Activities

Snowmachine Race	River Raft Race

Winter
The International Iditarod Sled Dog Race is in March. This is a race in which a person, (the musher), stands in the back of a sled that's pulled by a team of dogs. In this particular race, the teams race along a trail for about a thousand miles from the Anchorage area to Nome. On the way there, they have to follow rules, like stopping to rest at specified trails for so many hours. When the race and banquet is over, they usually take a plane back to Anchorage, or stay there if they're from there. Whenever a team of musher and dogs comes close enough to town, a siren blows so everybody knows to come to the finish line to watch the team come in. After the first several mushers and first few prizes are given, the crowd at the finish line isn't so big. When it's really cold, people gather inside the visitor's center to watch from there. Once a musher, when he arrived at the finish line, unpacked a ring to propose to his girlfriend. He wondered why everybody started laughing. Then he learned that a couple just had a wedding under the finish line marker. That finish line is known as a romantic spot at that time of year.

Activities associated with the race are the banquet and the signings.
The banquet: After several mushers have arrived, a big banquet is given in which the many mushers take turns telling their stories, and more prizes are given, (i.e. from the veterinarians to the musher who treats his dogs the best). For those who can't be there, the radio broadcasts the event live.
The signings: T shirts, posters, and other memorabilia as well as refreshments are for sale in a multipurpose building downtown by the finish line. People buy or bring memorabilia and then stand in line waiting their turn for the mushers sitting at the tables to sign them.

Some other winter activities include snowmachining competitions, snowmachining out to the old gold dredges and looking around, ice hockey, checking crab traps, ice fishing competitions, sledding, golfing on the ice with orange balls, winter camping, taking a plane ride south for the winter, joining a sewing or quiliting or scrapbooking group or class, bowling, classes at the local college, the "reforestation project" that leads to a later environmental project, going crazy from cabin fever, running up a long distance phone bill and freezing to death. After Christmas, people bring their Christmas trees to a specific place by the sea. Some people take those trees and "plant" them into the sea ice for a decorative holding place (called "The Nome National Forest.". They also plant wooden statues, like penquins and flamingos made by the local prisoners among the trees just to be funny. Before the ice breaks up, some people take some of these trees and bring them upriver for the fish to use as a shady, protective place to spawn later on in the year. Kindergym is an indoor activity in which people bring their very young children to the recreation building during a certain time and the children play on the trikes there and other age-appropriate toys.

Summer activities include picking berries, canoeing, fishing, going to the beach, a parade, a rubber ducky race, walking to the store that sells ice cream, among other things, and the annual river raft race. Waving to the tour bus is a civic duty. About a week after I gave birth to my daughter, I went to watch the river raft race. After the race, my toilet options included 1. the bushes - no, too many people around that day, 2. the outhouse - no, not in my condition, 3. the tavern. I chose the tavern, and later came out with my after-birth waddle that looked like a drunk waddle. About a week after that, some tourists from Taiwan saw me and my baby in a restaurant. From them I learned that in Taiwan, newborns aren't seen outside of the house during the the first month, so they were all excited about seeing her. Then they saw my brown rootbeer bottle and thought it was an alcoholic beverage bottle. I thought, "they should have seen me last week." Summer is when many people 'go to camp', and when grants pay for many children's educational activities, camps, projects, etc.

Canoeing: Up river, the water is crystal clear to the bottom, so it doesn't look as deep as it is. You can see the fish swim under the canoe. If you get too close to a bird's nest on a rocky mound on the riverbank, the birds - cormorants - will dive-bomb you and you'll duck and wish you were wearing a hard hat; but they never hurt us. Once i walked close enough to a nest to see about a half-dozen colored and speckled eggs. I didn't dare stay long enough to count them.

Special Events include, but are not limited to, the Annual Polar Bear Swim on Memorial Day in late May, musicians playing at a local bar, a well-known speaker speaking to the hospital staff, school and work events, a play put on by the citizens, and basketball games. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference was held in Nome in August, 1995. Sometimes the Polar Bear Swim is postponed a week due to the ice not breaking up soon enough.

Home