2011 World Ice Art Championships

The only thing I could ever imagine doing when it's -10° F is walking around in an ice enclosed ice park. So naturally Kate and I got in the car and drove to the World Ice Art Championships. We purchased our $25 season passes (1 month) and then probably saw about 1/4 of the single-block sculptures.

Some of these sculptures are really cool. They are all lit, so each little facet, crack, cut, and curve shines. This week is just single-block sculptures. Don't let that fool you, some of these are huge!. Next week the multi-block sculptures start. We saw the blocks and I can confirm there are multiple ones.



This place has a huge kids park, with a lot of ice slides that you can probably get hurt on. They are fun, it doesn't take a very big slope to build up a lot of speed. Tonight they were shoveling some of the bigger slides of the snow that fell yesterday.

Photo Projects

I'm working on a couple different photo projects right now so that I'm forced stay motivated on taking pictures of this freaking beautiful state and not always cooped up in the office. My first project is simple: 1 photo per day for 365 days. Every day I have to take and post at least one photo. My favorite one will be posted in this set on flickr. Each one will have a bit more of a description than normal, so in that sense it will be like my photo blog (although I'll still post things on here).

Jason and I have worked out another project that we're going to do, probably for the entire time we are in Alaska, but I'm not posting anything on that one until we're well into it. Get excited!

What's there to do in 12-16 inches of snow? Let's follow Alex!

That's a lot of snow! Can I go under it? No. Can I go over it? Maybe. Can I go around it? Not really. I'll have to go through it!

Aaaaarrrrrr!

???

???!!!

Don't worry, there's probably not anything in there that could kill me.

Project "distraction from homework" is a success!

Birds and Moose!

You know I've been busy when I haven't had time to blog about wildlife encounters. First Kate and I saw two white-winged crossbills. Kate wants to post about them, so I'll just give this one picture from last week.

Magic snow falls from the tree as we watch the birds breathing in -30° F weather.

Then there was the moose encounter at school. Let me start by saying that moose temperament is different out in the woods by our house than it is around buildings and a lot of people. They don't care about me at the house, but they definitely don't like lots of people and people stuff.



This bull charged Jason and I even though we were keeping our distance. Then it ran at Manbharat and a few other students that were watching it by their doors. He wasn't overly aggressive, but he definitely made it known that we were in his personal space. Right before he charged me I got this shot that looks like he is watching his reflection in the window. He's actually just looking at that plant with leaves on it down below him, but it was funny anyway.



Once he got to a place where he didn't feel cornered by the building his focus returned to eating and not on what we were doing over by the parking lot.

Snowy Sunday

Today it is snowing. This is the second 'significant' snowfall we've had in a week. Most of the time it snows only one or two inches at a time here, but it has really built up since the snow-pack goes back to October. We had about 5 inches at our house earlier in the week; between today and tonight we are supposed to get a total of 4-7 inches. It looks like we might get even more tomorrow. The snow is very pretty.

The back yard viewed from our most fantastic in the world window.

From the looks of it we might be through the bulk of the winter. The temperatures have come back up to near 0° F. It's still possible that we could get a cold snap, but the probability of more 40 below days is diminishing. Night-time lows are more like -10. That being said, there is still a lot more winter left and I don't look forward to the gross part when the temperatures are near-freezing.

The World Ice Art Championships are about to start up this week (it goes on until March 27th), and Kate and I are excited to get passes. I can't wait to get out there with the camera.

Since it was snowing today, we finally headed over to the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center. I was surprised at how much they had there. Not just Fairbanks information, but huge, really cool exhibits. It's definitely worth checking out when you get to the area, or if you've lived here for years. There's what looks like a cool gift shop (but it was closed on Sunday). They have lots of displays and dioramas and you walk through the seasons of the Alaskan interior from summer to spring. There's a lot of native artwork, tools, historical and current information, and everything is incredibly well done. Many of the exhibits are still in progress and I know they need money to finish. Think about donating.

They have a really cool reading area here. Lots of good books too about the region, wildlife, and history.

One of the winter exhibits at the Fairbanks Visitors Bureau.

Lots and Lots of Aurora All Over the Place

It's been a good couple of nights, and last night left me breathless.



Classes and work are in full force again so I don't have a lot of time to make new posts. I'll soon make a link to new photos so browsing can be easier and there aren't tons of posts and re-posts on here and facebook. For now here click here for latest photos.

Probably Missing Aurora

It's so lousy when we have 15 clear nights in a row and almost no aurora, then a solar windstream crosses Earth's path while the Sun is still up. Pictures flood out of Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Greenland, I get all ready for darkness to descend and then the clouds roll in. No doubt we missed a good show last night. This morning I went outside before getting ready for work, there was a small hole in the cloud cover over the house, and this was happening:

The northern lights were so bright they were even shining through some thin cloudcover. I would have loved to have seen them unimpeded. Maybe it will clear up later tonight when I'm done with my lab section so I can watch when I get home. The temperature is in the mid-teens above 0, and we can now walk around outside in just long-sleeve shirts.

When I was in Boy Scouts, I would always think that the kids from Canada were showing off at camp when they were out in t-shirts and it was cold out. Now I know that they were not; it really is relative. It just takes a few weeks of temps less than -20, and a few days at -40 or lower to put the idea of 'cold' in perspective. To think, at +15 it's almost 60 degrees warmer than it was a couple of weeks ago is pretty wild.

I've been posting a lot of pictures on flickr lately. The most impressive subject to shoot has been the light in the morning sky. The Sun is just rising in the right location, at the a good angle and the atmosphere has had the right conditions so that the typical sight has been this:



This was taken about half and hour before sunrise, although it was pretty spectacular even an hour before:



The red was considerably deeper then.