The dark days of our Alaskan winter have a decided down side: cabin fever. To avoid the gloomy feeling of the kind of semi hibernation that is symptomatic of cabin fever a great many Alaskans head for sunnier climes like Hawaii or the Baja. Whole neighborhoods relocate to sister neighborhoods in Arizona and don’t come back until the snow is gone. We call them snow birds although the logic of that escapes me. Unlike real snowbirds they miss all the winter fun.Alaskans who stay the winter find a huge array of antidotes to cabin fever. Just about every community, Willow, Talkeetna, Eagle River, Girdwood, has a winter festival. Trapper Creek even calls its winter party the Cabin Fever Reliever. It’s complete with a Cabin Fever Queen and an outdoor chili cookoff. Anchorage has the biggest party of all, Fur Rondezvous, or Rondy for short. It lasts for ten days and features everything from a carnival with a ferris wheel to snowshoe baseball, sled dog sprint races, fur auctions, a snow sculpture competition and a run with the reindeer much like the run with the bulls in Spain but far less dangerous. You can check them all out at www.furrondy.net
A number of years ago a group of neighbors who live along the Fairview Loop Ridge decided to have a winter picnic of our own. The ridge borders the Palmer Hay Flats Wildlife Refuge which is a kind of wilderness in the midst of a bustling Anchorage suburb. To advocate for the refuge these neighbors formed a friends of the refuge group (see www.palerhayflats.org )and our winter picnic was a way to get more people interested in the place.
Reflections Lake is one of the prettier spots on the refuge with easy access.The lake got
its name from its beautiful summer reflection of the mountain peaks of the Chugach. Just a short walk from your car your at a quiet spot hidden from the highway with a lovely woodland trail all around its perimeter. In the summer the lake is home to swans, griebs and loons. In the winter its all covered with snow which makes it the perfect place for winter fun.
The first year of our picnic we planned for about 30 people. We plowed the snow off a portion of the lake for an ice rink and had the local Dept. of Parks set tracks in the snow for skiing on the perimeter of the lake. We set aside the hill for sledding and the woodland trail for snow shoeing. REI lent us free skis and snow shoes, the local ice rink lent us skates, we made a big pot of hot chocolate and baked lots of cookies.
Over 50 people showed up. Mothers set up their folding chairs along the lake shore to watch their kids much like mothers at the beach only now their chairs sunk in snow not sand. Kids wrapped in blankets instead of towels sat around the fire toasting marshmallows. A new wrinkle of the times was people whipping out their cell phones to call their friends and tell them’ “Come on down, the snow is fine.”
We had such a great time we did it again the following year and 100 people showed up. The year after that 200 people and we had to make an emergency run for more cookies. The year after that over 400 people and we ran out of everything even snowshoes and skis. This year we had plenty of everything and groups like the Nordic Ski Club and Alaska Trails helped. For many, cabin fever is a serious affliction and escape may be the best solution, but the down side of escaping is never having the fun of playing in the snow.