Driving in -51 degrees in Tok Alaska

In Tok, when the weather drops below – 45 degrees, everything around you really starts to get surreal. Tires freeze, all car fluids including oil, brake and steering fluid freezes into thick gluey substance, inside of the windshield frosts up. Probably best to stay inside. But when you have to get to where you’re going, you drive. What’s the coldest weather you’ve...

Frost in the Window – on the Inside

Another sign of winter in Tok… Any solution you know of? Other than move to Hawaii? Tweet

-22.8 F in Tok. Feels like -23.

So does that -.2 degree difference really make a difference??? Tweet

Things Under the Ice and Snow

As the warmer weather begins to melt the ice and snow, lost items from last summer are revealed. Found in the vegetable garden bed. What are you finding under the...

Perils of Winter: Frozen Fresh Product

We’ve been getting shipments of fresh organic fruits and vegetables from Full Circle Farm the last few months, resuming service after over a year. We stopped service previously after helping to bring Full Circle Farm shipments to Tok with others in the community including the tireless efforts of Francine at the Tok General Store because the shipments in winter were arriving frozen. The truck (from an Alaskan...

10 Things People Don’t Believe About Tok Alaska Winters

When I travel the country and tell people where I live, jaws drop, both out of awe and incredulity. “You live THERE?! Why in the world?? Boy, I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska!!” I explain that my husband’s job brought us here, first to Anchorage and almost two years ago to Tok.  It’s beautiful here in the summers, cold as all get out in the winters. My first winter here was the...

Tok Alaska Winters are So Dry…

…How dry are they? Winters are so dry here that you can’t consume enough water in the day to make up for the moisture you lose. Even the requisite 8 glasses a day barely makes a dent. the only place drier is outer space. (Just saw a doctor in Fairbanks who pretty much addressed all that has been ailing me since I moved to Tok and said that doctors in Fairbanks treat their patients with an eye toward...

Pic of the Day: Keeping the Engine Warm

Around this time, we’re usually experiencing weird things with our vehicles as the temperatures hang so low that our outdoor thermometers can’t even register that low. One of the makeshift ways we keep cold air out of the engine is to put cardboard (or leather) in front of our car grills or inside the grill in front of our radiators. We also have to get the Tok Package which is a few notches up from the...

Gettin’ Frosty in Tok!

Now we’re having the weather I remember from our first months here in Tok. Tomorrow – Winter Soltice – will also mark exactly a year that we’ve been here. Finally getting my “Tok Legs” which is an awful lot like sea legs. Takes a lot of getting used to, there are moments of unrest, and then it all feels like no big deal. Then you get out of Tok and realize once again how very...

Scene from Eagle

On my way into Glenallen recently, I stopped off at Jeannie’s Java for a latte and breakfast burrito. Jeannie’s daughter and I began chatting and when she heard I was coming from Tok, she mentioned that a young man was trying to get to Tok to try to hitch a flight to Eagle. He was a photographer on assigment, and she asked if I’d speak with him. Sure, I said, and that’s how I met Ross...