94% Humidity & -11° F.

Those have been our overnight conditions for the last several days. Highs have ranged from -1 to 11 above.

Normally we'd have a very dry air mass in place, but not this time. If it's humid, we get snow. Or rather, we should get snow.

Here's what we get, instead.

Cold, and Getting Colder

"It's cold and it's getting colder. It's gray and white and winter all around ... And yet I know it's more than worth the waiting for another chance to see the summer sun, come on, shine on me."
  ~ John Denver, Season Suite (1972)

(The song quoted above begins at 4:30, if you want to hear just that one.)


It was 1° F. along the river as I began my morning commute to Anchorage this morning, and is a balmy 3° at work.

AccuHunch promises (for whatever that's worth) that the temps will fall to -5 in Anchorage, and -12 in my town tonight. Tomorrow will be roughly the same, or say they say. But there's no snow in the forecast, and humidity is practically non-existent, so there's also no frost. Frost is notoriously stubborn in subzero weather.

And there's good news to report: the days are already noticeably longer, and the lack of humidity means we have lots of blue skies and sunshine (while said sun is up). Sun shining on a thick snow cover makes the days seem even brighter, and that has most of us in a much better mood this year, compared to the last two or three years when we had very little snow.

* * * * *

The response to the latest chapter of the MHI Alaska book is underwhelming. It's my own fault: it appears I interpreted a few requests to continue it, as indicative of a larger demand than actually exists. It's probably why I stopped working on it, back in '15. Oh well, it's was a fun place in which to play, even for a while.

That's about all I have so far. Thanks for stopping by, friends.

Slice of Life: Anchorage, "A City That Knows Its Furs"

Speaking of things which get the PETA folks upset ...

Julia O'Malley: A city that knows its furs, and wears them to the grocery store

I'll tell you what I thought when I saw a guy at the grocery store in a full-length fox-fur coat the other day. I thought: "Anchorage, Alaska, you are awesome." And then I exercised restraint by not taking a photograph of him and posting it on social media.

Maybe I should have posted, though, because a perfectly average professional man, say a real estate agent or an corporate IT guy, in full-length fur at Carrs-Safeway gets at something about this place that you only understand if you live here. That is: Anchorage keeps it real. Fur-coat-in-the-grocery-store real. And this is why I love it.

If you've fallen for this twisted, gritty city like I have, then you know what I mean. To get this place, you have to be wooed by stunning juxtapositions, by the contrast between modern and ancient, picturesque and garish, conventionally corporate and singularly wild. Think the blazing fluorescent lights of a Holiday gas station against the backdrop the Chugach Range at sunrise. Think sled dog races down city streets in Fairview, past the Office Depot and the probation office and the cemetery. Think dude in his fur coat standing in the checkout line with a couple "reduced for quick sale" fryer chickens at Carrs in the Sears Mall. That guy isn't pretentious, even though he's wearing a clothing item favored by rappers and Paris Hilton. That guy is buying some chicken. And getting a good deal on it, too.

It being Fur Rendezvous, I got to thinking about our particular relationship with fur. Anchorage is a city where the wearing of fur -- serious and sometimes very expensive fur -- is totally commonplace and maybe even expected. People wear seal here. They wear vintage polar bear cuffs and wolf ruffs. They wear mink. No one thinks they're trying to send a message about status. No one makes assumptions about their politics. No one judges them for animal rights-y reasons. Why? Because look where we live. Look at that crazy, frozen moonscape out your window right now. You think boiled wool is going to touch that? Go ahead. Wear your little REI get-up in that bitter wind blowing in off the inlet. Give it an hour. Tell me you don't wish you had a beaver-skin hat. (I say this from experience, as someone who wears REI get-ups and does not have a beaver skin hat.)

... Ellen Arvold, who owns Second Run consignment store downtown ... prefers to think of her coats as "rescued" because they are not new. She's squeamish about chinchilla (they are cute), but outside of that, she has got no problems with fur and neither do her customers. It's just practical.

"When I am outside and it's 10 below zero I'm really glad I have on my fur parka," she told me.

(I'm speaking generally now about our locals being mellow about the wearing of fur. That does not mean we're all low-key. There are some outliers. Some self-conscious fur-wearing will occur out on the street this Fur Rondy week. You will see it. Like a pelt-y Halloween. There might even be some people rubbing in the killing of animals like it's some kind of special badge of being Alaskan. But it isn't. Advertising your carnivorousness in a state where a good proportion of people kill their own protein is like a short man buying a truck with novelty mufflers. It's best not to judge, but pretty easy to see through.)

Anyway. My fur curiosity lead me to visit to David Green Master Furrier on Fourth Avenue the other day. I was given a tour by David Green, who is the son of Jerry Green, who is the son of David Green, who founded the business in 1922. Young David and his wife, Shani, run it.

David's grandfather came from New York City, back when Manhattan had an dense and competitive fur district, he told me. It was a different time, before polar fleece and overseas garment factories. Grandfather David Green went west by rail, and then north by steamship, looking to make a name for himself as a furrier. He worked all over the state and settled in Anchorage in 1956. The remnants of his apartment and first fur shop are built into the now much larger anatomy of the modern-day David Green.

Over the years, the shop has outfitted mushers and generals' wives, cardinals, senators, beauty queens and Leonard Nimoy (That's Spock from the original Star Trek, for the youngsters. He is a cousin). They clean fur. They alter fur. They send their furs to customers all over the country and the world. Lately, East Coasters have been calling a lot thanks to the polar vortex. They do about half of their business with locals. The other half are tourists, internet customers and people they meet at hunting conventions Outside.

Read the rest here.