I drove out last weekend to catch the sunrise. Our January was full of crisp, clear days with many blue skies and temps ranging from 34°F to -24°F!
We’ve had our share of brisk winds in January, dropping the temp much further than the thermometer shows. This last Saturday I drove to the “end of the road maintenance” sign, sat there for a while and ventured about a mile beyond to a high point of the Nome-Council road. The gravel road’s snow cover has been packed down to a width of 1.5lanes, just enough to comfortably trek out and not panic if a vehicle came at you from the opposite direction. I hopped out of my 4Runner and regretted my “high point” location decision, as the wind-chill was far greater than the area closer to the beach. I covered every inch of me with multiple layers, but sadly still had to remove my gloves to set up my camera and tripod.
🥶
Left: Snowmachiner taking their wooden basket sled out to camp. Top: Cabin at Fort Davis area, frozen Bering Sea beyond Bottom: Sledge Island in the distance, cabins “camp” in the middle.Here comes the sun!
I stood in the middle of the empty road, checking every couple minutes for vehicles that never came. Saturday mornings in Nome are usually pretty quiet. I watched the sun rise above the frozen Bering Sea, casting long rays of warm light over frigid tundra. When I could no longer feel my fingers or my face, I packed up and climbed back into the Toyota, heading for home.
I passed almost a dozen snowmachiners on my way back into town, some with guns slung on their backs/fronts, some with passengers, some with cargo sleds. I passed a gang of trash-ravens flying to find their morning spoils (we’ve been having some refuse-removal delays the last month or so). I passed two fat-bikers, (not fat bikers) and a gutsy runner in the negative temps.
Frozen Selfie! 🥶
Nome winters are not for the faint-of-heart, but the adventurer in me loves the seasonal changes and “only in Nome” moments that always occur. Yesterday my coworker and I had to rally up a bank of a main road because the two closest access streets were completely drifted close, with stuck vehicles in the middle. The drift on one was +6 feet high!
Whenever I speak with lower-48 folks about Alaska and they mention the “6 months of dark,” it’s hard to explain the interesting phenomenon that is “losing and gaining daylight” to the extreme that Alaska sees. I always rejoice when I can finally get off work and the sun has not yet set. It’s even more a blessing when I can drive to work in daylight. 🙂
Today our outpatient clinic was closed thanks to a huge windstorm regularly gusting to 50mph that has also knocked out our internet and created more huge drifts. So I snuggled up on the couch with books and cups of coffee, looking forward to more sunny days and upcoming opportunities to be out and about in it.
Today is my 6th Nome-iversary, marking 6 years since I stepped off the plane and walked down the wet stairs in cold sideways rain, all the while wondering what I had gotten myself into. Within 30minutes I had collected my luggage and the dear Hobbs family had collected me and driven away from the airport, only to find out the Nome Police Department was already looking for me! My new coworker had apparently planned to pick me up instead, and she was married to a trooper… so after not finding me at the airport, she had her trooper husband call the Nome Police Department, who called another soon-to-be dear friend RuthAnn, who called Carlee Hobbs, my only other known Nome contact. 🙂 It was a funny welcome to this sub-arctic wildwest place.
Nome Blues.
I recall my biggest misconception about Nome being that I was moving to a “Hub village.” I later realized that thanks to a city council, mayor, schoolboard, paved streets, 2.5 grocery stores, 9+churches, 2 gas stations, 8+ restaurants, numerous alcohol-serving establishments, a Subway/1 screen movie theatre combo… I had really just moved to a very small, zero-stoplight town.
I went through Facebook and started pulling off photos that I thought were good representations of this place… and realized I have hundreds. 🤷♀️ Below are my “first impression photos”
Canine Copilot, no rolled down windows needed.
Creative and resourceful flower pots.
Permafrost creates ankle-twisting sidewalks.
Need a 4×4.
Big summer blowout.
Safety Sound.
Bonfire prep.
Fishing with muskox on the Nome river.
Beach finds.
I recall a fitting description I gave of Nome to some friends as we were driving around town those first few months. I told her “everything in Nome seems tiny and scrappy.” Houses are small, often very weatherworn thanks to the salty storms that come in from the Norton Sound/Bering Sea. Sidewalks, if present, are well worn and very uneven thanks to permafrost [Bering Street is getting a beautiful makeover as I write this, though!].
Digging out the fourwheeler in April. It started right up!
My first and last snowbank dive.
There’s a whole porch behind this drift.
We don’t often get “gently falling snow.” It frequently comes as sideways snow, as evidenced by this alleged stop sign.
“It’s a Nome car,” we say, as we excuse the mud-coated automotive paint, gas tank covers that require a pen/tire pressure gauge to be forced open, multiple blinking lights on the dashboard, low-but-terrible mileage on the odometer after 1000 one-mile trips, and thick layers of dust inside acquired from our dusty wind tunnels down the unpaved street.
“White Alice” towers, cold war leftovers, on top of Anvil Mountain.
My mom visited me once and asked, after making a grocery store stop, if we had enough time to drop the groceries off before driving out to a friends. I smiled at her and replied, “Mom, everything in Nome less than 5minutes from everything else. Of course we have plenty of time.”
Jr/Highschool, NACTEC, charter middleschool, Anvil Mountain Correctional Center, and mining ops in foreground. Port of Nome and Nome Airport in the background.
Half our church congregation arrives after the official start time [myself often included], and our mayor emcees all the street games during the Fourth Of July celebrations and personally greets the winner of the Iditarod, regardless of arrival time. The pastor of the Nome Nazarene church plays Santa Claus every year at the Nome Christmas Extravaganza, and the UPS office is a table at the Nome Polar Cub restaurant, open from 12-1pm. 😂
MuskOxen by the highschool.
View from Anvil Mountain looking North
?? Artsyness.😉
Sunrise from the Nome-Council Hwy
From the Nome River Bridge
Fort Davis, Nome River
The Alaska Range on Alaska Airlines flight 151, Anchorage to Nome.
Winter, Summer, Fall with AunieHope.
There is never any shortage of social media drama on Facebook’s NomePost and Nome Chatter [the group formerly known as NomeRant]. Folks use it to buy/sell items, post announcements about events, hiring, rentals, and FYIs about the presence of wildlife in town [bears, muskoxen, juveniles spray painting random cars].
Tundra Therapy.
Trail to Newton Peak
Salmon Lake and River on the Kougarock Road
Salmon season at the mouth of the Nome River as it meets the Norton Sound
One of my favorite things about Nome (likely shared many times previously on this blog) is the easy access to The Great Outdoors. I know very few folks with trailers, and dozens of people with ATVs. It’s a unique treat to be able to hop on my fourwheeler from my front door and zip out onto the tundra, down the beach, or up a mountain* in a couple minutes. *The highest point in a twenty-mile radius is about 2000ft.
Sunset taken off Little Creek Rd around midnight.
Does Nome have snow on the ground in town for about 8months of the year? Yup. Does Nome have epic spring and fall storms that blow away atv covers, roofing sheets, sleds, trash cans, small children? Yup, joking on the last part😉. Does Nome get winter blizzards that shut down the entire town and sometimes the power? At least once a year. Does Nome get snow drifts larger than our vehicles, and sometimes our houses? Sure does. Does Nome have streets with potholes that can pop a tire, wake up a drunk driver, swallow a washing machine, and make you swerve like you’re a racecar driver going through S-curves? Yup. Does Nome have hardy people that will shovel you out of your house, tow your vehicle, pick up a random stranger 20miles of town, cheer in every last Iditarod finisher, lament with you over the price of Oreos in the dairy/cracker/sandwich meat/soda/eggs/chip/cookie aisle, hold the door open at the post office during lunch break for 6 random folks, lecture a neighbor’s kids for doing something dumb, and send out a BOLO when a fox is seen in town? Yup.
Today’s weather.
I love this town and even on this cold and blustery day, I am so grateful to call Nome “Home.”
