snow Archives - New York Almanack

If, when browsing the antiques shops of Washington County, you should spot an old hat with “March 12-13, 1888” marked inside, there is a story behind it. A story almost not fully told.

“It is unnecessary to speak in detail of the storm,” The Granville Sentinel reported on March 16, 1888. “It has been everywhere and all know its effect.” Then, as if the editor had second thoughts, the report continued for the full column and about half of a another, a rare luxury of space afforded only the most important of news stories in 19th century newspapers.

It was definitively the biggest storm of the season, and possibly of the century. [Read more…] about The Great Blizzard of March 1888 in Washington County

After Snowfall

I have come to like
the simple symmetry of
snow-blowing
our driveway.

It is like erasing
a great white board
revealing
a dazzling surface
on which to write again
the equations for
the rest of our lives.

About the Poet: Gene Ervine loves the crisp snowy winters of Alaska. He grew up in the cool, wet woods of the Pacific Northwest praying for snow. When his wife Nancy took a teaching job in a one-room school in a logging camp they moved to Alaska “for a year,” that adventure has stretched into lifetimes.

He studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Exposure to the Imagists and Beats have shaped his writing. Gene worked as an exhibit planner and writer for the Department of the Interior. He now lives in Anchorage. For over forty years Alaska’s varied landscapes and seasons have inspired him.