# No open water yet this May 2013



## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

Yeah, it is bad this year. My kids got their feet wet for the first time on Tuesday, just going into the pond to cool off voluntarily after they had done marks. Our ponds are open now, but the water is still a bit chilly to do actual water work. Friends are running an HRC Finished test this weekend at Essex (their dog is at 480 pts, so he could make the 500 point club on Saturday!) but they were down in Florida for the last three months so he has had plenty of water work!

The only good thing is that all the snow and rain have filled up the ponds and topped up the water table--things were pretty dire on the water front here last summer with the drought. Some clubs cancelled fall tests and trials because they had no water to work with.


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## GoldenCamper (Dec 21, 2009)

I would find fun ice fishing with my old wooden pop ups. Your spring will come overnight I imagine. I had friends that lived in Skagway for years, but moved back home this way eventually. You have some tough weather and mosquitoes the size of birds, but how I would love to visit someday. The endless darkness of winter and the never ending brightness of summer must be something. I can only imagine.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Skagway is down in SE. They have amazing huge trees, not like our little wimpy ones up here. They have a pretty mild winter with lots of rain. Their climate is so different over there.

Drought doesn't make us happy either. We all get scared of fires. The Anchorage hillside burned in the early 70's, and the Mat-Su Valley burned in the mid-90's, we hope to never see that again. Drought is a very serious matter! When we don't have a good snow pack, the streams and rivers are too shallow to make it easy for the salmon to return. So we have less salmon and the water is too warm for them because it's so shallow.


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## GoldenCamper (Dec 21, 2009)

Alaska7133 said:


> Skagway is down in SE. They have amazing huge trees, not like our little wimpy ones up here. They have a pretty mild winter with lots of rain. Their climate is so different over there.


Goes to show you how much I know about your area. Seems not far off latitude wise, but then again a few hours north of me is all so different.

I would love to be further north but the winters and the cold, Brrrr.

Do you get to see the aurora borealis often? One of the things to do on my bucket list.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Alaska is different all over. Up in Fairbanks they get real winter. It's normally -50 or more below every winter. Sometimes it's -60. I'm just not sure what I'd do with the dogs in the winter, below -20 I become a wimp and only do 1 mile walks.

The northern lights we only see in the winter, it's not dark enough in the summer. The northern lights turn based on the location of magnetic north pole. The magnetic north pole is slowly moving north. When I was a kid in the 70's it was in northern Canada. Today it's in the Arctic Ocean off shore. Within 50 years it will be in Russia and we will rarely see it anymore. Here's a great website for seeing the aurora forecast all over the world: Aurora Forecast | Geophysical Institute Normally the northern lights we don't see much in town. I think the lights from town are too bright. Plus they normally don't come out until 2 am. Way past my bedtime. So if you want to come see them, plan on doing it in March. They are strongest then and the weather isn't so cold, plus the snow is the deepest. Let me know if you need help planning a trip!


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## MillionsofPeaches (Oct 30, 2012)

wow that is the pits. I know this sounds silly but I've not really considered your scenario. I can't imagine the girls not going out in the water. I imagine you guys have to be dragged inside during the summers!


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Yes we hate coming inside, 20 hours of daylight! Got up this morning and it was above freezing. This the first morning above freezing in months. We are so ready for global warming.


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## dborgers (Dec 7, 2011)

> We're still in the throws of another tough winter. Still waiting on global warming.


"Climate change" is the commonly used term. That seems to be occurring all over the world. The Arctic Ocean is open for shipping for the first time, the permafrost belt around the top of the globe is melting, record heat here and there, droughts all over. Sadly, it seems our Earth has had too much.

Hope you get open water sooner rather than later.


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## EvanG (Apr 26, 2008)

dborgers said:


> *"Climate change"* is the commonly used term.


It's a more convenient term that the previously popular "Global warming". It's hard to blame such a widely protracted winter on global warming without some desperate stretch in logic. Snow in Kansas City in May? Yep; 3".

EvanG


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## dborgers (Dec 7, 2011)

It was 75 degrees here several times this winter, I grew up in Michigan. They don't get the snow they did when I was a kid. Climates are changing all over. That is undeniable. I'm not into politics. It's sad some are when it comes to this. Ask the Inuit in Alaska how much things have changed in a very short amount of time.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

I'm in Alaska, we don't have Inuit here, they live in Canada. We have eskimos, aleuts, athebaskans, yupik, and ukpik to name a few, but no inuit. Please don't make this a political discussion. I shouldn't have mentioned the global warming thing. Just for the record, when I was a kid in the late 60's early 70's, they told us in school we were headed into an ice age. That didn't happen either did it? So let's just say the weather this spring could be a lot better. The last 10 years here in Alaska have been the hardest and snowiest on record. Looking forward to warmer weather very soon. It snowed a few more inches this morning.


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## dborgers (Dec 7, 2011)

Hope you get your open water soon. A golden needs his swimming. Beautiful boy

BTW, Inuit is a term that includes Inupiat, if we want to get technical about it.  

I don't view discussion of climate change as political. Just stating the known facts. When forests are falling over as the permafrost belt slowly melts and the Northwest passage is open for the first time for regular marine shipping during summer months, a even winter ice thin and brittle, can anyone deny the climate is changing? it isn't a political statement on my part. I didn't assign blame.


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