Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 “Why don’t they just put the land bridge back?” This was my five-year-old talking. We’d been standing around the National Park Service office here in Nome and we were looking at the Bering Land Bridge Preserve maps. He was confused about this ancient “bridge” talk and I’ll […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 It is a special thing to live by the sea. I have often taken it for granted, and I am always drawn back. The changes in the color, the waves, the smell, and the animals all put us human beings in touch with the most basic of […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 Three weeks of pampering wasn’t the real reason I went to Hawaii last December (although that was okay). I really went so I could swim in the bay where Captain James Cook was murdered 216 years ago.
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 It was a cool summer evening in the valley of Serpentine Hot Springs Creek as the 402 Cessna dropped us onto the dirt strip near the National Park Service cabin and bathhouse. We’d planned this trip even before we arrived in Nome last spring. Looking at the […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 There’s something about a Carhartts man that sets my heart aflutter; Is it the cloth or is it that color of mustard and peanut butter? Be he a carpenter, musher, or cook, or a man crushing rusty fuel drums; If he’s cloaked in the hues of mustard […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 I miss having toddlers in the house. Active, noisy, obstinate, and sometimes downright destructive, they’re also loving, enthusiastic and delightful. A toddler’s energy level also brings out the active, noisy, obstinate nature of a lot of adults, too. Just ask someone who has just returned from grocery […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 My father loved trains. Oh, he put pennies on the track in Ohio for the Nickel Plate to crush and he set up a Lionel train under the Christmas tree every year like a lot of other kids. But then he got serious.
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 Alaska had a kind of a birthday last week: the 253rd anniversary of landfall by voyagers from the Old World. I had pictured Vitus Bering leaving his ship the St. Peter in a floppy little velvet cap like you see in portraits of Christopher Columbus, standing in […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995 With special thanks to Leo Rasmussen for providing historical details. It was in 1975 that Nome’s famous burled arch was first used as the finish marker for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Carl Huntington of Galena won the race in 1974 (in 20 days) but it was […]
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994 A great culling process began the day we moved to Nome. The really great friends are being separated from the pretty good ones. And it’s all because we don’t live in Anchorage.
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