Although the climate outdoors was frightful, schoolchildren within the northern Alaska Inupiac neighborhood of Nuiqsut have been so delighted for a go to by Santa that they braved wind chills of 25 levels under zero simply to see him land on a snow-covered airstrip.
As soon as once more, it was time for Operation Santa Claus in Alaska. And right here in Nuiqsut, a roadless village of about 460 residents on Alaska’s oil-rich North Slope, the temperatures could have been plunging however the kids have been warming shortly.
By no means thoughts that Santa left Rudolph at residence to catch a experience on an Alaska Air Nationwide Guard cargo aircraft to Nuiqsut, simply 50 frosty kilometers (30 miles) south of the Arctic Ocean. Right here, only a reindeer skip and a hop from the North Pole, the scholars have been abuzz with good cheer.