utilities... the dilemma

OK, so the following dilemma we are trying to solve may sound weird to some people that read this blog. The answer, according to some of you will probably be, but of course you should. And the answer, according to some of you, will probably be, but of course you shouldn't. But I don't know.

You see, currently we live in a small (950 sq ft) cabin. We built this as a temporary home until we could get our house built. Since then, we have been vacillating back and forth over whether to actually build the real house, or just figure out a way to add on to the cabin, but we are right now leaning towards building the house. The cabin just was not built with the idea of making it last the rest of our lives, and it likely won't.

So now, the current debate is, if we build the house, should we plan on wiring and plumbing the house for modern utilities. We have already decided that we are going to continue to heat solely with wood, so that is not at issue currently. What is at issue is cooking, water, and electricity.

• Electricity. Right now, we have no electricity, although the cabin was wired for it. We use LED lanterns and a propane lantern for lighting. This is not an issue in the summer, when we don't even need a light if we wake up in the middle of the night. But in the deep part of winter, it is a bit challenging, and we went through 2 or 3 12-packs of D batteries and 2 or 3 small tanks of propane this winter. This also means that we don't have a fridge. We have been keeping things that have to stay cold in the arctic entry, which actually has been working very well. But that doesn't work in the summer, and last summer, we had a cooler outside that we kept full of ice from the store. The electric company wants $25,000 to get electricity to our property line, and our house will sit at least 150 feet back from the road. It would be extremely expensive to get traditional electricity to our home. In addition, solar power would probably not be a terrific option, since there are only a few short hours of light in the winter, and the sun stays extremely low in the sky. It would be great in the summer, though. We don't have a steady enough wind in our spot to make a windmill feasible, and we have no little stream for microhydro power. So, what do we do? Do we spend a fortune on electricity, or do we find alternative ways of living so that it is not necessary? There are ways to do that. For example, we have a north facing hill at the back of our property. We could dig into that, and make an ice house, where we could make ice all winter long, and pack it in straw or sawdust, that would likely stay frozen all summer if we insulate the door well, and keep the door closed. We could then store anything that has to stay cold in that. For me, light is the biggie. I really don't want to resort to candles or oil lamps, and I hate using so many batteries. The biggest benefit of electricity to me is to be able to flip a switch and have safe, sufficient light. If we could get LED or compact flourescent lighting, and were diligent about only having one or two lights on at a time, I don't know if we could generate enough solar power to run them. Also, in the summer, with solar panels, we could certainly generate enough electricity to run a high efficiency washer, but what about in the winter? Would I be washing clothes by hand? We currently use a laundromat, but that is certainly not a permanent, sustainable solution.

• Water. The only running water is into and out of our kitchen sink. We have no hot water except what we heat on the stove. We have been planning to dig a well for our water supply. Luckily, this area has plentiful water, but because we are on the top of a hill, our well will have to be about 110 feet deep. Without electricity, that is a lot of distance to pump water by hand. In addition, it gets very cold in the winter. It got down to -35 this winter. We would have to find a way to keep the wellhead/pump from freezing. I know they have frost proof hand pumps, but will it work at -35? I don't know. The other option is to collect rainwater in a cistern. It rains a lot in Alaska in the summer, but would we be able to collect enough water from runoff on our roof to supply us all year? I think we would have to be extremely water conscious, and a dry year could be disasterous. Of course, if we get electricity, we can have an electric, underground pump for our well, and this would all be moot. The other water issue is waste. Right now, we are doing an impromtu composting toilet (such as desribed in the Humanure Handbook)Even though Alaska has plentiful water, it bothers me that we use so much perfectly clean drinking water to get rid of poop. We either have to figure out a way to use greywater to flush with, or consider composting toilets, also a great source of fertilizer, if you are careful.

• Cooking. Cooking is currently managed by propane. We have a gas range converted to propane and it works quite well, including the oven, without any electricity. In fact, I like it better than an electric range. However, I am concerned about the supply of propane. I have said before that I think we are coming to a crisis point in the oil supply. Right now, it doesn't seem like much of a threat, because this economic collapse has lessened the demand for oil to a point that there is currently a supply surplus. But, as production inevitably declines, and demand gradually increases again, prices will go up, and availability will go down. I don't expect to be able to acquire or afford propane to cook with indefinitely. SO... do I put an electric range in the new house? Or, do I put a wood cookstove in the new house? I guess that all goes back to whether we get electricity or not.

So, all in all, it seems like electricity is a good thing. But again, I worry about future availability. As the economy continues to collapse, and resources become increasing scarce, what will happen? I think remote areas will gradually lose services, as it becomes more cost prohibitive to provide services to them. Already this is happening in rural villages across Alaska that never got a sufficient fuel or food supply for the winter. And what has the government been able to do to help? Talk about it in the state legislature saying what a shame it is. That sure gets people warm and fed. I don't want that to happen to my family. That is why I advocate growing a garden and that is why I am considering other ways of meeting our needs besides relying on the grid longterm.

So, yes, I am actually considering a wood cookstove, and yes, I am considering building an ice house, and yes, I heat solely with wood. And I have a supply of stored food, and I am trying a garden again this year.

Comments, ideas, critiques, PLEASE. And if I do opt to put in the electricity, what backups would be most workable? What do you think?

Brrr...

I know the picture is a little blurry, but it says -29 degrees Farenheit. It's a little cold out tonight in Alaska. If I were in Fairbanks, as my husband and 13 year old son are tonight, I would be even colder... it is -38 there. And it's not even the coldest part of the night yet.

What does this mean for us, who do not have central heating run on natural gas and/or electricity, seeing as how we have neither in our cabin? Lots of wood. We heat with a wood stove, and it has been going literally all day. Normally, I get it going real good before I go to bed, then start it again for a few hours in the morning, but not tonight. Tonight, I must set my alarm to go off every 2 or 3 hours so that I can get up and add wood to the fire.

Last night, it was -10 or -15, and I let the fire die out overnight. When I woke up this morning, it was about 50 degrees in the house. Not cold enough to be dangerous, but chilly enough that I was reluctant to get out from underneath my warm down comforter to start the fire again. But it is much colder tonight, cold enough to require vigilance. So I will be getting up during the night.

It is interesting, living with a heat system that we must constantly regulate. This is the first winter I have not lived in a house that just automatically stayed at the temperature I chose, without me doing anything, or noticing at all for the most part. It means that in very cold weather like this, I am tied to the house. I cannot be gone too long if I don't want to have to start another fire when I return. It is much easier to keep the fire fed than to start a new one.

In addition, I had, without thinking, planned for the entire family to go to Fairbanks these last few days, to visit my oldest daughter. Then I remembered what all of us being gone for 4 days would mean. The house would get cold. I have pets that would not be terribly comfortable if the house got cold, and we certainly have things in the house that should not freeze. So then, a friend volunteered to come over to the house once a day to light a fire, to keep the house at least above freezing. But luckily I looked at the weather reports and realized that it would be getting this cold. One fire a day just would not be enough. So, I stayed.

I am not complaining. I would have liked to have seen Meghan, but it doesn't really bother me to stay home. I am just fascinated by how differently we think about things when we have to directly manage our needs, as opposed to setting the thermostat at 55 and leaving for 4 days, knowing what temperature the house would be on our return.

I wonder how different our society would be if all of us had to have this level of consciousness of all of our daily needs? If all of us had to bake our bread each week and know how much wood had to be hauled in the house each day, and so on. It seems to me that there would be much less importance placed on status and more on practicality. For example, we have about 950 square feet of living space. We would be cutting, chopping, stacking, hauling, and burning much more wood if we had twice the space. While there is a part of me that would love to be living in a fancier house, most of me is glad we built small. Especially when it is cold outside.

Siding

So, the bishop of our ward happens to own a log cabin business. In addition to providing full cabin packages, one of his other products is siding. This siding is made from logs that are sliced lengthwise, so that we have 10' long slices of log that are an inch thick. The slices of log are nailed in two overlapping layers along the sides of the house. The siding isn't done, but two walls are completely done, and the third wall is more than halfway sided. It should be completely done in the next few days, except for the tops of the gable ends. We haven't completely decided yet what we will do there, although James is leaning towards galvanized corrugated metal. The next project will be to weatherize the wood. We decided not to paint because we want to keep the wood appearance. So we will most likely do a colored penetrating stain, that adds some color but allows the texture and grain of the wood to shine through.

We like this siding for several reasons. It is rustic in appearance, in keeping with the character of the entire cabin. It is a local product, made from Alaskan logs that are milled less than 5 miles from my house. And buying it helps a friend.

The last two reasons are especially important from my perspective. It is important to us that we were able to use local products, and we wish it would have been feasible to do this with the entire cabin. If we had wanted a log cabin, we could have done much more of it with local materials, but that wasn't what we wanted, as 8 inch log walls only have a R10 insulation value. With economic problems becoming more severe, and oil depletion quickly becoming a looming issue, it is absolutely vital that local products be used as often as possible, in part to cut down on the distance things are shipped, and in part because I believe it will soon become necessary to rely on local products for many items that will become not worth shipping, so we need those businesses to stay open.

In addition, there is the issue of helping someone I know. Community building is critical with the economic struggles our nation is facing. In times of economic crises, people depend on the people they know for support. Studies have shown that the people that best weathered the Soviet collapse had networks of friends, neighbors, etc outside of the main economic system that they relied upon. If things get worse, and I very much suspect they will, those community ties will become critically important. I buy siding from my friend. Maybe I will give some raspberry jam from next year's harvest to a friend. That friend may drive my kid to school. And so on. And if we all help each other, we will get by much better than each family struggling to do it all. And in the process, develop those social ties that are important on an emotional level as well. That friend that gave you a bushel of potatoes may be the person you call on the phone when your camel's back has been broken by that last straw, maybe something major like a foreclosure, maybe something little like a draining day with quarrelling children, and you just need someone to talk to. And maybe they may turn to you for something big, like space on the floor to sleep if their heat breaks in the middle of winter, or they run out of heating oil, and the barge doesn't come back til spring.

So, yeah, I have siding on my house :)

we all live in a yellow submarine....

Frosted lemon yellow, to be exact:

We painted the walls of the loft today, this beautiful butter yellow color. Not the bright yellow of melted butter, but the creamy yellow of fresh butter. Those of you that know me well are probably not surprised. Yellow is, after all, my favorite color.

We also painted the ceiling, but it is just flat white. But I am tickled pink... er... yellow... about my pretty walls.

The other big thing we did this weekend is the tile that will surround the wood stove:

Right now, it is the kerosene heater sitting on it, not the wood stove. And there are still spacers between the tiles, and no grout yet. But the tiles themselves are set. Hopefully, two weeks from now, we will be installing the wood stove. And it will go right there.

kitchen floor

We were at Lowes last night, spending some quality time alone, and we made a happy discovery. Lowes had some ceramic tile on clearance, for 68 cents a square foot, and I actually liked it quite a bit. So, for $74.80, we bought our kitchen floor:



We thought it was a great deal. And since the point of the cabin is to get something up quickly and cheaply, this is perfect.

primer

We worked on more mud this weekend, and put primer on all the walls we have done.

This is Ryan and Becky putting primer on the kitchen wall. It's amazing how finished the walls look now. We are getting really close to being able to move in. Just gotta get the wood stove in.

cabin plans

In case anyone is curious:

sheetrock

Another blurry picture, this one of the wall in our living room, WITH SHEETROCK ON IT. This was taken with the crappy camera in James's cell phone, as I forgot to bring the new digital camera for the second weekend in a row. We have a lot of sheetrock done: the really hard part of the vaulted ceiling, the short walls upstairs, the entire front wall of the loft (the one with the window in it), one piece in the kitchen, the living room side of the bathroom, and the entire north wall of the house (as seen in the picture). But we still have a LOT to go. It will probably take a couple more weekends to get the rest of the sheetrock done. But we are hoping to spend Thanksgiving weekend up there, and get all the sheetrock, taping and mudding done. Cross your fingers. Mine are.

I was talking about the hard part of the vaulted ceiling. That was what got sheetrocked first, because the rented scaffold had to go back. These lovely pieces of sheetrock hang on the ceiling about 20 feet above the living room. We had to carry each 4' x 8' piece of sh... uh... sheetrock up the stairs, pass it over the railing for the loft onto the scaffolding and climb up a ladder. Then, James would hold this huge, heavy piece of sheetrock in place while I quickly darted around with the drywall gun putting screws into it to hold it up before his arms gave out. That was the plan, anyway.

The sad reality is that up until that point, I had never done drywall, and had never used the drywall gun. I hate to admit this, but I have shied away from power tools to a large extent, and am hopelessly inept in their use. (I think this dates to seeing my sister's paternal grandfather missing some fingers from an accident with a saw. It scarred me for life. Him too, in a more literal sense.) Anyway, I had a hard time working the drywall gun. There was one memorable moment when his temper gave out about the same time as his arms and a 4' x 8' piece of drywall got thrown across the house.

I don't feel too bad about my aversion to power tools. My mom doesn't do ladders. Ladders don't bother me for the most part, as long as they stay where you put them. I don't do power tools. I just don't see any benefit to putting any part of my body within range of something sharp that is moving rapidly. But when there is only you, and stuff needs to get done, you do it, regardless. And the ceiling? It's up. And James says that once it is taped and mudded, you won't even be able to tell that we did a crappy job.

After that ordeal, the rest was a piece of cake.

insulation and more

This is a picture of the insulation on our roof. We also have it on our walls. Our house will stay warm. The only place not yet insulated is the vaulted portion of our back wall and ceiling. We will do that this weekend, after we move our scaffolding inside. We also have our stairs done, along with the framing for the stair and loft walls:

We have a deadbolt on our front door, and a key. We do not yet have a doorknob. The cabin is wired for electricity, for if we ever hook it up. The septic tank is in. So we have made a lot of progress in the last couple weeks. This weekend, we will finish the last bits of insulation, install the PECS pipes for water flow, install vapor barrier on the ceiling, and start sheetrocking.

I am hoping I can convince James that now is the time to install the wood stove. I was out there for three days and nights this past weekend, and with only a small kerosene heater running a couple hours a day, and temps in the 20's and 30's, it was quite chilly.

Speaking of cold, it looks like our house will become one of those Alaskan icons, at least for a season: we will have house wrap visible on our house all winter. There is another reason that you see Tyvek houses in Alaska... it gets cold before the siding is done. It is too cold for us to paint our siding, so we are waiting til spring.

amazing progress

Here you see, from left to right, the WINDOWS for the arctic entry, the dining room, and the kitchen. At the moment, as you can see, even though it is only about 35 degrees, the window in the arctic entry is open. This is because the children have been throwing pieces of scrap wood out of it into a pile, as their father generates said scrap inside.

For those outsiders that may not know, when you walk into the house, you are in a small room, with a shut door. In the winter this prevents cold outside air from blowing in and warm inside air from leaving when you open the front door. You sit down on the convenient bench and remove your coat and boots, thereby also keeping all the snow, rain, leaves, mud, whatever, in that small space. Much easier to mop a 5 x 7 room than the entire house. This is an arctic entry. Arctic entrys are generally not directly heated, but do get some heat radiated through the walls, as the interior walls are not insulated, but the exterior walls are. They tend to be cooler than the rest of the house, but much warmer than outside.

And:

Housewrap, windows, and even a front door! There is no door handle on the door yet, but it is in a package waiting to be opened and installed. Note that the housewrap is Lowe's not Tyvek. In Alaska, for whatever reason, Tyvek is very popular. You will see houses that have obviously been standing for a long time, that have OSB and Tyvek housewrap, but no siding. The housewrap is thus generally torn and fluttering in the wind. This is a typical architectural feature of the Alaskan bush house, and means that the homeowner either got broke or tired.

Do you see the white stuff on the ground in both of these pictures? This is our first snowfall of the year. It is only about a quarter of an inch, but it counts.

This afternoon, we were working on the interior of the house, specifically the stairs. See the talented and hardworking carpenter fixing making adjustments to the stair jacks:

Here is what they looked like when I left today:

I talked to James a little bit ago, and he says he has gotten the treads on the stair jacks now, so that they can be walked on.

last weekend

This is where we were last weekend:

We were finishing putting OSB on the walls of the cabin. Here's Steven, looking out of the second floor.

Where Steven is standing is the area where our water tank will be. We have a 150 gallon water tank that we will have filled up by a water truck every so often throughout the winter, until the ground thaws enough to have the well dug. It is up on the second story in order to provide at least a small amount of pressure, so that when we turn on the faucet in the kitchen sink, water will actually come out of it. We are going to be learning lots about water conservation, I am sure. I am hoping we won't have to have it filled more than once every other week or so. I will be very happy to have the well dug, however, as I hate to rely on someone with a truck for something as essential as water.

the big push

Well, PFD's came in today. For those outsiders reading this, that is the Permanent Fund Dividend. Oil money. Every Alaskan gets paid once a year, thanks to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This year was a significant windfall, and we are going to put it to good use.

James is taking the rest of the month off from work, and is going to live up at our property, and push hard to get the cabin done. The rest of us will join him on weekends, and continue our normal lives in Anchorage during the week, with school, work, etc.

It is very odd, this dichotomous life we live. We spend 2/3 of our week living in one city, and the other 1/3 in another. And with James gone all the time, it will seem even stranger. I think it will be a good thing for our family when we no longer have lives in two separate places.

a roof over our heads

What more do I need to say????

so he's right again....

It is so frustrating that it seems like James is always right. I wrote, in my first post on this blog:

"We are building a small (24' x 28') cabin with a loft to live in while we build our house. I am determined that we will be living in it by the time school starts. My husband is convinced that it will take a little longer than that to get it done. I, however, will not concede defeat until Monday, August 20, the first day of school, if we are not living there. Until then, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. My husband says I should mention that he is a carpenter (and I am not), so therefore he is right. According to him. :)"

OK, so it is now August 23, school has begun, and we are not living in our cabin. The biggest thing slowing us down is that we can only work on it two days a week. We live in Anchorage, and our property is an hour's drive away, so the only time we go is on the weekends. We have been going every weekend, but it just isn't enough. We still have so much to do. We are going to try to finish the roof Labor Day weekend, and the weekend after that, we need to finish sheeting the sides of the house. Once that is done, we install windows. Then siding, insulation, sheetrock, flooring, installing the wood stove, etc... maybe by Christmas???

not quite what I expected...

So, I thought I would be posting pics of our roof with OSB all nailed on after I got home from work tonight. Instead, I am sitting here, dreading having to get ready for work, because I know getting all dressed will hurt, but I have to go in, as I am testifying in a trial today to terminate a parent's rights. A parent who smoked crack the day before she gave birth, and throughout her pregnancy as well, causing her child to suffer from cerebral palsy. A child that she has visited twice in the year and a half since she was born.

But, you ask, why would it hurt for you to get dressed? Because everything hurts today. James and I were working on the abovementioned roof, nailing the OSB into place. We were hoping to finish last night so we could do shingles Labor Day weekend. Well, we got about 2/3 of the OSB nailed on, before events conspired to put a rather abrupt halt to our work for the day.

James was on top of the roof, with a safety strap, as the roof is rather steep. I was on a ladder, which was leaning against the edge of the roof, with my feet probably about 15 feet from the ground. My job was to hold the OSB in place for the minute or so it would take James to put a few nails in it, so it would not slide off the roof onto the ground. So, there I am, doing just fine (I thought), holding the OSB, when the ladder disappears from under me. I remember screaming briefly, a falling sensation that thankfully didn't last very long, a bonk on the head, and landing on top of the ladder, upside down, with my head by the ground, and my feet in the air. Ouch.

Turns out the ladder had shifted and fallen, landing still partially propped up on the side of the house. James had all he could do, I think, to shift the OSB, that he was only holding the upper edge of, so that when it fell, it didn't fall on top of me.

I have a large bump on the back of my head, and numerous fairly painful scrapes and bruises, the worst being on my right shin, and the back of my right arm. But even right after the fall, I didn't have any of the typical symptoms of a head injury, except for some nauseousness that passed quickly. Guess it is actually a good thing that I am fairly hard-headed, LOL.

James made me lay down, which I actually didn't object to, while the kids and him packed up so we could come back to Anchorage. I did feel a little guilty that I wasn't able to help. Today, I am sore all over. My neck muscles feel sort of strained. I have a hypothesis. I think when something happens to a person causing sudden movement, your neck works hard automatically to keep your head as stable as possible, in an attempt to prevent injury. Don't know if I am right, but it explains why my neck muscles are sore. I was in a car accident about 12 years ago, and I remember my neck feeling the same way. I think that is what it is. Anyway, in a few days, I will be fine. And by Labor Day weekend, I should be feeling up to climbing back up that ladder so we can get that damn OSB nailed up.

you've got mail

We put up our mailbox this weekend. Now we can actually get mail at our new address. Getting closer....

swinging from the rafters

Well, we put rafters on the house this weekend. I have to say, the part at the top of the roof in the vaulted portion was pretty scary. I was on a ladder, holding my end of the rafter, while James climbed 20 feet up his ladder with his end of the rafter on his shoulder. Then we had to nail it in place using joist hangers and hurricane ties. The scariest part of the whole thing was watching James's ladder shake as he climbed that high. He didn't seem to mind. It was easier for me to not watch. And I figured out that I don't really mind climbing ladders so much, but I really don't like climbing down them.

There is another couple that are building down the street from us, and they have a daughter that is Becky's age. Becky got invited to spend the night with her this weekend, and came back the next morning singing Avril Lavigne songs. I am about tired of hearing Avril now, LOL.

The good and the bad....

OK, so the good news... we got the kitchen wall framed, and the sheeting on the floor for the upstairs. The 16 foot wide section in the middle where the house is tallest will be our bedroom. The window framed in the wall is our bedroom window. Also, we got 3 sheets of OSB on one of the exterior walls... the other gable end from what you can see. So, we are making good progress.

The bad news... James was at The Home Depot today, and OSB is now $5 a sheet more than when we last priced it, a few weeks ago. That's more than a 50% increase in less than a month. What's up with that???? It means that our house just increased in price by about $350. Nice.

OSB isn't the only thing getting more expensive. Check out this article.... http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-foodprice1407jul14,0,7778150.story

and this one:

http://origin.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_6248755?nclick_check=1

Food is getting more expensive too. Thank you, George W. for pushing the ethanol thing. Why anyone thinks it is a good idea to burn our food in our gas tanks is beyond me. With grain storage levels at an almost 30 year low, is now really the time to be using corn as a poor substitute for gasoline?

Making good progress...

So, this weekend, we went back out to our land, and got more work done. We framed in the upstairs window, and then started on the interior. We framed the bathroom walls and the walls for the arctic entry. We then put the beam across the ceiling between the dining area and the living area, and hung the floor joists for the loft. I am feeling like we are making pretty good progress.

Ryan is a little spider still, climbing on the tops of the walls with no fear of heights or apparent awkwardness. Reminds me of the time we went for a drive down to Southern Utah when I was pregnant with Steven. I wasn't feeling up for a hike at 8 months pregnant, but James and the kids went wandering around, and they came to a spot where the rock made a narrow chimney. James says he had about decided they wouldn't make it up it, and looked around and Ryan, about 9, had splayed his arms and legs out sideways and scooted right up it. He has always been an excellent climber.

It rained on us Saturday, again. But Sunday, it cleared up, and we had a beautiful, sunny day. It got up to 64 degrees, perfect T-shirt weather. By the way, it was 99 degrees yesterday in Salt Lake City. NO THANK YOU!

I read Sharon Astyk's blog on a regular basis. She is an interesting woman. She has four children, and owns a farm in New York. She is also in the process of writing a book, and still has time to write lengthy, thought-provoking blog entries several times a week. Sharon had an interesting post on her blog today... you can see it at: http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/07/pick-up-your-hat.html

Is it time for us to pick up our hats? There is more than one reason we are building a little cabin to live in while we build our house. At this point, it does not make sense to us to be paying rent and a land payment. Also, I definitely think it is past time that we should be growing our own fruits and vegetables, canning the fish we catch, owning a few chickens (meat and eggs), sheep (wool... duh), and rabbits (meat and fur), and starting to do more for ourselves. And besides, the wool and rabbit fur part should be fun.... angora socks, anyone?

We did it!

The walls are up! We stood up the last of the exterior walls today. I also planted 3 daisies, 4 poppies, and 6 raspberry bushes my husband was given the other day. The plan for the daisies is for them to take over. There is a stretch of ground along the road that has not much growing on it currently. As daisies appear to naturalize quite efficiently here, I am hoping they will naturalize into that whole area.

Of course it rained... it's July in Alaska. It actually only rained for the first half of the day, then cleared up. So, unlike the last two weekends, I did not get totally soaked working. It's late, I'm tired, but it's done!

We didn't go see fireworks, as is traditional in most other places on the 4th of July. In Alaska, we have our fireworks for New Year's Eve, or the Fur Rondezvous in late February (when you can actually see them). Right now, in Alaska, we have light 24 hours a day, and although the sun does set for a few hours, it never gets dark enough to be able to see fireworks well. As a matter of fact, I am sitting here right now at 11:00 at night, and the sun is just now setting, and there are still kids playing outside (although not ours. We, unlike many Alaskan parents, do not let our kids play outside all night just because it's not dark.)