A Blog of Flashbacks

Ten Feet of Snow in Eleven Days

January 2026

Robert and I finally made it home from Juneau. We had a great Christmas with three grandchildren, oh yes, and their parents. We arrived home at the beginning of ten feet of snow in the next eleven days. Snow is my favorite weather, but even I have my limits. This passed it.

Robert knew we could turn into our drive across the small berm. Ha.

Berm at our driveway.

So much for that idea. We then decided to head back to the ferry and Juneau. Oops, the ferry already left. Shortly after, Bob came with his plow. We can reach the house and stay home. Relief, but it was temporary.

Bob plowing from the house to one of the sheds.

It continued to snow every day for the next 10 days. I sat in my study not writing. Just staring at the beautiful motion of the heavens falling. At least that’s what it felt like. Wait, this is a bit more than normal.

I don’t get depressed often, but I think this snowstorm earned a good depression. I heard we had two atmospheric rivers of snow one right after the other, I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t write. Exercise? I don’t think I did. I just sat at my desk and stared. I went into the house to eat and sleep. We couldn’t shower for the first few days as the shower drain was frozen. The kitchen drain was frozen too, so we washed dishes in the bathroom sink. The toilet worked and that was good as the path to the outhouse was piled too high with snow. Where was the path anyway?

The snow was too deep for the moose and their four-foot-long legs. One huge male came through the snow to the porch of my studio and down the path toward the house. Good thing I wasn’t on the path. I now look before I walk. One of the people who plows our town roads posted this the other day:

I was plowing down Mt View, around Veneta, and encountered a cow moose. As we all know, they aren’t overly bright to begin with. I slowed to a crawl trying not to push her. She was slipping and I could tell exhausted. She looked left and right, looked down Veneta, but didn’t turn off. She stopped, I honked, she kept going. Just about at J’s cabin, she had enough. She stopped, laid her ears back, and struck at the plow with her front hooves, contacting it 3-4 times.

It's not a good idea to walk or ski these days. Those who do share the road with a 1,000-pound, hungry and now moody animal. It’s bad enough to drive on these now one-lane roads. I don’t want to encounter a moose in a vehicle let alone walking or skiing.

Inaccessible front porch. I took this a day or two after we got home.

Oops. Really inaccessible front porch. The porch, not just its roof, collapsed yesterday.

I like looking out my windows when I write…if I can.

View out upstairs window. The snow is on one of the roofs.

Garden shed. Who gardens in the wintertime anyway?

Welcoming sign and totem at entrance to Glacier Bay National Park. No wonder it’s closed in the winter. It now has a one-lane road too and winter workers have trouble getting to work. Even those with masters or PhDs in biology, geology, or whatever are have been on snow shovel duty.

We took a walk early on into these days of snow. Notice the snow is lighter than the sky. I took this about 3:00 in the afternoon. Even today at noon, the snow is lighter than the sky. That’s the advantage of snow in Alaska’s winter.

A few in town have had their chimneys fall. That’s serious when so many of us heat with wood. I have a perfect view of our house chimney from my desk. I write four or five sentences and check the chimney. So far so good.

When I was two, we had 55 inches of snow in northern New Hampshire. My father got up every two hours to put more wood in our wood furnace. The temperature went down to -44 F. I don’t remember any of that, but I remember when my mother put me in my snowsuit and set me on the back porch. She liked peace and quiet. I must have been whining because my three older siblings were outside skiing down the hill. Wanting to join them, I walked off the porch. Bad idea but along came a 14-year-old boy named Robert headed to the ski hill. He had dark hair and very dark eyes. He set me on the porch, shook his finger at me and told me to stay there. I did. I’m sure it wasn’t -44 or none of us would have been outside.

Eight years later we lived in Maine. What a marvelous snowstorm we had. School was cancelled for one day. Time to put on my snowsuit and go out to play! There were 10-foot drifts, and it was -20 or -30 degrees. A neighbor girl and I thought it was grand. We came in once for cheese, crackers, and hot chocolate. A quick trip and my mother shooed us out the door, so we didn’t have to take off our snowsuits.

Air Force members from Bangor’s Dow Air Force Base couldn’t get to work. They put on their winter gear and jumped off the second story roof. I thought that was a great idea, but they said I had to ask my mother if I could. Knowing my mother, I’m sure she would have said yes. Being a ten-year-old easily distracted by any snow diversion, I never asked. I still regret I didn’t ask.

My next winter excitement came in Kansas during an ice storm sometime the 1980s.The kitchen sink, whose water and drainpipes were built into the stone foundation froze. I guess we washed dishes in the bathroom sink or used paper plates. We had subzero temperatures for perhaps a week. Ice storms in Kansas were not unusual then, but this was a long one. Our beautiful longhaired black cat was gone for five days and nonchalantly came home with ice hanging down from his belly to the ground. He never told us where he was. We were lucky to have a wood fireplace as for several days we had no electricity and, therefore, no working furnace.

Now this storm.

Winter doesn’t end in Southeast Alaska till March or April. I just hope the snow goes off all the roofs before the next storm.