And you will pass a golf course, and see four hackers out there dressed for ice fishing, moving slowly, knocking a fluorescent orange ball across a fairway thick with snow.

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The crew of the Coast Guard MH-60J helicopter CG 6007, U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, nominated by the United States of America, for rescuing, at night, in blowing snow and sub-zero temperatures, all five crew members from a stranded fishing vessel, in Alaska, in February 2011.

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Even Valdez, the pretty salmon-fishing town on Prince William Sound at the foot of the mountains, receives an average of eight feet of snow on its rooftops each winter.

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