Capitalizing on Santa Connection

This is, as one would expect, the busiest time of the year at North Pole, where the town limits signs read: “Welcome to North Pole. Home of Santa Claus.”

Santa and Mrs. Claus are lifting little boys and girls onto their laps all day long at Santa Claus House, a North Pole Christmas store.

Acting as Santa’s helpers, seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders at North Pole Middle School are answering more than 3,000 letters received here from children all over the world. The students answer only those with return addresses.

North Pole Postmaster Mark Lamoureux, 37, and the other postal workers at the North Pole Post Office (ZIP code 99705) are busy too, putting North Pole cancellations on the more than 80,000 Christmas cards sent here from the Lower 48 just for the distinctive postmark.

Every night for two weeks before Christmas, a North Pole fire truck, decorated with Christmas lights, cruises up and down every street in town, playing Christmas music over a loud speaker.

Yes, streets here have names one would expect in a place called North Pole, names such as Snowshoe Avenue, Snowman Street, North Star Drive, Santa Claus Lane.

There are several North Pole churches, a North Pole Public Library, North Pole Police Department, North Pole City Hall and many North Pole businesses, including the North Pole Tanning Salon.

And of course, there are lots of Santa Claus businesses here, such as Santa’s Flower Shop, Santa’s Suds (the local self-service laundry) and Santa’s Travel Agency. There is even the Elf’s Den, a local tavern and cafe.

The Rev. Michael Martin, 40, the 6-foot-9 founder and pastor of the 14-year-old St. Nicholas Catholic Church, shrugged his shoulders and allowed: “What else would you call a Catholic Church in a town called North Pole?”

Although only 1,640 people live within the city limits of North Pole, which is 20 miles east of Fairbanks and 130 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the small town has eight shopping malls, now jammed with holiday customers.

With Eielson Air Force Base and Ft. Wainwright Army Base nearby, there are nearly 15,000 people who live in this area and shop in North Pole.

North Pole is one of the coldest populated areas in the nation.

“It gets so cold here many people call a cab when their cars freeze and will not start,” said Robert Ward, 28, a cab driver for North Pole Taxi Co.

He told how the temperature at one point last year dropped to 70 below with a wind chill factor of 110 below. “The antifreeze in our cabs was set for 60 below. One cab froze while it was being driven down the road. That’s what you call cold.”

In fact, that’s why the town was named “North Pole.” When Bon Davis took up a homestead here in 1946, he was the first person to live in what is now North Pole. Whenever he went to Fairbanks, people there would kid him about living in an ice box.

“They would ask him how things were at the North Pole,” recalled Con Miller, 76, who moved here with his wife, Nellie, and their family in 1950. The name North Pole stuck.

It was Miller who led the drive to incorporate North Pole in 1953. Miller served as North Pole mayor for 17 years and as North Pole postmaster for almost as long.

He and his wife own Santa Claus House, a huge Christmas store at North Pole, now managed by his son, Mike, 38, who is a member of the Alaska House of Representatives, and his daughter Merry Christmas Key.

The 15,000-square-foot store is filled with thousands of Christmas items, ornaments, toys and gifts that are sold here year round.

The store sells $2.50 deeds to anybody “who would like to own a piece of North Pole.” The tiny square-inch plots are located in a square block owned by Miller and set aside as a town park.

For the past 40 years, Miller and his wife have been North Pole’s official Santa and Mrs. Claus. When he was postmaster, Miller received as many as 300,000 Santa Claus letters each December. But during the past few years, post offices throughout the United States have been sending nearly all Santa Claus’s mail to local organizations that answer the children’s letters instead of shipping that mail up to North Pole, Ala.

North Pole still gets thousands of letters each year, but nowhere near what it received before.

On Christmas Eve, police scanner buffs from miles around listen as North Pole Police Sgt. Gerald Ownby, 35, and other members of the force conduct a mythical chase of Santa Claus all over town.

“We broadcast a report of a suspicious person shouting ‘Ho Ho Ho’ and sitting in a sled pulled by reindeer seen flying over someone’s home after milk and cookies were discovered missing,” explained Ownby.

“We finally catch the bearded old man wearing a red and white suit and run a record check to see if he’s wanted, last name Claus, first name Santa. When we find out he’s doing nothing wrong, we turn him loose. We have a good time over the police scanner. It has become a North Pole Christmas Eve tradition.”

Mayor Carleta (Tootsie) Lewis, 55, is also busy Christmas Eve. She fields calls from radio stations from all over the Lower 48 asking if Santa Claus has left the North Pole yet.