Anchorage Daily News

Tom Hill stands in the building's shadow, cutting sheet metal on a portable workbench. Icicles dangle from his mustache. They stay in their perfect stalactite shape even as he swings his arms moving around his work.

"It's not for everybody," he says. "But this isn't bad. Really. It's not."

As the winter cold bore down on Anchorage Tuesday with minus 20 degrees in some parts of town, outdoor workers like Hill continued with their day-to-day.

Some, like him, scoffed at what others consider cold.

"I've been through way worse," he said.

"Try working on the North Slope," said Herb Isaac, a project superintendent for MCN Construction Inc. working on the same South Anchorage construction site as Hill.

They say: Toughen up and deal with it. It's Alaska.

"I remember getting off the plane in the winter from the North Slope with a T-shirt on because I was so hot," Isaac said. "Your body adjusts. You just get used to it."

Whether it's drilling for oil on the North Slope, crabbing on the Bering Sea, or the occasional cold snap in Anchorage, Alaska outdoor workers put up with it. Police, firefighters, letter carriers, airport tarmac workers. Alaska jobs don't stop just because the temperature drops. Even in Anchorage.

Just off Dimond Boulevard, where Hill and Isaac are among two-dozen workers constructing three buildings, no space heaters or heat lamps cushion the work. The men walk around while their bunny boots crunch the snow. Their breath hovers around their faces like smoke.

On Tuesday, two men working on the metal skeleton of a building negotiated around icicles hanging off their recent work. One man's balaclava made him look like he dipped his face in a vat of powdered sugar.

Masato Mixson, an ironworker and foreman for Whalen Construction, was there, wearing an unzipped Carhartt jacket and thin cotton gloves.

He said things are slower in the winter. The equipment needs to be heated up before use. Workers can't move as fast when they are wearing three layers of clothing. "You can look like a Pillsbury Doughboy," he said.

Fumbling around for tools in his tool belt with thick gloves can be a hassle, Hill said. That's why he wears leather gloves and makes sure he keeps moving. Movement is key to staying warm, they said.

Some men tell war stories of the worst temperatures and worst winds they've endured.

"Minus 70 in Noatak. We were putting in a water plant," Mixson said. "We'd throw up a glass of water into the air and the water would shatter like glass."

When Mixson walks over to Hill working on the other side of the site, he tells him he should set up his work table in the sun.

"Where it is warm," he says, laughing.

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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