I know all too well what the Lower 48 folks consider "cold & frigid weather". It means things like slushy roads and salt, "wind chill factor" freak outs, designer ear muffs, and quaint warming huts at the ski resorts. Folks fall over and faint when forecasts predict single digits or teens.
Compare this to the interesting phenomena of Alaska cold. We've been sitting in quite a spell for a few weeks now. Not all places in Alaska are crazy cold mind you. (Areas by the sea are actually very mild--like Juneau or Homer) But take anything in the interior and you learn a whole new skill set. My particular experience happens to be in the temperatures ranging from
-39 to -26 F lately.
New things you learn about in this kind of cold are:
1- how quickly a dog can poop while standing on three legs (paws hurt in cold snow)
2- electric sockets become frosty indoors
3- bathroom vent freezes shut
4- daily visits to the roof in order to unclog the sewer vent (frozen sewer steam)
5- watch out for metal cold burns--door knobs, car grills
6- no sort of adhesive sticks, so good luck trying to glue/stick any sort of heating coils to all the auto apparatus that has frozen shut.
7- your car won't start after 24 hours without a block heater--this leads to all the auto shenanigans most Alaskans engage in at these temps.
Auto games include: jump starting every morning (espec. a diesel)
spraying starter fluid into the air filter
tarping a car and sticking space heaters underneath it
pushing the car to a heated garage to thaw out
8-Snot and noses freeze shut, but so far the dogs have never come indoors with a "peestickle" sticking to them. So I believe one can pee without worry in an outhouse....but who knows at -45???
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