Photo: Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock

It's Not Summer in Fairbanks Unless These 13 Things Happen

Fairbanks
by Lindsey Parkinson Jul 14, 2016

1. Sled dog training continues but now they’re pulling ATVs.

2. Hot Licks Homemade Ice Cream reopens.

3. The incessant drones of our state bird — the mosquito — fill the air.

4. And if a store has run out of bug repellant, it’s on the news.

5. Wildfire smoke has settled around town.

Because Fairbanks is a bowl that catches woodstove smoke in the winter and wildfire smoke in the summer.

6. The red and black Antique Auto Museum bus is driving through campus again.

Where are they always going?

7. Your friends at the Park Service have started complaining about all the dumb things tourists do around bears.

It’s a giant animal with claws and sharp teeth, get back on your tour bus…

8. The bowls, buckets, and trays of veggies start covering every surface of your house.

Summer isn’t until May so if you want things to ripen, start early.

9. You’re constantly hearing the plink of blueberries in an empty bucket wherever you go.

Or cranberries, cloudberries, raspberries, strawberries, or currants…

10. You keep forgetting to go to bed because the sun is still out.

You could have sworn it was only 8 p.m.

11. Construction. So much construction.

Our seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, construction.

12. Every other car on the highway is a canoe-topped Subaru.

13. The attendance at regularly scheduled events has been cut in half.

There’s no time for potlucks/dances/church/book club/what-have-you when the sun’s out.

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