Spring is also when Mother Nature renews herself, painting the canvas that winter so carefully stripped just months before. Bees buzz happily from one flower to another, collecting nectar for coming larvae; ants studiously move to and fro, beginning to rebuild food stores depleting by the harshness of winter; flowers, trees, and other plants go into full bloom, displaying colourful foliage to warm your heart. Sounds wonderful, beautiful even, doesn't it? Like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, almost?
Unfortunately, that vision ends when springtime comes to Interior Alaska. Spring here is a very ugly, dirty time of year. Now, before you can turn on me, oh Constant Reader, and tell me that there is beauty in everything surrounding you, let me describe a typical Interior Alaskan spring day for you, shall I?
The weather is unlike any you have ever experienced. It can be well below zero one moment (yesterday morning at about 4 a.m., it was -10F) and well above zero the next (the high temperature yesterday was a scorching +41F and it's about +31F out there right now). The sky can be clear and beautiful, allowing you to bask in the sun - not a cloud in sight to obscure your view. Then, in a few hours' time, a chilled wind can blow in a snow storm of blizzard proportions, blanketing everything in a gentle white misery once again.
When the temperatures do rise and the sun is beating down upon the ground, a winter's worth of snow and ice melt, running into the dusty, dirty street. The daily melt freezes over night, leaving a skating rink on the ground - ice several inches thick and dangerously slippery.
And what does that melting snow reveal while it's melting? You get to see a season's worth of neglect by the supposedly caring citizens of Fairbanks. Gravel and residual sand and ice from the Dept. of Transportation trying to improve the intersections pools together on the street corners, causing other slippery hazards. Trash and debris casually, thoughtlessly dropped over the course of the long winter months' reappears, bringing with it the depressing reality that these caring citizens do not care as much as they claim.
Once the snow melts and the ground reappears, you are left with a large, borough-wide marsh. Mud and bog are the prevalent landscape, trapping you with cold, insidious fingers that grab onto your shoes or boots and hold you fast until you either abandon your footwear or dig your way out.
Springtime in Alaska - definitely not what your creative writing teacher ever discussed when he/she talked of the beauties of Springtime, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment