when it could be -30 degree F. Good point!! This probably helps explain why people leave them up year round, cause you really cant take them down till it warms up in April. Plus we are at the North Pole where it is Christmas 24/7.

Our first Christmas here we noticed that there were no Christmas tree sales on every corner like there was in Omaha. In fact, I learned of only one organization that sold trees, and that is the
Kiwanis Club, who sell their trees at the fairgrounds, inside!

To get you in the Christmas spirit I have posted a video at the end of this post, of our home at this time of year. Please ignore my heavy breathing.


The picture on the left was taken about two weeks ago, same shot of the first picture above, however here the sun is up. Notice the hills in the background are lit by the sun, but the trees below it are in the shadows. This was taken at about two in the afternoon.

What I am trying to show here is the sun does not rise very high in the sky during the day during the winter. This leads me to our next major event here in December, winter solstice.

This will occur on December 21. Why is this important here, means we will start getting longer days of day light. That day will be our shortest day of day light. The sun will rise at 10:59 and set at 2:40 PM. To celebrate this, the city of Fairbanks plans a celebration, just like they do for the summer solstice. Celebration

Reading the link above, I did not know that the sun is actually closer to the earth at this time than it is during the summer. The reason it is colder is because of the tilt of the earths axis. Never stop learning.