Want to know a few things unique to Alaskan living? Of course you do!
- It's rude to wear your shoes inside anyone's house without express permission to do so. Most people have a tiled or wood entryway or mud room that is closed off from the house or at least set aside to control snow and gravel tracking into the house. Of course an independently heated mud room like we have is really a luxury...it helps control heat loss from the house.
- Why is controlling heat loss important? Some houses here are heated with fuel oil, some with hot water piping and some with wood fires...or a combo of those. We have long heat radiators on the exterior walls of the house that continuously pipe hot water to heat the rooms. Each floor has its own temperature control and it's a fine art to get the heat set just right...I have to fiddle with them often and we leave all the doors open at night to help equalize temps. Connor's room gets atrociously cold unless we have all the doors open and ceiling fans on to help distribute heat evenly upstairs. The base has its own heat plant for water, which means I never have to worry about losing hot water for washing and baths. We could run both showers, the dishwasher and the washer at once and never feel the difference until...
- It gets COLD here. I just glanced out my window and it's about -16 F. That's not cold by December, where temps are regularly more between -20 and -40 F. The beauty of hot water heating is that it doesn't take nearly as much energy to heat but it depends a lot on houses being well insulated and the temperature being relatively static; dramatic swings leave the system panting to catch up. Which is why we can get in thumb-screws kind of trouble for opening the window below zero...the heat gets rapidly sucked out and the pipes freeze quickly, and burst. If it has a dramatic temperature swing you lose heat quickly and it's hard to get it back. Last year we had the hot water main on our street burst and boiling water was pouring down the street. They thought they would have to evacuate everyone to billeting -- after only half an hour without hot water, our house dropped to 50. Granted it was -45 outside so it was still positively balmy inside, but I was not pleased to be worried about baby popsicles. If the temp plunges dramatically, which is rare, the heat can have a hard time keeping up. You know it got cold when you go to open the shade and the condensation from the evening's sleep is frozen solid on the windows! All you can do then is close blinds to help retain heat, put everyone in a couple sweaters and crank the heat, particularly in the entryway between the garage and house.
- No one with any sense in Alaska goes anywhere without emergency kits and extra clothes. Everyone has heard a horror story about a woman veering off the road and not being found for three days, or a family forced to walk through snow drifts until they're finally found naked and partially eaten by wolves. I'm not sure how often that happens, but I had a scary experience of my own our first winter here. I slid off the road at a hairpin curve about 1/3 of a mile from our temp apartment (we had to wait til April for a house). It was about -7...cold, but not insanely so. I had no cell phone coverage. So I bundled Connor up as best as I could, put wool socks on my hands because I forgot my gloves, and started to walk to the apartment. I was four months pregnant with Timmy and had to carry Connor a good bit because the snow drifts were too much for a two year old. We were exhausted, shaky and numb with cold by the time we got home. I vowed then and there that I would never go anywhere without better supplies and we would invest in snow tires within the week. Done and done. It was a dangerous mistake.
- There are so many COOL things about this state. I love the ubiquitous coffee huts everywhere. It seems like everywhere there's a bare patch of dirt, one springs up as if coffee hut seeds had been sown. People are also extremely friendly -- once you're accepted as part of the Fairbanks milieu, you've never met a stranger. Of course the measure is usually how many winters you've spent up here. :-) There's a very neat counterculture "Just because America does it doesn't mean we do" vibe; I admire individuality and pure cussedness. I could do without Daylight Savings, because let's face it, it's useless here. Alaska could have stood a little "screw you guys!" spirit on that, but eh. I adore the fact that calling my son's school and telling them that a stuffed musk ox fell off a truck and is blocking traffic is not only a perfect valid excuse for being late, it's accepted without comment. I think the fact that my children call any large animal - cow, deer, etc -- a moose is neat, and that they know what a moose mating call sounds like is cooler still. I like that you can enter into a spirited debate about the relative merits of snow tires, boot brands, and wool vs bamboo socks with virtually anyone and each person leaves perfectly happy, convinced their conviction that Sorels beat Baffins hands down is still intact. I love that we treasure every moment of summer in a way no temperate climate could ever do, and live outdoors. I love ravens. I love red sassy squirrels. And while I may never want to settle here (did I mention the cold?) I can appreciate the amazing spirit of this place.
