Читать книгу Racing Toward Recovery. The Extraordinary Story of Alaska Musher Mike Williams Sr. онлайн

22 страница из 77

People might be surprised by this, but in summer it can get up to eighty or ninety degrees. Not every day, but it can. That would be June or July, not usually August. Temperature year-round averages about fifty degrees, so it is pretty cold in the winter. Winter comes early compared to what the calendar says in other places, but it used to come earlier. Over the last fifty years I think I have seen climate change. When I was young fall was in early September and by the end of September we would see the river freeze. Now it’s like late October or mid-November.

I’d also say that about twenty or thirty years ago we used to see a lot more snow. We seem to be seeing less and less. Still, our winter is much more winter than most people around the United States get, for sure. When it’s really cold in Akiak it can be between minus sixty and minus seventy. It does get that cold, but we still have to do things. I’ve got to put on my parka and go out and feed the dogs.

I know when the average person in the Lower 48 hears those temperatures they shiver. They wonder how we could function and do anything at all. They ask how we put up with it, why don’t we stay in the house. That’s the way that people think.