ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – As Anchorage experiences unseasonably warm temperatures, staff at the Alaska Botanical Garden are working to maintain the annual Brighter Winter Nights display.

Will Criner, gardens and facilities manager at the Alaska Botanical Garden, said the storm melted the small patches of ice – called luminarias – that line the garden paths.

“We are very vulnerable to the weather,” Criner said. “It looked really nice until this warming period.”

Still, Criner says the show must go on.

“We will continue to expand and engage with the exhibition and it will change over time,” he said. “It’s a funny thing.”

Once temperatures drop back to 20°C, Criner and his team can rebuild the lights using buckets and a mixture of “snice” (snow and ice).

“We do about 50 at a time,” he said. “Then we dispose of them so that they don’t freeze solid. It leaves (a) cavity so we can then run lights through them and make these displays.”

Anchorage hit a record high of 47 degrees on Tuesday, and temperatures are expected to be around 40 degrees again on Wednesday.

“Brighter Winter Nights” takes place Choose evenings at the Alaska Botanical Gardens through February 22nd.

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