Springtime is Break-Up Time

Things are thawing out here in Alaska. I’d say we are just a day or two away from being able to extract my son’s homework from the driveway, which is now three months past due.

Spring, Alaska’s Ugly Season

Spring here is referred to as, “The Break Up.”

This is the time of year when ice begins to melt, and white snow turns to dirty snow, or slush. It’s hard to know whether the car should be in 4-wheel drive or 2-wheel drive, or whether you still need to keep out your winter boots with good treading.

It might not be fair of me to call spring in Alaska “ugly” because it’s still pretty. It just has such stiff competition. There is summer, the fan favorite, and there is the elegant beauty of fall. And then there is winter which has its own dramatic allure.

Summer

We moved to Soldotna during the summer. And everyone loves summer, especially summer on the Kenai Peninsula which is known as, “Alaska’s Playground.”

And, with the midnight sun only dipping briefly out of sight it’s not so much that you can’t sleep, but that you don’t want to sleep. A friend here told me in summer she feels like a “superhero” simply because with longer days, she does so much, and gets so much done. “You could be gardening and then you notice it’s 10pm!”

We spent the last month of summer (our first month living in Soldotna) in a cabin rental on a lake called Loon Lake. It is called that for a reason. The call of the Loon bird is spooky, especially listening to it at night or in the early morning mist. I love the sound. In case you need a reference, this is the sound of the loon. It’ll just take the first couple of seconds of the video to get it.

Fall

We moved out of the rental and into our new house at the beginning of fall. I only wish there were more Loons on this lake. Otherwise it is perfection.

Winter

Winter was the season I was most worried about.

All I heard from friends before we moved was:

“How are you going to handle those long dark winters?!”

“I could never do winter in Alaska.”

“Winter will suck!”

When I mentioned our move during my annual physical, my doctor prescribed me three different medications; one for depression, one for anxiety, and one for sleeplessness caused by anxiety, then she handed me a five page print out on SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and a list of top rated sun/light therapy lamps. I had not come in to ask for meds, but walking out with all those prescriptions for depression and anxiety had me feeling depressed and anxious.

Was I underestimating winters in Alaska? Could they really be that bad?

This vision of myself on a winter night began to haunt me. I am curled up in the corner of a dark house. From the moonlight streaming through the window you see I am cradling a broken sun lamp in one arm, and a bottle of vodka in the other. I am muttering to myself, but it is unintelligible. As we close in, we start to make out some words, something about why I had to kill my family? Suddenly the sun lamp flickers on, it’s fluorescent light reveals my face covered in blood. I turn and stare into the light, the muttering stops as I begin to laugh.

But…as it turns out, winter might be my favorite season. The deeper we got into winter the more stunning it became. I am perhaps in the minority here, but I don’t find winter depressing but inspiring.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures of everything and anything, including our driveway being plowed.

And I kept having to pull the car over to take photos of trees! By the way, note that winter isn’t non-stop darkness.

hoar·frost – /ˈhôrˌfrôst/ : A grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.

Also had to pull over and take a shot of our neighbors down the street.

No way could we call winter Alaska’s ugliest season. I’m ready for summer, but as winter melts away, I miss winter by visual comparison. Here is a photo of the same cabins.

I survived one winter without feeling the need for the meds, although I did turn on my sun lamp (“Happylight” as it is called) a few times. But it hurt my eyes. And that might be telling of why I probably fare better in winter here than most, and why summer here is a little harder for me. I’m not really into the sun or bright light in general.

Neither is my sister. Whenever we meet for lunch we fight over the seat facing away from the window. And by fight, I mean physically, to the point where customers turn and stare and the manager starts to walk over. Usually though we make an effort to avoid this by choosing restaurants with plenty of dark booths.

Of course, to be fair, from a travelers perspective spring is like any season here. It has its own set of adventures.

2 Big Reasons to Travel to Alaska in the Spring:

1. It is less expensive since spring is a shoulder season.

Well, that’s all I have to say about that.

2: Spring is when life emerges

This is the time of year bears come out of hibernation. Given the title of my blog I’m still determined to not be ironic and be mauled to death by one. And so we have been avoiding hiking trails at the moment.

Assuming travel opens up given the current covid-19 lockdown, we are hoping to drive to Seward to do a little whale viewing before spring ends. This is the time when the grey whale migrates to the Bering Sea passing through the fjords of Seward on the way.

There are all kinds of bird festivals to view their migration in the spring. This year, those festivals have been switched to on-line affairs. Will be interesting to see how that works out.

https://www.alaskacenters.gov/explore/attractions/wildlife-alaska/birds/bird-festivals

There is also the caribou migration in the northwest. A bucket list item for many.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/travel/caribou-migration-arctic-alaska.html

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