Monthly Archives: December 2018

29 December 2018

Hobart Amory Hare Baker

By icefogger

Revisiting Hobey Baker:


Hobey Baker in France during WWI

It was the centenary of Hobey Baker’s death on December 21. Considered the greatest hockey player of his era, Baker graduated from Princeton University in 1914. He was one of the first nine players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a charter member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. The annual award for the top U.S. college hockey player, is known as The Hobey Baker Award.

In 1916, Baker joined the civilian aviation corps, and in the summer of 1917, he left for Europe and WWI. In August of 1918, Baker took command of the 141st Aero Squadron. On 21 December 1918, in a heavy rain, Baker took a test flight in a recently repaired Spad biplane, refusing his men’s pleas to take his own plane for the flight instead. A quarter of a mile out, and 600 feet in the air, the engine quit on the Spad. Baker turned the plane, in an attempt to get back to the airfield. The Spad lost altitude, and crashed nose first. Baker was quickly freed from the wreckage by his men, but died within minutes in the ambulance. His orders to return home were in his jacket pocket.

Princeton University’s hockey team recently played Penn State University. Both teams took a field trip to Philadelphia to pay respects to Hobart Baker. Several players left hockey pucks on his headstone. Baker was three weeks shy of his 27th birthday when he died in France.


141st Aero Squadron Insigne: A Princeton Tiger; Courtesy of the National Museum of the USAF

I’ve read several books on Hobey Baker over the years. A new one was recently published. Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review, by Tim Rappleye. I might have to check it out.

—The verse written on Hobey’s headstone:

“You seemed winged, even as a lad,
With that swift look of those who know the sky,
It was no blundering fate that stooped and bade
You break your wings, and fall to earth and die,
I think some day you may have flown too high,
So that immortals saw you and were glad,
Watching the beauty of your spirits flame,
Until they loved and called you, and you came.”

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28 December 2018

Mariucci Classic Returns in 2019

By icefogger


Courtesy of University of Minnesota Golden Gopher Hockey

NCAA D-1 hockey returns to the ice this weekend for some programs. Minnesota returns to Mariucci Arena to take on Ferris State for a two game series. Alaska will not return to the Carlson Center until after the New Year.

The University of Minnesota did announce the return of the Mariucci Classic for 2019. The post-Christmas tournament, hosted by the Minnesota Golden Gophers, was first held in 1991, but has been on a two year hiatus. The 2019, four team field, will consist of only schools from within Minnesota, for the first time ever. It will also be the first time St Cloud State University and Minnesota State University have competed in The Classic. It will be the third appearance for Bemidji State University.

That looks to be a fun weekend of college hockey.

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27 December 2018

Musée Gilles-Villeneuve

By icefogger

Berthierville, Québec


The Gilles-Villeneuve Museum

When we were in Quebec, The Curator, The Brazilian and I visited the Gilles-Villeneuve Museum, which is just north of Montreal.


A real-size bronze statue of Gilles Villeneuve outside the museum

The museum opened in 1988 in an old post office building. By 1995, the museum had outgrown the original building, and moved to its current location. The museum receives, on average, 20,000 visitors a year.

Villeneuve began his racing career on snowmobiles in Quebec. It was his main source of income as a professional driver starting out in his late teens. In 1974, Villeneuve won the World Championship Snowmobile Derby, which only heightened his popularity on the ice.

In 1977, McClaren offered Villeneuve a ride in five Formula One races, making his debut at the British Grand Prix. He finished ninth in that race.


Enzo & Gilles

Dropped by McClaren, Villeneuve signed on to race for Ferrari for the final two races of 1977 and the 1978 season, picking up his first win at the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix. In 1979, Villeneuve finished 2nd in the Formula One World Championship.

In total, Villeneuve won six Formula One races, with his last win coming at the 1981 Spanish Grand Prix.

Gilles Villeneuve died on 8 May 1982. During his final qualifying session at the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, Villeneuve came over a rise at 140mph, and hit the back of a slower moving car driven by Jochen Maas. Villeneuve’s Ferrari went airborne for over 100 meters before nosediving into the asphalt and disintegrating as it somersaulted. Villeneuve was 32.

The museum is full of Gilles Villeneuve memorabilia, including his personal Ford 4WD pickup. It’s well worth a stop if you’re in the Montreal area.

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26 December 2018

Winter Wonder

By icefogger

“He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.”
— John Burroughs

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25 December 2018

Merry Christmas

By icefogger

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24 December 2018

By icefogger


Comic credit: Chad Carpenter with Tundra

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21 December 2018

Happy Winter Solstice

By icefogger


High noon in Alaska’s Interior

It’s going to be an active Solstice, with a Full “Cold Moon”, and the Ursid meteor shower. The American Meteor Society expects peak activity to be around 11 sporadic meteors per hour just before dawn in the mid-Northern Hemisphere. With the full moon, they may be a tad difficult to spot.

Also early Friday morning, Mercury and Jupiter can be seen in the southeast sky just before dawn at only .9 degrees apart, which is about two moon-diameters.

The Fairbanks Weather Almanac:
Details for Dec 20, 2018

Low Temp………….. -24F
Avg Low………….. -13F
Record Low……….. -48F

High Temp……………- 7F
Avg High…………….+ 5F
Record High………….+40F

Wind……………….. 0 mph

Sunrise……………. 10:59am
Sunset…………….. 2:41pm
Length of Day………. 3 hours, 42 minutes; which was NO LOSS from the previous day!

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20 December 2018

Welcome to the Interior

By icefogger

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19 December 2018

Mount Veniaminof

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Mount Veniaminof letting off some steam, 25 September 2018; Photo credit: AVO/Mari Peterson

Mount Veniaminof, the glacier covered volcano on the Alaska Peninsula, has been erupting since early September. The Alaska Volcano Observatory reports that lava is still flowing from the caldera this week. The volcano last erupted in 2013.


ESA Sentinel-2 image of Veniaminof, showing lava flow on the south flank of the volcano. Photo credit: AVO/USGS

Veniaminof sent a plume of ash, 13,000′ into the air in late November, but that action has come to a stop, at least for now.

Currently joining Veniaminof on AVO’s Orange Alert List, is the seemingly always active Mount Cleveland.

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18 December 2018

“They Shall Not Grow Old”

By icefogger

A rare movie review:

Director Peter Jackson has a new documentary out: “They Shall Not Grow Old”. In total, Jackson and his team restored over 100 hours of 100 year old archival footage from the Imperial War Museum. They narrowed that down into a colorized account of the British soldier on the Western Front. There is no narrator; recordings taken by oral historians from actual British soldiers who served in WWI take us through this journey of theirs. They tell us their own stories, in their own words. The result is a brilliant, visually impressive film, with more humor from the men than one would expect from those surrounded by war. Make no mistake, the film is also jarring, and brutal at times, as was the First World War. One person sitting near me, stood up and left during the artillery scene, and did not return until the shelling stopped.

I saw the film on Monday. There is a 3D version of the film being shown, but unfortunately, I was not able to see that. I originally went to the 3D showing, but this being Fairbanks, the version’s file was corrupted, so I had to come back for the 2D version.

After the end credits, Peter Jackson returns for a 35 minute discussion on how and why he made the documentary the way he did. It’s well worth staying for the behind the scenes look. Jackson is a man obsessed with detail, and that trait does him, and the film, great service. I’m not a fan of colorizing black & white films, but this is a little different. Black & White was used to film footage during WWI, because that is what was available at the time, color was not even an option. Cameras during that time period, were designed to advance the film by hand, so the various footage that Jackson & Company restored, were all at different frames per second, which certainly complicated the restoration. It really is an impressive undertaking, and I was caught up in the intense ride.

This is a documentary that is well worth seeing. In the U.S., “They Shall Not Grow Old” will be shown on the big screens, nation wide, one more time: December 27.

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