University of Alaska | taxi driver | architect | Joan Soranno

IT'S NEARLT NINE A.M. when I arrive in Fairbanks on the first of my five bone-rattlingly cold mornings, and there isn't a light in the sky. I ask my taxi driver, "When can we expect the sun to come up?" "What day is today?" he replies. "Monday? I'd say around Wednesday." Fantastic.

To say things are done differently around Fairbanks is to say TiVo has changed the way we watch television. For instance, nearly everyone here plugs in their cars when they park them (almost all public parking spaces are equipped with outlets). This is to keep the engine block warm so it can start in -40 degree temperatures. And they call snowmobiles "snow machines." They don't even have a word for what we call snow machines (i.e., machines that make snow), because, if you haven't ­figured it out by now, snow around these parts is rarely in short supply. I mean, in December, people here consider 10 degrees a heat wave.

Still, thousands flock to the Fairbanks area in winter, most coming to view the aurora borealis (or northern lights) - the eerie, greenish-reddish-purplish waves of light that move across the extreme northern nighttime sky throughout winter. Nearly everything that there is to do here (and there is plenty) is just for killing time between chances to view the lights. Seeing them, I soon learn, is easier said than done, but one meets a slew of interesting characters along the way.

MY FIRST DISTACTION is Fairbanks's newest attraction, the $42 million Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. A work in progress, this striking building, designed by architect Joan Soranno, is the most interesting piece of contemporary architecture in all of Alaska. Its entrance hall is designed to evoke a glacial crevasse, which illuminates a stunning pink glow at dawn. On a clear day, there are mesmerizing views of the Alaska Range - including Mount McKinley -from the heavily windowed lobby.