Jack has been busy working and plowing our neighborhood after the recent rain and heavy snow Fairbanks received. We had to keep ourselves warm with our wood stove and use our generator to watch a movie (cable/internet never went out!). Here’s an article about it in the Washington Post and a few photos.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/12/28/alaska-record-temperatures-climate/
There’s a section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline north of Fairbanks that is threatened by thawing permafrost, and steps are being taken to prevent or mitigate damage. Jack says the work is not visible from the Dalton. We’ll provide photos in the future if they become available, but for now here are some of the thermosyphons that are used to keep the permafrost cold under the pipeline, photos taken by us several years ago at about 26 Mile Dalton.
The below image is from Inside Climate News, Arthur Chapman via Flickr Creative Commons.
Last September we spread our old buddy Sport’s ashes at a lookout on the Dalton. This is a spot he was with us at back in 2014. You can see 360 degrees. It’s a beautiful place.
Rest in Peace Sport, we miss you!
Happy 2020! Jack has been seeing very cold temperatures up on the Dalton. It’s been as cold as 40 below around Fairbanks but closer to 60 below up north. Here are some photos from the recent weeks. Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and has a terrific 2020!
Click here to go to the Anchorage Daily News and find out what happens at these cold temperatures.
Call it sunrise or sunset, whatever you want, but the sun has officially shown up in Prudhoe Bay (the photo was taken the 21st of January). From November 24th to January 17th it doesn’t break the horizon but on the 18th it’s just above the horizon for about an hour. During those two months it’s not pitch black all day but instead it’s varying degrees of twilight for a couple of hours each day. On the 19th of January it’s up for an hour and a half, 30 minutes more than the day before, and each day more and more light is gained, though the gain slows down to about 12 minutes a day by the end of January. So people who live and work up there notice a drastic increase in light over this time. At the beginning of February the length of day is about 5 hours and by the end of February it’s about 9.5 hours! At March 21st the length of day is about 12.5 hours and by the 15th of May the sun never sets! This is all according to the website http://www.timeanddate.com (and corroborated by Jack 😉 ).
Well at least the top corner of it did on January 7th. It appears that snow fell on a majority of states in the continental US in January. These images are from the NASA Earth Observatory website – the one of the southwest was taken quite recently, January 28th.
Have you guys been watching Dr. Dee: Alaska Vet on Animal Planet? Jack and I love it! Dr. Dee is the most adorable, funny, amazing woman. And we know this for a fact since we took our two dogs and two cats to her over the years. Every interaction with Dr. Dee is a positive one, since even when you’re putting your pet down she is as insightful and endearing as is possible at that moment. The same goes for her staff – they are all very caring and terrific people.
Dr. Dee: Alaska Vet shows the surgeries she does on a variety of animals, and she flies her bush plane out to various towns and villages. The animals featured are dogs and cats of course, but also birds, horses, goats, and once, a bull.
A few years ago when a production company was filming a teaser about her to try to sell to a cable company, Jack made a cameo with our dog Sport. Here are photos, click on the first one and scroll to the right.
And by the way, production people like the ones shown below are highly professional and friendly people. That is the experience Jack had with all of the guys and gals who came up here to shoot Ice Road Truckers, and we want to make sure that everyone understands how great they are at their jobs.
You’ll love Dr. Dee! You can watch video clips on the Animal Planet website, and also full episodes.
In June, Jack and I went south on the Alaska Highway to camp and came across this construction site with a new culvert going in. More info on the photos. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
Recently Fairbanks and the surrounding areas have been getting a lot of rain. So when Jack and I visited the Chena Dam the other day the floodgates had been lowered in order to prevent high water from flowing downstream toward Fairbanks. This results in the river backing up into the reservoir area behind the dam but saves Fairbanks as it has many times since it was built almost 40 years ago.
Dermot Cole of Alaska Dispatch News wrote in 2014 when the floodgates were lowered then that Fairbanks’ “most effective flood insurance policy … takes the form of an unusual dam with four 30-ton gates that operate like giant garage doors, stemming the flow of high water when the river rises. The floodgates are one element in an extensive federal flood control project that cost a quarter-billion dollars by the time of its completion in 1979.”
Click on the first photo and scroll to the right to read the captions.
For more info: a slideshow on the Army Corp website and this pamphlet for a little more in depth information.
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