I Don't Like Break-Up*

This is the only time of year for which I don't care, here in Alaska. The snow can be beautiful, with a fresh coat of white on it from late-winter flurries, slowly melting under the increasing hours of sunlight ...

or it may be showing the sand and gravel used for traction, ugly and black.

Since Anchorage is fairly sheltered from the rains, with mountains on three sides, it doesn't often rain very hard. Because of that, there are only a couple of places in town where storm drains have been installed.

Imagine black snow, melting ... heavy traffic at intersections ... and nowhere for the black water to go.

That black water splashes liberally all over your car or truck. Traversing intersections becomes a jaunt through walls of brown or black spray, coating the windows in successive layers of a grey slime which resists all the most stubborn of fluids. Wipers just smear it, and after only a few miles, it begins to feel as though you're piloting a deep-sea submersible, with only tiny portholes through which you can see.

The car washes are busy, each time the sun comes out, but nights sink well below the freezing mark, leaving doors and windows frozen shut, a situation with which drivers will wrestle, the next morning.

I know it leads to fertile soil, and the summer vegetation will eventually do what it always does: explode into a thick, lush forest in only a few days. Those "few days", however, won't happen until the ground temperature has warmed up considerably from its currently-frozen state. We don't get a proper spring season; we have summer, fall, winter, and mud.

But when those green leaves appear on the trees, all the ugliness of break-up will be forgotten once again, as we rush out into the summer activities which make the long winters worthwhile.


* That's what Alaskans call "Spring" - when ice on the rivers, lakes and streams begins to ... well, break up.