alaska train cars in Fox

fairbanks, alaska!

Originally appeared on USAToday.com 9.24.12

By Anne Kristoff, Special Correspondent for Pop Candy

Fairbanks is Alaska’s second largest city. It’s located in the landlocked interior of a state that’s three times the size of Texas. The winters are long, with temperatures dipping into the 40-below range for weeks at a time. But the people are welcoming, smart and self-reliant, and the city has a robust local arts scene, lots to do year round, and its fair share of (pop) cultural touchstones:

1. Downtown — This is where it all began, with a trading post on the banks of the Chena River. Today Downtown Fairbanks is an active and evolving mix of art galleries, coffee shops, restaurants and cute clothing and antiques stores. Be sure to visit The Mecca Bar, whose can’t-miss neon marquee made a cameo in the opening scenes of Sean Penn‘s film adaptation of Jon Krakauer‘s Into the Wild.

2. Public art — Downtown has a solid public art presence with wall murals, a newly completed steam pipe painting project and the remnants of Ted Fellow Candy Chang’s “Looking for Love Again” installation piece, which hangs from the top floor of an unoccupied former hotel. Additional public art pieces are scattered around town, including local sculptor Mark Fejes’ “Migration” piece, which welcomes you at Fairbanks International Airport and yarn bombing on the campus of The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).

3. The Chena River — The Chena twists and turns all the way through town and beyond. In the summer, rent a kayak and enjoy a leisurely float. In the winter, the river’s thick cover of ice allows it to be a great location for events such as the Yukon Quest sled dog race.

4. The Iron Dog — Billed as “The World’s Longest, Toughest Snowmobile Race,” The Iron Dog not only finishes on the frozen Chena, it’s also your best bet for a Palin sighting in the interior. Todd P. is a four-time Iron Dog champ, and Sarah was there to cheer him on earlier this year.

5. Ice Road Truckers/Guy Fieri mash-up — You most likely won’t want to drive the entire length of the haul road like the Truckers do, but you should make the 10-mile trek to The Hilltop Truck Stop for some of their famous pie. Back in town, do a drive-by past the Carlile Trucking office and then head to the nearby Cookie Jar Restaurant for one of those gigantic cinnamon rolls eaten by Guy Fieri on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

6. Music — The Blue Loon, located just outside Fairbanks in Ester, has played host to everyone from Snoop Dogg and Taj Mahal to Flogging Molly and The Wailers. It’s also a great place to catch a first-run flick while noshing on pizza and beer. The Marlin is the fifth Beatle to the local music scene and a home to resident “cabin rap” faves The Phineas Gage and rising indie rockers Young Fangs.

7. Books — Gulliver’s has an extensive selection of locally themed and authored books and music. Forget-Me-Not has more than 40,000 used titles and benefits the Literacy Council of Alaska. The Comic Shop has a ton of fun graphic novels, in addition to toys, games and collectibles. And Fairbanks gets extra cool points for having a bookmobile that goes out to the more rural areas and also makes homebound deliveries.

8. North Pole — It’s not the North Pole, but Santa has a house there (on Saint Nicholas Drive) fronted by a ginormous 42-foot-tall, 900-pound Santa statue. They’ve been mailing letters from Santa since 1952. North Pole also is the hometown of NFL player Daryn Colledge, who was part of the Super Bowl XLV-winning Green Bay Packers. And, while he was stationed at nearby Eielson Air Force Base, “happy tree” painter Bob Ross lived in North Pole.

9. Arts associations and presenters — From the Fairbanks Concert Association, the Drama Association and the Symphony to the Summer Arts Festival, Well Street Art Company and the UAF Museum of the North, the city is surprisingly saturated with quality fine and performing arts offerings.

10. Eat local — Locally grown and made products are everywhere in Fairbanks. Meads at Gold Hill Liquor. Beer at Silver Gulch. Ice cream at Hot Licks. An abundance of vegetables, jellies and soaps at the summer farmer’s market. Produce and meat at Homegrown Market.

11. Winter — Northern lights! Plus, where else can you toss a mug of boiling water into the air and see it instantly vaporize?

It’s quiet here. Dead quiet. Deafeningly so. I’m not complaining though. New York City is the annoying polar (no pun intended) opposite.

There’s a lot of talk/mention/notation about the light here and its absence and how it changes. That concept of the environment and light and change was the basis for the RFP for the the new art installation that will go in the green space in downtown Fairbanks. And it’s the most elusive light – the Northern Lights – that enabled Fairbanks to end up on Lonely Planet’s list of “Top 10 US Travel Destinations for 2013.”

But what about the sound? The Place Where You Go To Listen, at the UAF Museum of the North, addresses that:

These days though it’s a lot easier to get feedback.

When I wrote this story about Fairbanks’ Frugal Fashionistas for the News-Miner I had a feeling it was a good one. In less than a week it has almost 17,000 views and a healthy dose of scrutinizing public commentary.

“There’s something sticky in my shoe.”

It’s a warm and sunny early September afternoon and Trista “Ruckus” Saunders is sorting through a pile of garments and footwear in hopes of putting together a few interesting looks. She, along with friends Katie “KFace” Robb, Nick Hautman and Don Gillie, work quickly out of the back of two vehicles where Saunders and Robb have amassed a sizable selection to choose from.

Folks mill about, vaguely curious, but with their own business to attend to. Across the way two men sit on an old couch, singing softly while playing acoustic guitar.

Four thousand miles away in New York City, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week has just wrapped up in the tents outside of Lincoln Center. Amidst the news of celebrity sightings and rave reviews for various collections, a New York Times piece by Ruth La Ferla bemoaned the commercialization of “street style — once fashion’s last stronghold of true indie spirit.”

There’s no risk of that happening here though. As with most things, Fairbanks takes indie spirit to a whole new level of extreme. Forget “street” and think “transfer site.”

“The idea originally came after looking at an Urban Outfitters catalog,” Saunders said. “We thought, ‘They just look angry, and they’re in scraps of clothing.’ Those are clothes that we could have found or have found at the dump. We should do Dumpster fashion.” And they did. They gathered up some girlfriends, piled into a car and headed to the transfer site. There they picked through the re-use section, stripped and changed in the car, and took their first photos. A few clicks of the computer mouse later and their blog, “Arrogantly Shabby,” was born.

But what originally began as a sort of joke quickly turned into a fun hobby.

“We just kept doing it because it was a blast” said Robb. The blog, whose name is a nod to the slogan for Robb’s hometown of Pawleys Island, S.C., gets about 50 to 100 hits per day. October will mark its two-year anniversary.

The blog’s URL, flagrant-vagrants.blogspot.com, reflects Saunders’ take on the phrase. “We’re pretty flagrant about being poor,” she laughs. “We go to the dump and we put it on the Internet.

We’re pretty proud of our thriftiness.”

While resourceful and thrifty are two words that do come to mind when thinking of Fairbanks, not everyone shares in the women’s excitement for Dumpster finds.

“When I told people that I worked with, when I worked at UAF, that I’ve got this fashion blog with Dumpster clothes about half the people were like ‘Oh my God, you wear clothes from the dump? That is so gross!’” Saunders said.

“I love when people who I know would never come to the dump are like ‘Oh I love that! Where’d you get it?’” Robb continued. “I had a scarf that was a bed sheet and someone was like ‘Oh I love that print’ and I was like ‘Dumpster sheet! It’s a bed sheet from the dump.’ And her face was like ‘Oh, I already complimented it, I can’t take it back.’” Like most Fairbanksans, Robb’s boyfriend Nick Hautman was no stranger to the transfer site but his view has gotten broader since dating Robb. “I’m more of a thrift store guy. You just have to be persistent here and you’ll find things that are just as good if not better.”

But, back to the sticky, icky inside the shoe.

At the Farmer’s Loop West Transfer Site, Kface and Ruckus have met up to produce their latest hobo-chic fashion shoot for “Arrogantly Shabby.”

Rather than dive and shoot on the same day they now accumulate stuff during the week. The ladies will swing through the city’s various transfer sites as they pass them and keep a collection of clothes in the back of their cars. Once they gather enough options, they meet up at the transfer site for a photo shoot with Hautman, Gillie and other friends and volunteers. The clothes are not washed before wearing.

Most things are picked just for shooting purposes and may be altered on site with scissors or binder clips. If they love something, they’ll keep it. But most stuff is returned to the concrete slab in the re-use section.

There are just a few rules for the shoots. First, things can only be worn in one shoot. And second, you cannot look in any kind of mirror. You have to dress yourself and not have any great idea of what you look like.

Also, try to “smeyes.”

That is, smile with your eyes. Although Robb has tried to do so she is more noted for her trademark scowl, which is a shame since it belies her mega-watt smile and boisterous laugh.

While a sticky shoe can be a drag, it’s not the worst of what they might run across. Rotting meat and full cat boxes rank fairly high.

“Moose bodies are not that bad. The worst is fish remains,” said Saunders, prompting a collective groan at the stinky thought of it.

“It’s the difference between the re-use platform and the Dumpsters,” Hautman said. “We certainly will go into the Dumpsters but most of the stuff we use is from the platform.”

While they’ll make the rounds to see if there’s anything interesting in the Dumpsters, they don’t go crazy with it. Meaning: No gloves, no stick.

“When you’ve got a stick that’s a whole other thing,” Saunders said. “You’re committing.”

Once the outfits are selected shooting begins around the site. Some photos are taken by a fence, some near or inside a Dumpster, others over on the slab. Today’s options also include a hot tub, an office chair and some sort of rack structure which Gillie, an engineer at PDC who arrives to the shoot fresh from a showerless week in the field, decides to hang from.

The blog evolved quickly to include male models but those shoots are harder since quality men’s clothing is pretty scarce at the sites.

This has not stopped Gillie from doing entire shoots in women’s clothing.

“It takes a lot longer for us to find stuff for a guy’s shoot,” said Robb. “Hence, him wearing all female clothing once. He looked great. No one would ever know that shoot was all female clothing. He’s a skinny boy. He wears stuff that we can’t wear.”

Watching Gillie and Hautman pick through the clothing pile to create their own outfits for today’s shoot, it seems that they have natural sartorial instincts.

“Katie has molded me,” clarified Hautman. “I didn’t have any sense of fashion but she’s hammered it into me and now I kinda like dressing up.”

“I’ve learned that there are so many ways to combine things that look awful to make them look wonderful,” Gillie added. For those who might want to give Dumpster fashion a try, the group offers such fun tips as be creative, be willing to try anything, and there’s no room for shame. They also advise avoiding the dump after it’s been raining, steering clear of the bin men, and to “keep dem eyes open.”

As is common in Fairbanks, this hobby is actually a way of life and it extends beyond the quirky fashion shoots.

Saunders, who is planning a wedding, has gotten shoes, table cloths, Christmas lights and other décor items from the transfer site.

Favorite trash find ever? For Saunders it’s a tie between a low-back, pea-green 1970s pin tuck velvet couch and a dead stock vintage Aztec Indian print rug. For Robb, a low lying cot with storage under the bed area and an attached desk.

“Not only do we find badass clothing at the dump,” Robb wrote on “Arrogantly Shabby,” “we also come across lots of other ridiculously beautiful things for the house.” Robb also runs a DIY lifestyle blog called “Campy Attributes” and sells collected wares online in an Etsy store called “Teal Tub Vintage.”

Quentin Crisp wrote that “Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.”

Clearly he never made it to Fairbanks or crossed paths with the women of “Arrogantly Shabby.”

If you think that it’s bad to ask a Fairbanksan for the location of his or her favorite berry-picking spot, try asking for a pie recipe. Ask about pie eating, on the other hand, and folks are eager to share. While foodies in the Lower 48 have waged cupcake wars for the past few years, Fairbanks has maintained solid footing in the world of pie.

“I’m a confirmed Hilltop fan,” local photographer Phil Ackley said. “I didn’t even know there were other options.”

The truckstop, located about five miles north of Fox on the Elliott Highway, became famous thanks to one part word-of-mouth, one part Internet and a heaping dash of the “Ice Road Truckers” reality TV series, in which Hilltop has made cameos. On a recent Sunday, the “Pie List,” displayed on an erasable white-board, boasted 10 different flavors ranging from blueberry and pistachio to strawberry-rhubarb to the rumored favorite, the Fatman.

“He and his staff’s favorite was the ‘Fatman’ pie, made with walnut pie crust, cream cheese and some kind other over-the-top ingredients,” N.B. from Eielson Air Force Base posted on Yelp.com, a website on which people can review restaurants and other businesses, about one of the pie makers at Hilltop.

While a few recipes from Hilltop appear in a 2002 book called “The All-American Truck Stop Cookbook,” by Ken Beck, Jim Clark and Les Kerr, Hilltop’s bakers are tight-lipped about their culinary secrets.

“I can’t answer your questions,” one said. “It would be grounds for firing.”

Lips are not much looser at Take 5, located in The Artisan’s Courtyard building on College Road.

“Ninety-five percent of the pies come from family recipes,” said Sherrie Merdes, who owns Artisan’s. She opened Take 5 in 2007 and sold it, recipes and all, in November.

Many of Take 5’s pies are gluten-free. “Our bestsellers have been gluten-free chocolate espresso, peanut butter and strawberry-rhubarb,” she said.

When asked if she would share a recipe, Merdes answered, “Oh no … I wish I could.”

Over at Wolf Run Dessert & Dinner House, located in a wood and stone chalet near the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Josh and Jennifer Rindlisbacher offer up about six pies each day. Most flavors, including cherry-amaretto, sour cream-apple and peach-raspberry, were devised by them. Two others, pecan topped with chocolate and bourbon and their best-selling peanut butter pie, were inherited from the previous owner.

When asked if he had a recipe that he was willing or able to share, Josh fell in line with a genial, “Uh, no.”

At the annual “Liberry Music Festival and Berry Pie Throwdown,” taking place at the Golden Eagle Saloon in Ester on Saturday, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to buy your way into a recipe.

“It’s not exactly a pie social. That implies a much more proper and genteel event,” said Deirdre Helfferich, publisher of the Ester Republic newspaper. “This is a get-down, bribe-the-judges, dancing and foot-stomping and whistling, roaring, cheering-type event. We had 41 pies last year and are expecting far more this year.”

The proceeds from pie sales and bribes will benefit the community-created John Trigg Ester Library.

When asked if there were any frontrunners in the pie auction, Helfferich said, “My mother got a letter from U.S. Sen. Begich for her ‘Lenin Meringue Pie’ last year, but it’s very difficult to say because there are so many really excellent pie makers in the vicinity.”

Anesthesiologist Randy McGregor and his wife, Leeann Ferlito, arrived in Fairbanks to house hunt 30 years ago and knew they wanted something interesting. What they didn’t realize was that they’d end up buying a piece of art.

“We had four days to find a house,” Ferlito said. “I wanted to sacrifice a little bit of energy for daylight because we came here in January and I could see that … I couldn’t see. We walked in that door and said ‘Oh my! This is what we’re looking for.’ It just was wonderful.”

The timber-framed house was designed and built in 1980 by Fairbanks-bred sculptor Mark Fejes. Using local white spruce, imported Douglas fir and cedar siding, the house has 12-inch insulated walls and a ventilated 18-inch fiberglass roof. Stepping through the stained glass accented front door, you’re met with an expansive view of light, wooded property, the city of Fairbanks glittering down below and the Alaska Range off in the distance. The house has a number of custom built-ins, rough-hewn beams, a sauna, hot tub and loft-like master bedroom overlooking the main floor open living area.

“Some people build houses, I wanted to build sculptures in the woods,” said Fejes, who has designed and built several houses in the area. “The (original) client was a transplanted surfer and thought the roof-line was an image of breaking surf and he called it the wave house. It was three saddle-curved shapes with common edges and not at all suitable for a house, but I had a potential client that appreciated the art.”

•••

Ask around about modern architecture in Fairbanks and you’ll be met with as many opinions as there are styles. The answers commingle design aesthetic and materiality with a desire to respond to the environment, the necessity of meeting the needs and wants of the client, the challenge of building in a place that is remote and home to a harsh climate, the responsibility of making the structure heating efficient and the hope that these buildings will help create a sense of place.

“Fairbanks has many buildings to point to to show its interest in creating a new northern architecture — from public buildings to residential,” said Julie Decker, chief curator at the Anchorage Museum and author of a number of books on northern architecture.

Fairbanks does have a small, amicable and familiar group of men and women who are responsible for the slow but steady outcropping of thoughtfully designed modern and contemporary structures sprinkled around town. Some visit each other’s projects and others participate in the monthly lecture series presented by the Alaska Design Forum, a non-profit statewide organization of architects, artists and designers formed to broaden the range of discussion of the design of the built environment.

“We don’t all have a common vision but there’s a sort of group thinking of how to build here,” said David Hayden, owner of L64 Design and Alaska Design Forum board member. “It’s a big language that everyone draws from and pulls out what they can use in their area. Variety makes a place rich. It’s like everyone’s interpretation of the space.”

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when sensibilities began shifting from the more traditional cottage and log cabin aesthetic to something a bit more imaginative. “Fairbanks was a frontier town with serious climatic and economic challenges,” Fejes said. “These disadvantages had, I thought, successfully eliminated nearly all of the joy from Alaskan architecture.”

Commercially, a lot of credit goes to Charles “C.B.” Bettisworth, whose firm, Bettisworth North, is responsible for the Fairbanks International Airport, the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center and the Birch Hill Ski Building, among others.

In her book “Modern North,” Decker notes that Bettisworth “began to forge ahead with architectural styles that were modern and aesthetic as well as meeting the functional needs of the site and client.”

An equally important contribution has been Bettisworth’s knack for attracting fresh talent to Fairbanks.

“I have always been a believer in a collaborative design process, where we are always asking the ‘what if’ questions,” Bettisworth said. “This approach gives everyone in the firm the opportunity to have input into the process. I think that these priorities have attracted exceptional talent to the firm, and these folks, being creative people, have then gone out on their own and to my mind are now providing an additional pool of exceptional talent actively engaged in making Fairbanks a better place to live and work.”

“We’re dying for color here in the middle of winter. Enough of beige and Tahoe blue!”

Bettisworth protégé Hayden is bored with beige, abhors vinyl siding and hates the easy way out. His own house, located on the edge of downtown Fairbanks, is a testament to that.

“This house pushed things pretty far in terms of materials,” he said. “Corrugated metal in Fairbanks (when Hayden’s house was built in 2000) was a special order… Somebody yelled at me in Fred Meyer, ‘How dare you paint that house red!’”

That red, incidentally, was a custom color mixed by Fairbanks artist David Mollett.

“When I built it, people were pissed off. Now people think it’s a remodel,” Hayden continued. “It’s like a dagger to the heart when I hear that.”

Hayden got a chance to expand things even further when he designed a home for Ryan and Sabrina Binkley.

“The Binkley house pushed me in another direction in terms of style and materials,” he recalled. “They were trying to do something that was different and that you don’t ever see in Fairbanks.”

Located on the Chena River, within a mile of the rest of his family, Binkley’s home is a modern industrial house constructed of black steel, yellow cedar, concrete and lots of windows.

“It’s really funny because we go down the river and it’s ‘log cabin, log cabin, vinyl siding house, regular house, regular house’ and then boom! This big square boxy looking thing and nobody really knows what to make of it,” Binkley said.

The Binkleys designed the house with an eye toward the converted industrial factory spaces they encountered while attending engineering school outside of Denver.

“We like the idea of reusing something that was a former industrial space as residential space and we wanted a place like that … We wanted the type of materials that were very tactile and you could touch and feel and they mean something.”

Despite the potential heft of materials, the open interior floor plan creates a breezy yet homey feel and yellow cedar creates a welcoming exterior. It is that sort of intent that Binkley feels may be missing in some of the other homes around town.

“Instead of using vinyl siding because it’s cheap and easy to get up here and it works for the winter, is there something else you could do — like a natural wood — that would be just as cheap but would make you feel better about living in it?” he said. “I think thoughtfulness is the most important thing.”

Architect Patty Peirsol, another Bettisworth alum, is equally concerned with purposefulness.

“You don’t need to have glass everywhere. You just need to know where it should be,” she said. “I’ve been in some older cabins and the windows are placed just perfectly. Like a painting. You’re looking at their birch trees in their yard and it’s fabulous.”

Patty’s home and office is located on the industrial Davis Street corridor below Airport Way. The exterior is simple and gray. The space is filled with found objects, sculpture, fiber art, curved bits of bark, a small beehive attached to a stick, letters of commendation and photos of the gold dredge she owns out in Chatanika. While the interior space reflects the curation of a collected life, it belies what she sums up as her primary design aesthetic: simple lines. It also speaks to the touch of whimsy contained within her designs, many of which are described as towers with bridges and one of which includes a roof deck feature to enable the homeowner to practice his bagpipes among the treetops.

Peirsol feels that through architecture she can help make things better while giving people what they want.

“I always claim that good architecture doesn’t have to cost any more than bad architecture,” she said. “When you’re driving up to your house or walking up to your house or your office building or whatever, it should make you happy. No matter what design it is.”

From Bust Magazine, Feb/Mar 2012 issue

You may not know him by name but if you’ve flown in or out of Fairbanks since 2008, if you’ve visited Bassett Army Hospital on Fort Wainwright, or if you’ve found yourself at the intersection of 10^th Avenue and Cushman Street downtown, then you’ve undoubtedly seen the work of sculptor Mark Fejes.

Mark grew up in Fairbanks. He lives in a unique house in the hills (which he designed and built himself), and he works out of a building (which is also owns, designed and built) on the corner of Well and Good Streets in the railroad industrial section of Fairbanks just north of downtown. His father was a Russian interpreter for the Army and his mother, Claire, became a well-known and important Fairbanks artist. His sister Yolande runs the Alaska House Gallery, where she carries on their mother’s tradition of supporting Alaskan art.

Visiting with Mark is always a unique experience. Music will be playing. There will be the constant rolling and smoking of cigarettes, and brewing and drinking of coffee. He will stoke the fire often, drop witty quotes, and goad you with his wry sense of humor. He’s a lover of ideas and possibilities. He can build anything he can imagine and the man can cook.

Like most Fairbanksans, Mark cares a lot about the town. His current passion is for the new green space (formerly known as “the triangle” and “the gateway feature”) that will be situated in the middle of the FMATS Illinois Street Reconstruction Project. He is serving as a member of the Art Selection Advisory Committee and is excited about the possibility of bringing more good public art to Fairbanks. He is equally excited about getting everyone in the community actively involved with the project.

Mark hates interviews and although he granted me one, I’ll keep the conversation between us. Here instead is a studio visit via photograph:

MY VALENTINE IS A SUPER HERO:

Fly over to the Comic Shop where you’ll find everything from romantical graphic novels, robot rings, hello kitty lunch boxes, and Wonder Woman tees. WOW factor: the staff is super friendly and very knowledgeable.

MY VALENTINE LOVES ALL THINGS LOCAL AND HANDMADE:

Two of my favorite local artists have created pieces that are a little off center, addressing the damage and healing of the heart.

Photographer Adam Ottavi creates stunning images using the 19th Century wet-plate collodion technique. The heart-shaped tear in this Fireweed photo was actually a happy accident. Read all about it here.

Kristin Summerlin, of Tin Cup Designs, creates handwrought sterling silver and copper jewelry in her Two Rivers home studio. Her healing heart is a work in progress.

Over at Fireweed Consignment East (formerly Tickled Pink) you can pick up a lightly scented Cherry Blossom or Icy Snow candle made locally in North Pole by Cabin Candles.

MY VALENTINE IS VINTAGE AND VISUAL:

Ben’s Superstore (in the back of 2 Dice Pawn) has an amazing selection of film cameras, including and especially these medium format beauties. They also have a ton of really cute gold and gemstone heart pendant necklaces located throughout the jewelry room. Bonus: if you get to visit with Stella you just may never leave Fairbanks. She’s worth enduring a 40 below winter for!

MY VALENTINE IS CUTE AND KITSCHY:

I usually steer clear of recommending chain stores but Icing in the Bentley Mall has some really cute LOVE bracelets and an awesome array of feather earrings. If you happen to find yourself valentine-less and in need of some sorrow drowning, they also have a inordinately large supply of floral and bling-ed out flasks. Remember: you were born awesome!

MY VALENTINE IS EASY, BREEZY AND GLOBAL:

Realtor/interior designer/importer Joan Stepovich has curated a lovely collection of furniture and art from Bali and brought it all back to share with Fairbanksans at her shop, White Palms. All pillows and paintings are on-sale this week for Valentine’s Day. The catch: she’s heading out of town for a week on Sunday, so you’ll have to shop today and tomorrow for this deal.