There’s little about Alaska that is not dramatic. Mountains. Seasons. Rivers. Even the people.

Like anything, however, when you’re living it the changes seem incremental. It’s looking over the past in photos that makes everything seem so sudden.

Our first year in Alaska was one of milestones paired with the changes of the seasons. Summer, the start of school, suddenly fall, suddenly winter, back to outdoor adventures after our recovery hiatus. In one blink winter had turned to what we call “break-up,” as the thick layers of ice that coat parking lots, sidewalks, driveways and parts of streets start to melt in the increasing sunlight.

A few weeks of gross mush and dirt covering everything and – bam! – spring was summer. Sunlight, temperatures in the 50s and 60s, and green covering all the things.

For Alaskans there is no real off season. Oh sure, there are days in the long and dark winter months where you have more time for things like sipping coffee by a fire with friends or hitting the movie theater — things we most definitely do not have time for when the sun sets for a mere four hours a day but it’s actually light all the time. But Alaskans just put on more layers and do snow things instead of summer things — snow-machining  (or “snowmobiling” in the rest of the U.S.), skiing, snowshoeing, tubing, dogsledding, ice fishing.

We did adventure a little in our self-inflicted pre-actual-winter off season. We hiked a glacier, filmed a TV show, did a short hike here and there in Eagle River and the “The Valley,”as the area north of Anchorage is known, visited the local Reindeer farm two times and hit some of our local festivals (and Alaskans *love* festivals).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The days get increasingly shorter and the air increasingly colder through mid-December, until the sun rises at around 10:15 a.m. and sets again around 4 p.m. On a practical level, that means things start to get a little light somewhere around 9 a.m., and darkness has settled by 5 p.m. or so.

And yes, it does make you want to sleep a lot. And, yes, it is a little depressing.

It didn’t take us long to discover, however, that the key to success was getting outside a little bit everyday anyway. Darkness be damned, and all that. So we bundled up and tried new winter things one step at a time.

The Anchorage area had what, I’m told, was usually cold weather this year, getting down to -30º. Yes, that’s 30 degrees BELOW zero. That kind of cold hurts unless you are well dressed against it — lots of layers and appropriate shoes. None of this “I can totally just dash from the car to the store in my Toms” stuff.

But we went out anyway. We shoveled our driveway. We tried cross-country and downhill skiing. We took a Christmas trip to Seward. We went tubing. We snowshoed. And, yes, I went running.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, spring came to Alaska — marked most clearly by melting, slushy, muddy snow and a lot of ice as the wind came through and froze over the melt.

 

 

 

 

And then, just like that, leaves were out and warmer weather had arrived by early May. And for that we are grateful.

“Follow us as we move to Alaska,” we said. “Be a part of our big life adventure!”

And you did. And you were. And then we disappeared.

Just over a year ago we made the dramatic decision to sell most of our stuff, let some military-hired movers pack the rest, cram what we could in our station wagon and move far away to a place we had never been to start life over. It felt crazy. It was crazy.

And then we arrived and started to settle in.

It was a wonderful adventure — but hard in ways I can’t really put into words. The overwhelm that came from buying our first home, settling in, unpacking, learning our new town and the unique Alaska culture, making friends, helping our kids adjust, finding a church, adjusting ourselves, helping everyone except me (Amy) start new schools, all while working full time, was simply exhausting. Shortly after our arrival Luke’s brother who lived in Ohio suddenly and unexpectedly died. We were truly running on empty. I barely had anything left to give my family, much less the outside world.

From when we arrived in mid-June to late December we did precious little Alaska exploring, save a short hike here and there with our local Team Red, White & Blue chapter. 

You’re thinking “why not get out there and explore?” But the truth is that the six months almost to the day that it took for me to feel at home is a pretty normal span of time to settle into the growing pains of living somewhere new. We welcomed that landmark time without thinking through the passage of time. As if on cue, we were ready and took an Alaska winter road trip to Seward. 

It was the beginning of being ready to once again spread our wings.

And now, just over another six months after that rebirth, we’re back and ready to welcome you along for the ride again.

You’re probably wondering what we’ve done since we last spent any time with you, and we’ll be giving you some highlights soon.

In the meantime, thanks for coming back again. Ready to live like it’s all a great big adventure? Awesome — we are, too.

Alaska comes with tons of stereotypes, maybe thanks to its current place in popular culture. But one of the wonderful things about being totally new to a place that has such a distinct culture is that you can clearly see all the differences between this new place and all the other parts of America you’ve already called “home.”

While we’ve been here I’ve noticed that there are some things that I expected to hear  — but no Alaskan ever has said to me even one time.

So what are they?

5 Things Alaskans Never Say

1. “This was so well organized.” Behold, the magic of “Alaskan Time.” Do not confuse this with “Alaska Time,” which is a time zone. “Alaskan Time” is a state of mind, and when you live with it, you’re neither organized nor disorganized — you just are in a state of fluid living where you are just super happy to be alive, hanging out on the last frontier, doing you’re thing. You’re too busy living life to worry about stuff like lateness and organization.

You’re never actually really late. But you’re also not super into details. And you’re definitely not into planning things far in advance. That’s cool, though, because you’re on Alaskan Time, which is totally a thing.

2. “Just wait until the winter.” Many, many people have said this to me. Exactly zero of them currently live in Alaska. That’s because people in Alaska just roll with stuff. It’s 60 degrees and you’re chilly? Whatever. It’s going to be 30 degrees later? It’ll be fine.

3. “Don’t do ___ because there are too many bears.” Wildlife is a way of life here. No one cares that there are bears. Be smart, be safe, but you don’t let the bears keep you at home.

4. “Keep your shoes on.” People in Alaska take their shoes off in their homes … and sometimes in their businesses, and they expect visitors to do the same. They have good reason: with so much crazy weather keeping the dirt out of the house is just the best way to go. It makes sense for a home. When I was asked to remove my shoes (and go barefoot) at the eyebrow place, though …

5. “Sarah Palin.” I don’t mean anything specific — I mean the name at all. I have heard absolutely no one in Alaska talk about Sarah Palin. No one. We even live in the Palin’s hometown. It’s as if they don’t exist. Also, while we’re on the subject: I’ve yet to hear an Alaskan say “You betcha.”

If you’ve ever discussed winter sports with me, you’ve heard me say that I think ice skating is dangerous. That’s because ice skating is dangerous. It’s basically walking around on knives. Why would you do that?

But when we decided to move to Alaska, I determined that I would try all the winter things, and that includes ice skating. Sure, I’d been skating one or two times before, but it was a a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I looked like this:

And on that day, one of my not-pictured-friends tripped on the ice and had her hand skated over. There was a lot of blood. I was mildly traumatized.

That’s why ice skating lessons for me and my two totally-new-to-skating kids sounded like a really good idea. I figured I’d just knock that fear right out of me. Google to the rescue, and I found a few sets of “all ages classes” conducted at the same time over four sessions in August.

Now, when you live somewhere that outdoor, winter things are just a way of life, you’re probably not going to encounter a lot of adults who are totally new to any given basic thing, like ice skating. I was nervous about trying this new thing. I thought that I would look like a fool who should know how to ice skate already, for the love. But the classes were advertised as for children through adults, so I knew I would be in good company.

And I was. There were lots of other students.

And when class started, the only problem seemed to be that because I was so tall, I was in the way while their moms tried to take videos of them.

Yeah, that’s me in the blue, three instructors and my classmates. The next oldest student? David. (He’s 7.)

But it’s cool, because they put me in the advanced class right away … with a six-year-old. Neat!

The lesson here? Sometimes trying new things is humbling. Sometimes it is super humbling. And that’s OK … as long as you try anyway.

I had a good time, I didn’t fall flat on my face even once and, yeah, I’m a little better at ice skating. So that’s a win, right?

Newness is the whole reason I’m here writing to you. And yet I do not like new things.

What about you?

When we decided to blow up life and move to Alaska it was because we wanted to do new things — new life, new career for Luke, new house, new people, new.

But if you know me outside of this blog, you know that I, Amy, do not like new things. At all. I like things that are exactly the same as the last time I did them. I like getting up at the same time. I like going to bed at the same time. I like ordering the same thing at the restaurant every time I go. I sit in the same spot at church, eat the same thing for breakfast each day, watch the same TV shows over and over again on Netflix, return to the same books. I am predictable.

I like predictable things. I don’t care that it makes me boring. I don’t care that it makes me a likely stalking victim. I like it anyway.

(Fine, now that I’ve listed all of those things, I’m feeling just a teensy bit embarrassed about it. Maybe I should cycle in a new show to my Netflix schedule.)

But I want to be a person who wants to do new things. I really do. I figured that if I moved to Alaska, I would be forced into all the new things and that, therefore, I would like them.

Wrong.

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