ALCOHOL WAS A FACTOR: Weekly Newspapering in Rural Alaska

The Storm. And the Mother of All Night Meetings

There is weird wet winter weather in Haines this morning.

I woke to hear the falling sleet gloop instead of merely drop. To walk through this stuff just one block is like diving into a cold lake.

No matter how I weatherproof my boots, my socks still feel cold and wet.

On the way for my morning cup of coffee, I pass a man walking his German Shepherds without a leash. They seemed to love the weather and roll in the slush, always keeping an eye on their master.

A man shoveling slosh outside the library says, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, that the winter life is like swimming in a snow cone.

I find my regular table by the window at the Mountain Market, the social and cultural center of town. The place is full of fishermen and skiers and blue collar workers, everyone (except the fishermen) dressed in hipster winter clothing and the requisite calf-high Xtra-Tough rubber boots that everyone wears up here.
I like this place. It’s colorful and warm. It sells organic food and alcohol. Which I think is great because you can’t partake one without the other.

Across the room, a fisherman shouts to his table full of buddies in a throaty yowl that sounds like he’s barking orders in a storm.

Somebody new walks in.

“What’s going on down there?”

“Nothin.”

“See the boys?”

“Yep.”

“How they doin?”

“Dunno. I only saw em. I didn’t talk to em.”

Another speaks up, apropos of nothing. “Well, I got some great blood numbers this month.”

After two large troughs of coffee (the second free if you consume it here) I look fearfully outside at weather, Alaska’s daily throw of the dice.

It was still wet, still cold and dark outside.

Did I say cold?

It was time to head to the office to write a story about the initial haggling over the town’s $12 million annual budget. Last night’s meeting stretched past 8 p.m.

There’s another tonight that will threaten midnight.

I put on my coat and decide to head to that place downtown for lunch, the one with taped-up red leather booths, where you can look out at the water and enjoy a bowl of oatmeal for ten bucks.

I walk out the door and the woman at the cash register calls after me.

“Enjoy the storm,” she says.

I will. I keep telling myself that.

POSTSCRIPT: The slush and snow continued to fall. A few hours later, the town manager announced that Haines was rolling up its sidewalks. The schools were closing, town workers gong home; all meetings canceled — which made me happy, because I had the mother of all-night meetings scheduled for later.

But still, closing the town because of slush and driving rain; in Alaska?

The place feels more like skittish Atlanta than the Great White North.