Greetings from the north land. It is even feeling a little more like the north land this evening. We received a couple inches of snow today. There was very little wind with it and so it was a very pretty snow. Elva and I even went walking during the snow. They say the snow is here to stay until the end of April or so. This will be the longest I have seen continual snow cover. The previous longest was the year Marcia was born. That year it snowed Thanksgiving weekend and there was still snow on the ground when she was born on Easter, March 29. After that it was soon gone. That was about four months. This will probably be about six months. The temperatures are supposed to get down to about normal. It has been about 10 degrees above normal for the past couple weeks. Tonight it is to be about 2 degrees, tomorrow night about 2 below.
Last week we went to the Fairbanks Community Museum. These two pictures show three dog team sleds. The top picture shows the brake and the anchor. I had not thought about a sled needing a brake, but if one is going down hill the sled could go too fast for the dogs or for safety. The brake is right under the #2. The anchor is toward the rear of the sled. On the runners are black strips where the musher would stand. The strips appeared to be bicycle tires. The anchor is needed to keep the sled from being blown away in a strong wind during the night.
The one picture below shows two sleds. The bottom one is the oldest, about 100 years old. The shell is leather and canvas, the guide said they would just use whatever was available.
I thought this was a very interesting comment from a dog training manual.
Susan Butcher is very famous around here.
This is a model of a prospectors tent from about 100 years ago.
We also took a picture of a pipe carrying water up into the hills for the prospectors to use. "Placer gold" can be obtained most easily by using water to wash away the rocks and leave gold bits behind on the bottom of a pan (if panning for gold) or the bottom of a sluice box having dropped bottom portions to catch the gold. Gold is 19 times heavier than water so it easily goes to the bottom and the gravel can be washed away.
No, we did not find this gold nugget, this picture is from the web in an article about placer gold. Nearly all gold nuggets are much smaller than this.
We finally saw the northern lights Saturday night. But it was not a very good display. We tried to take pictures but the lights were not bright enough. We will keep trying. We missed a good display a week or so earlier. Many nights have been too cloudy.
Saturday night we went to a drama at UAF titled "Nickel and Dimed." It is about the problems encountered by the working poor. The drama is based on a book by Barbara Ehrenreich. She is a writer who took on the project to live as a working poor to see the problems they face. She tried to live for a month at a time at various minimum wage jobs. The amount of money the 400 richest Americans make every year is equal to the combined yearly income of the lowest 50% of all American workers.
Last weekend a woman at a bar saw her boyfriend with another woman. She went out to his pickup, knew where he hid a key, drove the pickup to the river about a block from our apartment and drove it into the river. She was found about five blocks away and admitted all she had done. Her alcohol blood level was about three times the legal limit for driving.
Elva and I have jobs now. She keeps the stairway clean and I keep the snow off the outside steps. We get a little bit taken off our rent for doing this.
God's blessings to all, both now and forever.
Larry
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