The first decorated Christmas tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.
The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
Many of the trees sold in New York City come from Canada, especially Quebec and New Brunswick. Every year, vendors from those provinces drive south before Thanksgiving with trucks filled with trees and set up stalls on the city sidewalks. A 1938 law allows them to take over a part of the sidewalk, without a permit, as long as they have the permission of the neighboring building owner. They sleep in makeshift cabins or in their trucks and trailers.
Nitpick: These days, most of the Christmas trees sold in New York City by Quebecers come from North Carolina.
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, there are approximately 25-30 million Christmas trees sold in the U.S. every year. (Real trees, not artificial.) There are close to 350 million Christmas trees currently growing on Christmas tree farms in the U.S.; Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states. Depending on the type of tree and the location, growing times from seedling to harvest range from 4 years to 15 years, with the average being 7 years.
In the US, there are more than 15,000 Christmas tree farms. There are approximately 350 million Christmas trees growing on U.S. farms.
Thomas Edison’s assistant, Edward Johnson, came up with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first mass-produced in 1890.
Every year since 1972, the Province of Nova Scotia has provided the Christmas Tree for Boston Common, in memory of the aid that the people of Boston sent to Halifax immediately after the Halifax Harnoit explosion in December, 1917.
Boston was one of the first communities to react to the tragedy, sending a train full of food, clothing and blankets, medical supplies, and doctors and nurses. The train had to fight its way through a major blizzard, arriving two days after the disaster. The medical personnel were especially welcome, spelling off the Halifax medics who had been working non-stop for two days to care for the wounded.
The tree must be between forty to fifty feet tall and growing in the open. It must be a balsam fir, white spruce or red spruce. A provincial official, the Christmas Tree Specialist, is charged with selecting the tree each year.
Cutting the tree down is a major event. It is then taken to Halifax, where there is a major ceremony to send it off. The tree is then trucked to Boston and set up on Boston Common and decorated. The Mayors of Halifax and Boston usually attend the lighting and sometimes the Premier of Nova Scotia.
It is an official Big Deal, to remember the generosity of Nova Scotia’s American and Boston neighbors.
Dating from 1634, Boston Common is the oldest city park in the US. During the 1630s, it was used by many families as a cow pasture. The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Afro-American 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry stands at Beacon and Park Streets, the northeast corner of the Common, opposite the State House. Their story was the subject of the movie, Glory (1989).
Elliott Gould began his acting career by appearing in several Broadway shows in the 50s and 60s. He then began acting in movies, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. He also appeared in several films directed by Robert Altman, including MASH* and The Long Goodbye. Later in his career, Gould had a recurring supporting role as Jack Geller in the TV series Friends.
Gould was married to Barbra Streisand from 1963 to 1971. They had one child, actor Jason Gould.
The 1970 Boston Bruins defensive pairs of Bobby Orr / Carol Vadnais and Ted Green / Dallas Smith were quickly nicknamed “Bob and Carol and Ted and Dallas”.
The first gold medal ever authorized by the Continental Congress was awarded to Gen. George Washington for forcing the 1775 evacuation of British troops from Boston. Evacuation Day is March 17, which just happens in heavily-Irish Massachusetts to be the same day as St. Patrick’s Day, and is thus a state holiday.
The TV reality show series Gold Rush: Alaska, which is now just Gold Rush, shows different groups trying their hand at mining for gold. One mine, the Big Nugget Mine, belonged to John Schnabel, the grandfather of Parker Schnabel. The Big Nugget Mine is on the map in the YT CAN (Yukon Territory of Canada), less than 40 miles WNW of Haines AK (gMap Google Maps).
The Crow Creek Gold Mine, located near Girdwood, Alaska and about 40 miles from Anchorage proper, was first mined in the early 1900s. The mine had several partners, but there is no real record of the names. The mine was eventually owned by Norwegian immigrant Arne Erickson, who I suspect was one of the early partners, as I grew up with his Grandson of the same name. We used to spend long summer days at the mine, fooling around in the old mining buildings. Grandpa Arne was very old at that point (early 60s) and still drove his 50s DeSoto, playing music cylinders on an old Edison machine at his cabin. Gold can still be found in the area and there is still an active mine upstream from the old mining site.
Girdwood AK is located along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet of the Gulf of Alaska. A bore tide occurs in Turnagain Arm, just outside of Anchorage. It climbs up to 6 – 10 feet tall and can reach speeds of 10 to 15 miles per hour. It takes not just a low tide but also about a 27-foot tidal differential between high and low tide for a bore to form in Turnagain Arm. The Turnagain Arm bore tide is one of the biggest in the world.
Turnagain Arm was named by Captain Cook after his exploration of the Cook Inlet region. It was so named because of his frustration with it being a dead end instead of a new water passage. Nowadays, surfers ride the bore tides. It’s a fairly dangerous pastime, as the water never really gets warm, the tides are very fast, and the mud is glue-like in consistency. People have been known to die because of becoming mired in the muck, and the fast-rising tide overcoming them before help can arrive. The tides in the Anchorage area are the highest in the United States.
Anchorage is by far the largest city in Alaska, with over 290,000 residents. The next largest city is Fairbanks, which has a population of just over 31,000. Right behind on the list is the capital city of Juneau, which also has about 31,000 residents.
The City and Borough of Juneau, however, is the nation’s second largest city by area. Its size is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware.
Juneau, Alaska is the largest state capital by area, covering over 2600 square miles. The next largest is Oklahoma City at about 600 square miles. Juneau is also the second capital of Alaska, the first being Sitka. The capital was moved to Juneau in 1900 as dictated by Congress.
There have been, since 1960, nine statewide referenda on moving the Alaska capital from Juneau to a location closer to the state’s population center. Although a proposal to do so passed in 1974, the legislature never allocated funding for it, and more proposals have gone nowhere due to the likely expense and the strong opposition of Juneau-area legislators.
Correction: While Turnagain was indeed named by Cook’s 3rd expedition, it was actually named by Cook’s sailing master, William Bligh, of HMS Bounty fame.
Cool trivia. Will have to remember that when I visit in March.
In play: In late 1881, miners met to name the Alaska town to Juneau, after Joe Juneau, who was rumored to have bought more drinks for those voting on the city name.
Musician Joe Walshm in a career spanning more than 40 years, has been a member of five successful rock bands: James Gang, Barnstorm, Eagles, the Party Boys, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. Walsh was also part of the New Zealand band Herbs. In the 1990s, he was a member of the short-lived supergroup the Best.