Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995
It’s been a quiet week in Nome. The sun’s coming up closer and closer to lunchtime now and it’s risky business walking downtown. We got a little bit of snow and then it got cold, the powder blew away, and a slick hard film coated the entire town: black ice. Chiropractor weather. Lousy footing for trick-or-treating. I’m probably not the only Nomeite who’s taken a bad fall on the ice, either. I had the right boots. I was taking the proper mincing steps. But I fell hard on my left hip just the same right in the middle of the street where the taxis and ATVs had rubbed the ice down silky smooth. I’ll admit that at that moment I was feeling a bit depressed about living in this little town by the sea. But for under $20 you can get some items in our stores that can push those cold-town blues away. They’re plastic. They come in purple, lime green, neon yellow, and bright pink. They’re sleds!
If Citizen Charles Kane’s dying word was “Rosebud” in Orson Welles’ 1941 epic “Citizen Kane” because he’d lost his childhood symbolized by his boyhood sled, then Mr. Kane would have loved the sledding we did behind Anvil Mountain recently. Okay, okay. There were only about 5 inches of snow on the tundra but that was more than we had in town. Besides, we had brand new sleds to try out! We drove to the top of the road, dragged our winter chariots out of the back of the Bronco, and lined them up on the tire ruts. A few boot kicks to the back of the sleds sent some joyful screaming boys down a long run between willow walls to the flats at the bottom.
Really cold towns need to do special things for the citizens to enjoy winter. Quebec City, Canada, puts in a long tobaggon run along the St. Lawrence. Marquette, Michigan, has giant ramp for ski jumping. Minneapolis hosts a carnival. The G.I.s stationed here during World War II even built themselves a rope tow and skied down Newton Peak into Hotel Gulch to drive their winter blues away.
We could use some downhill ski runs and a groomed sledding bowl around here. Maybe we could reactivate the old rope tow. Nome is a place for big ideas. You want to open a ski area? Want to start an annual ice-carving carnival? Go right ahead. We’ll all come out for it. We like homemade fun around here. This is a place where your wackiest dreams can come true. Look at our Labor Day Bathtub Race. Maybe we could try a street dance again (in bunny boots) if Ted and the boys are willing.
Nome’s Volunteer Fire Department filled the basin next to Centennial Park with water to freeze for ice skating again this year and I’m sure for a lot of people that will be their escape from the shroud of winter. But for me it’s sleds and snow and kids in ski masks scooting downhill. With the snow spraying from their green and yellow sleds and their mushers’ hat flaps flying, my boys looked like colorful alien puppies. That’s a memory of winter we will take with us. Little Charlie Kane would have had a blast.
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