Fox Water

Minus 30. The house is toasty. Teo and I did a foray into Fanchorage, the “big box store” side of town, for provisions: 50 lb bags of water softener salt, some cheese, some salsa, some chips, some croutons, some grapenuts, some metamucil, all you need to survive. Did I mention, all in large quantities, as well?

Then we took a run out toward Fox, not to put him to sleep (as we often resort to), but to get some water from the Fox Spring.

The Fox Spring is a fun Fairbanks tradition. Up till last summer it was a little, roofed station right off the road on a rickety bridge over a little creek which had two spigots near the floor of the bridge with grates to the creek, and two push button valves at arm level, which, when pressed in, yielded a focused stream of water to fill 5-gallon containers at about a minute a container.

Nothing really changed last summer. For some reason the cost-cutting Governor Sarah Palin said she was instructing the Department of Transportation to bulldoze the “facility,” because it cost too much to keep up. I guess she found out what “tradition” is all about.

Because soon DOT was busy investing a bunch of money to move the station off the creek and they built a more substantial shack over the same dispensing scenario, a little uphill, where it creates a challenging slippery-slope of spilt water-become-ice.

Alas, today when Teo and I arrived, there was an idling car with someone in it, and some containers sitting idly up at the dispensing station – an odd scene, because usually there’s a line of people holding their containers, watching impatiently while one fills hers. I had come early hoping to forego the wait in minus 30, but...

There it was, one spigot barely urinating, in essence. At the rate of 10 minutes per container. I learned this from the nice man who was in his car, who walked up to commiserate a little. He told me he didn’t even turn the water on, it was jammed on (we use pennies) by someone who realized that the new setup was succumbing to the deep freeze, and this hero (?) managed to keep a dribble of water flowing. I counted my six 5-gallon containers, multiplied by 10 minutes, and left for home.

It’ll be okay. I bought some beer yesterday.