Life at the Lodge - stories from Interior Alaska

My Strange Addiction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 01:02:00 GMT

How do I run at 40 below? Perhaps the better question is why?

How do I stay warm out there you ask? And more compellingly, why would I do such a thing?

Because even at below zero temps, dressed up like a stay-puf marshmallow, I crave the fresh air, the ever changing sky, the pumping of blood through my veins to start my day. I admit, however, it's a strange addiction.

When it is below about -20, staying warm requires two layers of fleece leggings, a polypropylene base layer and two thick fleece jackets over that for my top, a fleece ear band and a face mask to heat up the air going into my lungs. Surprisingly, I don't need any special foot gear, as my feet always stay warm when I'm running, even at -40! Eyelashes can be an issue, as they tend to frost up and require periodic thawing between warm fingertips taken out of my thick mittens for just a few seconds. When it is colder than -30, I know that I need another layer of leggings, and cinch a face mask up a little tighter so that only my eyes are showing. Then I turn on my headlamp, call the dog, and slip my phone into my mitten to stay warm, as not even a pocket will keep it warm enough to prevent the battery from freezing. Turn on a podcast or call my mom or a friend, and away I go! My time. Time for my busy brain to be still while my body is moving. Time for that simplicity and peace that I crave, that repetitive motion that allows me to be in an almost meditative state. All day long I am with bubbly energetic kindergarteners, and indoors most of the time. I need my quiet outdoor hour of solitude, no matter how cold. Actually, the colder the quieter. Those crystalline still mornings are some of the most beautiful. The quiet is indescribable.

But today? Today the temp read ABOVE zero as I got dressed for my run! 12 degrees above, to be exact. Today I donned only ONE pair of fleece leggings and ONE fleece jacket over my base layer, and no face mask! And the best part? No headlamp. The sun is coming back, and my days of running in the dark are over until next September! The exhilaration of watching the sunrise change a bit everyday is real. First just a slight glow in the east. Then a week or so later the sky is orange, fading to navy blue. Then after a bit the alpenglow appears on the snowy mountains, offering a gorgeous pink backdrop to my run. Once in a great while I get to see the northern lights streak the western sky while it's still dark, and then the sun rises on my run and I get to see that, too! Those gorgeous mornings I get a 2 for 1 deal! And to think, I could have slept right through that amazing spectacle! I must admit, a part of me is almost sad when the midnight sun is here and I don't get the sunrises anymore during my run. By the time I make it out the door at 6am in the summer, the sunrise is long gone and the light is almost mid-day bright.

I have spent time in the tropics, running on beaches when it gets light every day at 5:30 and dark every day at 5:30. The warmth and beauty are amazing, but the cotidian climate bores me. I wouldn't trade it for my ever changing world up here in the North. The exhilaration of never knowing what wonders await gets me up and out of bed even on the coldest mornings.

12 above!

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:11:50 GMT

In the winter when we say 20degrees, everyone knows we mean NEGATIVE 20. We just drop the minus.

Once temperatures dip below zero in Tok, Alaska, they don't usually come back up for a long, long time. This year it was a long, long, LONG time before we saw above zero temperatures again. In fact, this year has the dubious honor of being the second longest streak of days below freezing on record. In 1972 we saw a streak of 158 days of temperatures never reaching above zero. This year was a close second at 151 days below freezing... and still counting!

We came close today - but then again it IS April Fool's Day, so we would hardly have believed our eyes. I would have thought maybe the National Weather Service was playing another trick on us, like the Federal Aviation Administration did over Christmas, forecasting Magic Reindeer Dust, and advising Rudolph Nose lights to be used on all runways. But no, we only reached 29 degrees today. Yet another cruel joke of Mother Nature.

However, my spirits were lifted this morning when I got out of bed for my morning run and was greeted by an ABOVE zero temperature of 12 degrees on my Weather Underground app, for the first time in I can't remember when. Just last week it was consistently -25 on my morning runs. But with the sun actually warming things up now, we can have swings from -25 in the morning to 25 degrees above zero by afternoon! This time of year we actually have to specify above or below zero when we say the temperature.

Spring in Alaska is different than springtime "outside" - as we call everywhere in the lower 48. We look forward to warm sunny days above zero and get excited about activities like ice fishing and skiing that are oh so much more pleasant when the sun warms up our days. Sitting outside soaking up the sun at a balmy 25 degrees - ABOVE- while jigging for trout on the ice is one of my favorite past times ever. In fact, I like spring snow activities so much that I really don't mind if it stays below freezing a little longer. We know that once it hits above freezing, the spring "break up" as we call it, is fast and furious, and hails a season of slush and mud that is just a mess. Above zero but below freezing is a rare and magical time in Interior Alaska.

Spring in Alaska is the hope of a great summer ahead, the relief of "we made it through another one!", and the pure joy of plentiful vitamin D soaking into my skin. And when we say the temperature, we have to specify "above" or "below" because in the springtime in Alaska you just never know!

Aurora Viewing At It's Best

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 05:25:02 GMT

Interior Alaska is your best bet to see the Aurora Borealis

You need three ingredients to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, as they are sometimes called. You need a solar flare sending charged particles out into space, colliding with gasses in the atmosphere of Earth. You also need dark skies, without the light pollution that plagues much of the U.S. these days. And lastly, you need a cloudless, clear night. The Log Cabin Wilderness Lodge just outside of Tok, Alaska, has some of the darkest skies you'll find anywhere in the world. Our sunny interior climate consistently brings some of the clearest skies in all of Alaska. Coastal cities tend to be warmer due to the effect of oceanic warming, but this also brings more moisture into the atmosphere, clouding over the aurora.

Aurora chasers come to Tok just to see the Aurora Borealis. How do they predict the best nights to go chasing, and decide where to go? They look at something called the Kp index. The Kp index, measured from 0-9, is derived from global observatories all over the world, and measures the geomagnetic disturbance of particles in the Earth's atmosphere. A Kp of 5 or greater indicates a significant solar storm, and a good chance of seeing the Aurora.

Most commonly we see green lights, although recently we saw a great rare storm of red lights! The color of the lights are caused by charged particles from the sun colliding with different gasses in the Earth's atmosphere at different altitudes. Oxygen at lower altitudes (20-150 miles above sea level) produces green lights. At higher altitudes, oxygen colliding with solar particles produces red lights. The red storm we just had a few weeks ago was seen all the way in Florida, because of the high altitude at which the lights appeared.

Blue and purple aurora are produced by nitrogen at lower altitudes, and it is fairly common to see edges of pinkish purple on dancing green lights, produced by a mix of oxygen and nitrogen.

No matter the color, the aurora is an awe-inspiring experience, never to be forgotten. At the Lodge you can view the aurora out our many pictures windows on every side of the lodge, or bundle up and watch them outside. When you get chilly, sit a spell in the steam sauna to warm up. It is sure to be a magical night you'll remember forever.

A Small Town Alaskan Santa

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:21:34 GMT

Christmas in Tok, Alaska is pretty real to kids - they drive through the town of "North Pole" every time they go shopping in Fairbanks, 4 hours away. But sometimes Santa needs some help, even in Alaska!

We debated rescheduling the Tok Elementary School Christmas concert. After all, how many people were going to brave the -50 degree weather to come to the school to see Santa and watch their kids sing Jingle Bells?

But since the weather didn't show much improvement for the forseeable future (10 days is the foreseeable future, according to weatherunderground.com,) we decided to go ahead with the show.

Turns out, 146 people braved the weather to come to the concert; not record attendance, but certainly respectable for a town of 1500 people and a K-12 school of 120 students.

The families made it in, but 30 minutes before the show, Santa (also our school maintenance man) called to say he was stuck in a nearby village working on broken pipes. What do you do when Santa can't make it? You look around the room for the nearest unsuspecting gray haired man who could possibly do the job. In this case it was our school IT guy, working on setting up the live stream of the concert. To our surprise, he said yes! Not your typical jolly old elf, we had our doubts, but in a pinch, anyone guy dressed up in a red suit with a white beard would be better than nothing!

After the songs had been sung, it was time for Santa's grand appearance. All of the kids sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" at the top of the their lungs, and in walked substitute Santa, ringing the handbell he had found at the bottom of the costume box. This proved to be just the ticket to break the ice with all of the kids who were a bit hesitant, understandably, to sit by a stranger and spill their innermost desires for toys. Every kid in the room wanted to go ring that bell, and our last minute Santa came through in magnificent style as he chatted with the kids and answered all of their questions about magical flying reindeer and squeezing through chimneys. (You see, kids up here know how big a chimney is, and they know that there's almost always a hot fire at the bottom of one in Alaska at Christmas time.). But somehow Santa managed to convince them of his Christmas Magic.

With less than 30 minutes' notice, our IT guy came through for the kids in our little town with flying colors, if not flying reindeer. Even the parents couldn't guess who Santa's last minute helper was, and it was a grand success.

In a small town like Tok, you do what you have to do to make things work, even if that means stepping out of your comfort zone to keep some little kids' Christmas dreams alive.

Moonbows on top of Moonbows

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 09:07:16 GMT

Once in a while you're in the right place at just the right time

Today on our way home from Fairbanks, a 4 hour trip to the nearest Walmart and Home Depot, we just happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. I was close to dozing off in the passenger seat when my husband Jonathan told me to look out the window.

"Oh my gosh! Stop the truck!!!" I said in my usual over-reactive way when it comes to the beauty of nature.

"What, what's wrong?!" he quickly replied.

"Nothing's wrong, LOOK at THAT! I need a picture!" So he pulled over as soon as he found a wide spot in the shoulder and I jumped out of the truck, taking pictures as the spectacle got better and better. The full moon had a full 360 degree moonbow around it. But not only that, there was one perpendicular to that one, that circumnavigated the entire sky! And not only THAT, but there was an UPSIDE DOWN moonbow on top of the moon, in rainbow colors! I could not believe my eyes, and the phenomenon and the awe it inspired in me defy description. We stood there for 5 minutes, and then it began to fade away. We got back in the truck, drove down the highway, and in less than 1/2 a mile, it was gone.

The ice fog had created just the right conditions for refracting light around the moon in "moonbows" on three different planes. This is something I've never seen before, and am quite certain I never will again in my lifetime. A moonbow is just like a rainbow, except that it is ice crystals refracting the light instead of raindrops.

People come to Alaska to view the Northern Lights, or "Aurora Borealis", but this to me was much more rare and just as beautiful! It happened to be a full moon, with just the right amount of ice fog in just the right layers visible at the exact location we were driving through on our way home that night. Amazing.

Sometimes you're in just the right place at just the right time to witness something so beautiful and rare it takes your breath away.

Maybe We're Crazy

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 08:41:52 GMT

Some people think we're crazy for living here, but winter in Alaska has a magic all it's own

Today, I was interviewed by Bob Bird, radio broadcaster for KSRM out of Kenai, Alaska. He wanted to know about the cold snap we've been having, since Tok has the honor of being the coldest spot in the state right now.It got down to -51 (some say -62, but it depends on whose thermometer you believe). I gave what I think was a mediocre interview, at best.

I wrote him this letter afterwards:

"Hi Bob,

I’m dressed to the hilt in warm gear, bringing in wood from the woodshed tonight, an every week chore, and more often these days. Just thinking about what I wish I would have said in the interview!

I wish I would have said how magical it is here in the winter, crystally white and sparkly because the snow never melts from about October to March. And the skies are so clear, the stars twinkle so close it looks like you could reach up and grab them. The northern lights are a common occurrence here, but they never get old. We still call each other to say “go outside!” and post on Facebook, even though we’ve seen them hundreds of times.

When you’re stuck inside it gives you an excuse to slow down and drink tea, read a good book, and really talk.

The tires freeze square so you thump down the road for the first 5 minutes you drive. You can still go for a run outside, but you'd better cover your mouth so your lungs don’t freeze, and I’ve worn ski goggles at -40 on a run so I don’t get frostbite around my eyes. But it’s possible, and sometimes when you have cabin fever bad enough it’s worth it.

So it’s a pain up here when cars don’t start or your pipes freeze, but neighbors look out for each other in a way that only happens when lives depend on it. Tonight my pilot husband Jonathan took a break from thawing a drain at one of our guest cabins to fly a medivac to Anchorage. There’s no place else I'd rather live.

I wish I had said all of that. But I don’t think that quick on my feet ."

I decided I am a better writer than I am speaker, and so finally, I am starting this blog that has been on my mind for years because I want to share this Alaska life in the best way I know how - by writing about it.

Bob replied to my email, profoundly:

"The thing about cold, is that it makes you feel alive. And grateful for shelter. And the fact that it unites not just families, but also strangers, in the common cause of battling Nature. If there was someone with car trouble along the highway between Tok and Delta, or Tok and Chistochina, in such weather, we would stop to inquire if they needed help. Maybe not if it was 75 above.

I envy your climate right now, [Bob lives on the balmy Kenai Peninsula where it's a whole 4 degrees, above], though most people would think that was crazy. We are going to Florida to see grandkids soon, and frankly, I would rather stay here in Kenai."

I don't think Bob is crazy at all. Maybe that's because we're both crazy, but I think really it's because we understand the magic that comes from living in Alaska in the winter. And we're willing to endure the cold to get the kind of magic that doesn't come easy. You have to earn it.