Most of the time, winter flying in Alaska was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful. In bright sunlight and clear blue skies the brilliant snow-covered mountains and glaciers were just utterly gorgeous and awesome. And at night the northern lights were so bright and playful that they almost frightened you as they wove endless intricate shapes and swooped down so close you instinctively wanted to duck. I remember one bright clear cold winter day when I was alone flying a single-engine L-20 Norseman on a search mission. My assigned area was southeast of Anchorage, an area practically all mountains and glaciers with some open water. The flight was one which I shall never forget. I flew into valleys between towering snow-capped mountain ranges, skimmed along mountain ridges where the wind swirled the snow on the lee sides, and dipped low over the open water flying just a few feet over chunks of floating ice and past the face of blue glaciers rising several hundred feet above me. I really enjoyed this flight and hated to return to Elmendorf Air Force Base when my fuel supply ran low. Sometimes, however, winter flying in Alaska could be an awful chore and you simply hated it. I still remember my early morning flights in a C-47 (Gooney Bird) to Naknek located out on the Aleutian Islands where we had a radar site to which we flew supplies. I’d get up early, maybe four O'clock, and coax my car to life in absolute darkness in 30 or 50 degrees below zero weather to drive to the base. After the necessary paperwork and flight planning at the operations office, my crew and I (usually a co-pilot and engineer) went to our plane. Naturally, we were all bundled up in our flying gear---hooded parkas, "Bunny" or "Li'l Abner" felt boots, and heavy wool-lined leather mittens. We could smell our plane somewhere in the darkness even before we reached it since it had been sprayed with alcohol just minutes before to remove the frost. Sitting on the ground, the plane's metal aisle from the entrance door to the cockpit sloped upwards and was extremely slippery and hazardous to walk on. Having made it, I would finally wedge and strap my bulky se1f into the cockpit seat. Almost immediately, because of the exertion and heavy breathing and puffing, our breaths would cover all the instruments and windows with frost making it a chore to start both engines especially with heavy mittens on and the need for always scraping the frost from the necessary instruments. You had to be careful touching metal with your bare hands for fear that your fingers would freeze there. Taxing out for take-off was a little weird at first. Sitting out all night in the cold and loaded with supplies caused the tires to develop flat spots which thump-thumped as you taxied out shaking the whole plane and contents which fortunately were tied down. There was no heat available yet and wouldn't be until we became airborne. Heat was supplied by ram air passing over the hot exhaust pipes and going into the plane. In the meantime we kept scraping off the frost from critical instruments with our fingernails. Finally came the take-off still in complete darkness. I would instruct my co-pilot to watch the engine controls and tap my hand after I had advanced the throttles to about three-fourths power. I would then remove my hand from the throttles and concentrate on flying the airplane and he would advance the throttles to take-off power, lock them there, and monitor the performance of the two engines. This, however, was easier said than done since frost was almost always immediately covering the windshield and all the instruments. My technique was to slide open my side window and maintain directional control by watching the runway lights flash by. Since I needed to observe the airspeed indicator, the flight indicator, and altimeter, I assigned the job of frost-scraping of these instruments to the co-pilot and engineer. I tried to become air-borne as quickly as possible before the minus 30 or 50 degree air blast from my open window froze us all before the welcomed heat came on. It usually came on just about when the gear became fully retracted and rapidly cleared up everything in the cockpit so we could all now relax. Yes, winter flying in Alaska at that time was quite an experience. It was dangerous at times and terribly unforgiving of mistakes but very rewarding and exhilarating at other times. Above all, you had to respect it every minute and never relax your vigilance.