Fire Island Rustic Bake Shop

Catching up on about seven weeks of life in Alaska. The picture up top is from Anchorage looking out. Anchorage is in a “bowl”, surrounded by astounding mountains. Like much of my experience in Alaska, it feels like it must be AI generated.

I thought I would put some effort into celebrating Imbolc and make a St. Brigid’s cross. I had no idea the effort looking for organic material with which to craft a cross. I ended up at a craft store and bought long multi-green colored pipe cleaners. Functional. Maybe a little too summer camp craftish. But the finished product served the purpose. A focus on the holiday. I left it pinned to the office wall when I left.

Imbolc in Alaska really does mark the start of Spring. The very, very, very long nights start to get a little shorter. By Ostara, it feels like the world really is re-awakening.

With long nights and cold temperatures one looks for indoor entertainment. For me that means food and drink. Both Fire Island Bakeshop https://www.fireislandbread.com/ and Altura Bistro https://alturabistro.com/ were named James Beard finalist in 2026. I heartily recommend both. No specific recommendation for Fire Island, just stand in line and then pick whatever looks good to you. There is no risk of being disappointed. At Altura, I didn’t take a picture, but the black cod was perfectly cooked! The hamachi-kama was always a Janelle favorite. I didn’t see any pigs in Alaska, so the pork must have been imported, but the pork belly was divine.

We splurged on a helicopter tour of two glaciers, Spencer Lake and Twentymile Glacier. Tell me you don’t think the middle picture is AI.

The ceremonial start of the Iditarod is in downtown Anchorage. But the two weeks prior are a big party built around Fur Rondy, or the Fur Rendevous. That starts with an amazing annual fur auction. There is more animal fur per attendee than is imaginable. At least I thought that until the week progressed, By the Iditarod, I felt conspicuous for lack of animal skin clothing. In the days following the auction, one could ride the ferris wheel (in single digit temperatures), participate in the outhouse race, or run with the reindeer. Plus more. Finally the Iditarod kicks off! We found that there is a bar right at the starting line – with heat. So we sat at the start line and watched the mushers go off on the bar’s TV.

A group of us went dog sledding. So foreign and so interesting. We started with a brief explanation of sled dog genetics. Despite depictions in the movies, these aren’t Siberian Huskies. The pure bred dogs are subject to too many health issues, from hip displasia to cancer. These working dogs were pure mutts. Experience has proven them to be much healthier and dependable. We were a large crew and, at two people per sled, we used most of the 70 available dogs. It was fascinating to watch the teams being assembled. It all depended on the musher’s opinion of which dogs had been getting along with each other and which hadn’t. And then the smart, quick dogs go in the front and the larger, problematic dogs go in the back,close to the musher. Then fill in between to make a team of eight or nine dogs. Each sled had a rider sitting in the front basket, the musher, and a rider standing on the back. Riders switched places half way through the 45 minutes. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day.