Undeterred by the absence of actual sunshine, Nome was abuzz with energy for this year’s summer solstice celebrations. Starting with the Thursday arrival of the MS Westerdam cruise ship, visitors and locals alike took in the Midnight Sun Craft Fair at the Nome Recreation Center.
Later in the evening, teams Big Red and Dawg Pound finished atop their brackets in the Midnight Sun Softball Tournament. Tundra Trouble beat out the Gravel Yard Goons in the coed league final.
Back downtown, Awaluk “Wookie” Nichols and Brooke Anungazuk, strutted up and down the Alaska Native Brotherhood hall while donning traditional kuspuks and parkas. Anungazuk was picked by the Miss ANB committee and will go on to represent the region at Miss WEIO in Fairbanks next month.
After a day to recharge Friday, Nome was back in action Saturday, starting with the Gold Dust Dash. The race hugs the shoreline of Nome, with waves splashing at runners' feet as they took on the 5K race. This year’s winners, Wilson Hoogendorn and Elizabeth Korenek-Johnson, earned a tiny gold nugget as prize.
By 11:00, Front Street was lined with people of all ages. Fire trucks buzzed as a procession of colorfully-decorated vehicles slowly made their way through town. Children frantically waved their hands in the air as they clamored for candy being thrown from the vehicles.
This was Norton Sound Regional Hospital employee Maddy Mandap’s first Midnight Sun Parade.
“It's beyond my expectations. It was fun seeing all the kids and all the candy flying through the air and everyone cheering. That's been the highlight for me,” Mandap said.
By high noon, it was time for Nome’s traditional Wells Fargo bank robbery reenactment. A ragtag crew of bandits made their way down Front Street before strutting into the bank to claim giant bags of cash. After a duel with the mayor, the bandits were defeated and candy was thrown out for bystanders to grab.
As temperatures neared the 60's, over a hundred people headed back to East End Beach to cool off at this year’s Polar Plunge. The water was a chilly, but manageable, 45 degrees.
The finale of Midnight Sun Weekend came on Sunday with the River Raft Race, put on by the Bering Sea Lion’s Club. By the race’s start at 1:00 p.m., only two teams had entered, with organizers saying the overcast weather was primarily to blame.
Team “Gold Diggers” led the entire race as team “Spike” and a convoy of kayakers trailed behind. Cole Gorn on the Gold Digger team said the raft came together just a day before the race.
“It was a great experience. We fell in multiple times. We capsized and we fell through in the water. But overall, it was a great race,” Gorn said.
Orson Hoogendorn said a particularly pesky tree caught both teams by surprise, knocking them off their boats.
“We had this cooler, and our phones were in there, and there was just sweeping down the river. We were all worried, but, um, yeah, we're kind of just trying to survive at that moment,” Hoogendorn said.
Hoogendorn said the Gold Diggers will be back next year, but he hoped more teams would join in.
While taking a break from serving hot dogs on the shore of the Nome River, raft race organizer, Cole Cushman, said just getting people out of the house for Midnight Sun weekend made it a success.
“You see the shops on Front Street cleaning up the sidewalks and taking care of Front Street,” Cushman said. “You see people in the town doing other activities, including during cleanup week, earlier in the season, and just taking a little pride in our beautiful city.”
