Nome

Each year after the Christmas holidays, citizens of coastal Nome, Alaska cart out their Christmas trees and set them up on ice amidst a field of other custom figures, creating a temporary winter wonderland that lasts as long as the ice holds (before the trees are carried out to sea). Like other informal guerrilla forests, it is a small, local and cozy affair. The Nome Nugget, "Alaska's Oldest Newspaper," has reported on the "Nome National Forest" from time to time over the past 25-plus years of the tradition's existence . "The story begins at Fat Freddies, an iconic restaurant that closed and was replaced by Bering Sea Restaurant," they explain. The owners decided to play a kind of practical joke on tourists - something light and fun to confound visitors.