Coldfoot, Alaska

We board a small plane to take us to the Artic Circle at 10 PM.  It was still broad daylight on this June evening.  Twenty minutes later, we landed in Cold Foot, Alaska. Population- too few to bother to count. The town is nothing more than a modular hotel and a beat up old bar joint and a few weather beaten houses.  We all have a beer at the bar in an effort to help out the local economy.  Then we board a jalopy of a school bus and head up the hill to a cluster of houses.  I don’t remember the name of the town and it might not even have a name.  But 13 people live in this area, 11 of them are related to each other.  We meet Kevin, the mayor.  His mother is the minister and his wife, the schoolteacher.  He brother flies a plane and fetches the mail for all the locals.

Kevin is a farmer, a professional photographer, a tour guide and president of the local historical society. He is charming and witty and handsome.  He loves his little town and greet us graciously even though it is now 11 at night.  He shows us around the farms, the chapel/school room, the junkyard and the town hall.  We look at his ample collection of antlers and animal hides. He talks about a rugged way of life that is not suitable for the faint hearted. 

“Winters are brutal here”, he tells us honestly.   “It gets down to the -50s at its coldest point.  That’s tough,” even he admits.  But it is worth it for the summers. 

“Look at all of this beautiful sunshine”, he says as he swats a killer fly, biting his arm.  Blood is drawn but he just wipes it away and continues espouses the beauties of Alaska. 

He shows us his photos of the northern light and these beautiful shots could lure anyone to come here in January. He takes us to the town hall and opens up the 100-year-old registry and tells tales of great men long gone.  And while he speaks I marvel at him not because he is such a handsome renaissance man.  But because, in the midst of his conversation, he sadly but quickly tells us the story of how he talked his wife into leaving the comforts of Anchorage and moving to this god-forsaken place.  She does and after three children, she dies suddenly.  Then two years later, he meets a woman from Fairbanks and sure enough he is able to get her to move up here as well.  How could any man be so smooth as to convince two women to live here?  He is one good salesman.