What time is it in Alaska?

An early morning phone call got me out of bed yet again this morning. Somebody who thought AK in a postal address meant Arkansas called to offer me great deal on sopmething I didn't need. For the record, AK means Alaska and AR is Arkansas.

That begs the questions of time zones. Geographically, Anchorage and Fairbanks are five hours earlier than the East Coast, Juneau is four hours earlier, and Nome is six hours earlier. However about 25 years ago politicians decided this was unacceptable and created a single time zone for Alaska. Now almost all of the state is four hours earlier than the East Coast and one hour earlier than the West Coast.

Before this big event, Alaska had five time zones--geographically it still does. Now, however, all but a few barren islands at the far western end of the Aleutians are in the same time zone. A couple of those islands are actually on the other side of the International Date Line. This single time zone occasionally creates some interesting events--like two sunrises in the same 24-hour, midnight-to-midnight time period at one of our northwestern communities.

Mostly, though, we just wind up dealing with the inconvenience of telephones ringing at 4 a.m.; calls from people who have little knowledge of geography and who probably learn some exciting new four-letter words when they blow us out of bed. In the summer, though, it doesn't make much difference what time it is; it's always daylight outside. Winter, however, brings other problems. Our very short days don't lighten until nearly noon in the western part of the state.