AKs in AK....

It's been quite awhile since we've last updated you on our adventures in bush Alaska. It seems like the closer we get to Christmas break, the busier we seem to be. We're definitely looking forward to jumping on a plane next week and going home for some precious time with family and friends. When days get tough, we daydream about the food we're going to eat or the shopping we're going to do (that last one's mostly Christina). At the same time, though, we've had some unique experiences here that we wouldn't trade for anything. Here's a brief look at what we've been up to for the past month:

For Thanksgiving, the teachers gathered at our principal's house to share a meal together. Everyone was supposed to bring a dish to share. We ended up bringing turkey, stuffing, gravy, deviled eggs, and green bean casserole. Someone made a comment that we didn't have to bring so much food and we responded, "We wanted to make sure all our favorite foods would be here for Thanksgiving!" It was a nice day to just spend some time together outside of the often-stressful context of school. Everyone enjoyed themselves so much that we're instituting a faculty dessert and game night. Saturday night we'll be getting together to play games, have some laughs, and chow down...I think we're going to name it "Mental Health Night"!

I took the opportunity of having a few days off from school to set some canine traps out in the valley, with the hopes of catching something exotic (i.e. wolf, wolverine, lynx, etc). The day after Thanksgiving, I was driving out to check my traps when I spotted these tracks along the Honda path.

My heart beating in my throat, I realized these weren't fox tracks and I was too far out for it to be somebody's dog (about 7 miles out, up and down some difficult terrain). I realized the tracks were headed straight for one of my traps about a mile away. 

Lo and behold, the animal came over this hill on the trail to the right, down the conjoined trail at the bottom, then turned around and came back up the trail to the left where my trap was sitting at the near edge of those bushes. The animal ended up stepping ONE INCH from my trap! (which I had baited with an unusual cocktail of wolf lure, sheep wool, the rib bone of a seal, and some of the innards of our Thanksgiving turkey). Later that day, I showed Gary a picture of the tracks, and without batting an eye, he said "Wolf." Guys trap out here their whole lives and don't come close to nabbing a wolf, so I feel pretty lucky that I came so close my first attempt. Word got around about my near miss, and when Russ heard, he said, "Ah, I thought it might have been a wolf. I saw three little piggies running over the hill." Needless to say, Russ supplies us a lot of comedic relief around here. His corny sense of humor reminds us of our own fathers!

Speaking of seal bone, we got the opportunity to try seal when one of my student's fathers caught one across the bay in Platinum.

The meat is dark and oily, and has a unique, pungent smell to it. We cubed it and cooked it like steak. Christina took one bite and was done. Ben and I ended up eating a few pieces each. It is not unpleasant, but is definitely an acquired taste. It doesn't have a fishy taste, but you can tell it came out of the ocean. Many gussacks (Yupik word for white people) don't really care for seal meat. While I wouldn't pay for it, I would still eat it if it was offered somewhere.

Dusk in the valley looking out across the Bering Sea. 

Sometimes I'm reminded we live on the edge of the world.

Last Saturday, Gary took Rick and I out past the airport on a trail that leads to some old beaver huts. I told Gary that I wanted to try to catch an otter, and he thought they might have taken up residence in the old huts.

Overgrown with tundra grasses, this big mound is the remains of a beaver hut.

Rick and Gary shootin' the breeze while I set traps.

I ended up setting a few traps, but the next two days we had a lot of rain, making the soft, permeable tundra floor almost impassable. On Monday, I headed back out to check my traps, and there were a few scary moments where my Honda sunk in so far I couldn't see my tires. With daylight fading fast, getting stuck three miles out from town wouldn't have been much fun. Before I made it to the sets, I decided to pull the traps no matter what I caught (or didn't).

Fortunately, I ended up catching this mink, putting a nice end to my '14 trapping season. I plan on trapping for fox when we come back in January, but for now I'm done.

Ben, the other new teacher, recently bought a .22 rifle off Rick. After waving it around his living room one day with the clip in backwards saying he was going to go shoot it outside (this was around dusk), we decided that he needed to have a little hunter's safety course before picking up his new gun again. So, Nado (our itinerant social worker), Gary, and I took Ben out the trail for some practice.

This was one of the most entertaining evenings we've had in the bush. Gary, Nado, and I all grew up hunting and around guns, so of course everyone was standing back and peppering him with advice, laughing hysterically at his shooting and his stance, and screaming and cursing at him whenever he pointed the barrel towards one of us or did something else that would be unapproved by the NRA. After some practice on the .22, I brought out my .45 and showed Ben how to load it, handle it, and shoot it. I warned him about the kick and then let him try it out. On Ben's first shot, the gun flew back in his hands and almost smashed into his face! Fortunate that it didn't, because a Medivac trip to Dillingham wouldn't have been much fun. But we enjoyed ourselves, and feel that Goodnews Bay is a little safer now, even if Ben did conclude the evening by saying, "Now I'm gonna get myself an AK-47!"

Meet The State Bird

I’m not sure that this is a topic we’ve covered on the blog before, but it’s high time we’ve mentioned it. Moments after walking into our new house in Goodnews we met the state bird of Alaska. Since then, we’ve had weekly encounters. I’m sure these aren’t pleasant encounters for the bird, but we surely enjoy them. Now, you may be wondering which state bird I’m referring to and that would be the ciivak, (pronounced g-back), known to many of you as the common housefly. We have never seen so many flies in our lives. Just when you think they are all gone one more starts buzzing around. For all of you Breaking Bad fans we’ve had many a Walt moment when seeking to eradicate all of the flies from our house, the school and our co-worker’s house.

For your viewing pleasure: here is a series of pictures that show Ben and me killing flies in his kitchen. They were so bad I was afraid to leave any of the food out uncovered! These things are everywhere! On the positive side they move pretty slow and are usually easy to kill.

Getting mail here in the village can sometimes be a pain and other times it seems to work just like mail does in the lower 48. We have a Post Office that is open 6 days a week M-F 9-12 and 1-5 and Saturday from 1-5. However, there are times when you make a trip to the post office only to find the door locked and not a soul who knows why it isn't open. Most of the everyday mail comes on small Cessna 207 planes with larger items coming on bigger cargo planes. Naturally, if the weather is poor no mail comes in or goes out. After a day or two of no planes there is usually a surplus of mail and mail planes as they try to catch up. We've experienced shipping boxes home via priority 2 day mail that have taken 2+ weeks to get home. What you should know is that since the mail leaves the village on the small planes it's not the post master's job to get the mail to the plane. Getting the mail to the plane is the job of the Yute Village Agent. This person takes the mail to the plane and delivers the mail to the post office. As you can see there are several opportunities for mail to get misplaced. Now for a picture of the inside of our Post Office. This just might be why it takes a few days to get packages. Often we can tell by the tracking that the package is in the post office but don't get it for another day or two.

Feeling Thankful...

With Thanksgiving on the horizon (and with it, a couple of much needed days off of work!), our conversations have gravitated towards what we are thankful for in life and in our present situation, and at the top of the list is our principal, Shannon. You may have noticed that our posts do not reveal much about the school, our students, or what goes on in our classrooms, and that's mostly because we're trying to find that balance where we can be honest about the situation without being overly negative or pessimistic. Despite the tranquility and beauty of the scenery and our village's namesake, there are some unique, well-entrenched challenges here in Goodnews ~ both at school and in the village. We've had our share of frustrating days where we question what we're doing here.
However, we've also taken stock of the progress that has been made from the first day of school until now and that helps put the bad days in a more proper perspective. Last week, for some reason, was chalk full of those bad days, and we can't help but share one event with you, one that left us feeling very thankful for our principal.

Warning: Name(s) have been changed to protect the guilty.

As we said above, last week was a very difficult week in a number of ways. Our students were highly emotional, disagreeable, and at times defiant. This happened across the board, from Kindergarten through high school. Last Thursday, our principal, Shannon, had a meeting with one of the high school students, Jim, who had missed the last week and a half of school (and plenty of days before that as well) to let him know that he had failed his classes due to absences and was going to be placed on a credit recovery track, in which he would spend his day on the computer instead of in class with his peers. Jim didn't like this, so he got up, left the principal's  office, and proceeded to spray the walls of the hallway with coffee from his mug. When Shannon quickly followed him out to contain the situation,  Jim took off his shoes and threw them at her. He then came at her to attack, but at that moment, our VPSO (Village Police Safety Officer), who happened to be dropping his daughter off for school, grabbed Jim from behind. As the VPSO held him back, Jim swung at Shannon's face, missing her by mere inches. As Shannon recounted the story to me later, she said that she didn't flinch or turn away as Jim swung at her, because she wanted to let him know that she couldn't be intimidated and that she wasn't afraid of him. The VPSO restrained Jim and quickly escorted him out of the building. The ASB (our version of the PTA, except they have much more power) is meeting this week on whether to agree to Shannon's recommendation to have Jim expelled. Without a principal with strength and resolve like Shannon has, this place would simply fall down around us. We're very thankful for her leadership!

Last weekend, Gary took me with him to check his black fish traps by the lakes out past the school, where there are endless streams and ditches that connect the bay to the ponds and lakes.  

No blackfish, but you can see the tiny muskrat he caught.  I used this opportunity to find places to set my traps for mink, muskrat, and otter. 

Gary clearing a path to place one of his blackfish traps.

Thanks to my dad and Russ Slade for lending me some trapping supplies. 

A unique catch-within-a-catch! My trapping season started out strong with this catch, but with 7 straight days of rain, things have been slow lately. Weather-wise, it's been an unusual winter here so far, at least according to the elders. It's been in the mid 40s for about a week now, and we haven't really had any snow yet. 

Updates

It seems as if we’ve forgotten all of you blog readers, but I assure you that is not the case! We’ve been plenty busy here in Goodnews and have several posts working their way onto the blog in the next few days. Until then here is a glimpse into our last few weeks- er.. almost month!

We finished up October with the trick or treating and the Halloween carnival on October 31^st and November 1^st.  Trick or treating was on Friday and some villagers were deterred by the weather. A bit of a snowstorm blew in Friday late morning and ended up cancelling all Friday afternoon flights. Saturday was the Halloween carnival at school—several of the families attended and had a great time playing carnival games and winning prizes.

One of the teachers from our building is out on sick leave. She and her husband had to travel to the lower 48 for some appointments and testing. They’ve been gone for 2 full school weeks. This makes for a really interesting time with her class. We've really missed having them around. Her husband is retired and works from home but comes to school at the end of every day usually with a great story to tell. We've learned quite a bit from them! Teacher friends...imagine having subs that aren’t trying to get hired! Sometimes that can turn into a total nightmare—if they don’t feel like working—they don’t show up. However, this time around we’ve been pretty lucky and the girl that is subbing for our co-worker has been awesome and seems to have found her niche with the first and second grade class. I share a paper-thin wall with that classroom and have been impressed by their behavior.

Since our last post we’ve traveled to Bethel again for new teacher training. As always, that’s an adventure and means movie time! There is quite a trend with the new teachers—many of them make time to see a movie. It is truly one of the only times that you can relax, let go of work and possibly forget where you are for a few moments in time.  We enjoyed a movie with Ben and some new teacher friends from Kasigluk-Agula. This time our training dinner was held at Swanson’s, which you might remember from THIS post. Swanson’s catered a pretty good “Thanksgiving Dinner”, which included your choice of turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, potato salad (that’s for you Pap Duke!) and stuffing.

Our flight to Bethel for training was delayed for several hours due to weather but we finally got a plane and headed to training later in the day. The most interesting part of our travel was our return flight. You’ve never really lived until you’ve lived through a bush flight during the windy season on the coast of the Bering Sea. What an adventure; or something like that! We had a few moments that would’ve caused an audible shriek on your normal jet liner, but this is an Alaska bush plane- you don’t have time to gasp when you’re only flying 650ish feet off the ground. Let’s just say we hit a pocket of air that caused our plane to rise slightly and then drop dramatically. Immediately after, the pilot took off his headphones and turned around to make sure everyone was okay, then promptly tightened his seat belt as tight as possible. If that’s not a sign that your seat belt should be a little tighter, I don’t know what is. Simon spent most of the time following that incident holding his breath; it was a pretty bumpy and nauseous ride. Needless to say we made it back to Goodnews in one piece! We even had a pretty smooth landing. If you’ve ever wondered what landing in a bush plane is like check out this video on CNN of a jet-liner landing during wind. It’ll blow your mind, and possibly lead you to think that bush flying is for the young.  Don’t worry—those landings are few and far between but they do make for exciting times!

NYO

Last week, I had the opportunity to coach NYO (Native Youth Olympics) while our Jr. High teacher was at a conference in Anchorage. NYO works like track, where there are a range of about 2 dozen events that students can train for and specialize in. 

This is Indian Stick Pull, where challengers hold a greased length of wood and attempt to wrest it out of their opponent's hands.

Girl power.

This is the Alaskan high kick. This is my favorite event and one I'm halfway decent at. However, after trying it for the first time, I woke up the next day and couldn't sit up in bed. You must land on the same foot that you use to kick the ball, which apparently involves muscles that I've never used before.

We finished the first quarter of the school year last week, and we only just managed to find a special education teacher a few days ago. That would be a major deal at any school, but especially ours where every classroom has at least 1 or 2 kids who, by lower 48 standards, would be in a self-contained classroom for various reasons, though most of those are behavioral in nature. Needless to say, we're very happy that Rick decided that retirement in Seattle at his age wasn't so glamorous or exciting after all, and that he'd rather spend the winter with us here in Goodnews. 

Rick has been itching to get out and explore the area around Goodnews, so last weekend Gary let him borrow his quad and I took him out on the trail to the trout stream that I frequent. This is a photo at Gary's- you can see the mountain Beluga in the background, where the bay meets the Bering Sea.

Lately, I've been snagging the spawned silver salmon that have migrated into the streams and rivers. Once spawned, these silvers are no longer feeding, so there's no way to catch them other than snagging or dip netting. I don't have a net yet, and snagging is much more fun anyways.

While catching the spawned silvers is fun, they don't really look that appetizing to us. Fortunately, these are a delicacy among the elders of the village, so I've been gutting and freezing them and handing them off to Gary, who distributes them to some of the older members of the village. Yesterday, one of the classroom aides told me she would love some spawned silvers if I catch any more. I guess the word has gotten out!

While the snow melts about as fast as it falls near the bay, out on the tundra where it's colder, the snow seems here to stay. We followed these fox tracks for 3 miles out to the trout stream. We found dozens of sets of tracks; it's a veritable highway out on the tundra for predators, and I found a lot of good places to set traps once the season opens on November 10.

The clouds rolled in just as we were getting ready to leave. Four-wheeling up and down mountains for an hour in freezing rain and sleet isn't exactly the most fun, so we'll see whether Rick joins me again next weekend or not!

U.S Wellness

We’ve done quite a bit of posting about where we get most of our groceries from, but we’ve left out one important part: meat. As you've seen in a few previous posts, we’ve been eating a lot of what Alaska has to offer, but we’ve also purchased 2 orders of meat since we arrived here in August.

Enter U.S. Wellness—a great company in the Midwest that sells organic grass fed meat and dairy products. We heard about the company from the teacher that Simon replaced, who had all good things to say about the company. So, upon our arrival we immediately put in a small order. Some of the things we purchased the first time: hamburger patties, 1lb packages of ground beef, sugar free breakfast sausage, Colby cheese, a round roast and chicken apple sausage links. We ended up with around 40 pounds of meat for around $400 shipped. That’s a great deal! The company doesn’t charge shipping and ships overnight with fedex. We placed our order, it shipped on a Monday and was on our front porch the following day! Great customer service and we would soon find out some of the best meat we’ve ever had.

Fast forward to October and we’re ready to purchase some more meat. We’ve decided to place an order with a co-worker this time because the more you buy the bigger discounts you get. Together we ordered a total of around 82 pounds of meat! That’s somewhere around $600 worth of meat. We placed our order and waited for the packing/shipping date to come out; looks like our meat will once again pack on a Monday and arrive on a Tuesday. GREAT! Tuesday rolls around and we don’t have a single package waiting for us at the post office. L Knowing how the freight planes work we realize maybe it missed the plane in the morning and we will have to wait until Thursday. We know from our previous experience that the box is well marked and should be handled appropriately by the carriers and placed in the chill/freeze section. Thursday afternoon comes and I head to the post office as soon as school is out----no packages. Simon calls me to say that according to the tracking the box is in GNU. I head back to the post office to double check with the Post Master to be sure we don’t have any boxes waiting behind the counter. She promises we’ve got zero boxes. I head back to the school and begin placing phone calls to Fedex to determine what happened to our box. I spend about an hour and a half on the phone with various carrier companies trying to determine who might possibly have our extremely valuable box of meat. No one has any answers for me Thursday, but I get promises of returned phone calls on Friday morning. After a half day of school Friday I start making phone calls around 12:50 to again try to locate the box. After around 45 minutes on the phone with several different carriers I locate the box! The good news is they have the box in the chill section, the bad news is they insist that we owe them shipping fees before they will release the box. I try to explain that we have already paid all of the shipping up front but they are relentless and insist that we will have to pay the shipping fees if we want the box to be picked up. Enter Simon—This is where he calls the meat company directly. He just so happens to get the owner of the company on the phone, nice guy who is immediately appalled and realizes that our meat has now been sitting in a cooler inside a cardboard box for much longer than the 24hr promised time period. He hangs up with the promise of contacting Fedex to get this worked out. His exact response was, “I’m on the case." Within about 10 minutes of talking to the owner we get a call from Fedex in Anchorage, and this time the person actually knows what they are talking about! The customer service representative immediately tells Simon not to give any money to the third party carrier, that she will get it all worked out. She works on the case for about an hour and a half calling to talk to Simon several times to get approval for decisions.
At one point, she tried giving us some advice, and the conversation went something like this:

FEDEX: I see here that Bethel is only about 100 miles away. Would it be possible for you to just drive there and pick up your box?
SIMON: Well, that's a good idea, except the only way we can get to Bethel is by bush plane.
FEDEX: Oh, you can't borrow somebody's car to drive there?
SIMON: No, you can't drive to Bethel at all. There aren't any roads.
FEDEX: No roads!?
SIMON: No, ma'am.
FEDEX: Well...how much does it cost to fly to Bethel?
SIMON: Round trip? About $400 per person.
FEDEX: Whoa! That's crazy!

Even people who live in Alaska don't always realize what life in the bush is like. Finally though, she gave the third party instructions for next day delivery to GNU. WHEW! We were super concerned for a while that our meat wasn’t going to get here or was going to get here and be spoiled. Thankfully, the meat arrived here in good condition and is now in the freezer just waiting to be cooked! Yum!

Goodnews Bay Store

We’ve heard we have a pretty decent store here in Goodnews and judging by what some of our new teacher friends have to say, ours is pretty sweet. Most of the time you can find an assortment of “fresh” vegetable and fruit that usually includes apples, carrots, potatoes, red potatoes, onions, garlic. Sometimes you can even get oranges or bananas, but those are quick to sell out, so you’ve got to buy them when you see them.

As for other perishables, the store usually has yogurt, bread, butter, and cheese.  As you can imagine the prices aren’t anything near what you would expect to pay at your local grocery store. The store carries plenty of other non-perishable food type items and all of the junk food, candy and pop you could want. It’s not unusual to see kids here walking around after school with cans of pop and candy from the store, which would explain the terrible state of their teeth. All of my kindergarten students have at least one cap but most of them have more caps than baby teeth.

The store has a rather large freezer section that includes about 5 deep freezers full of frozen goods. I don’t have any photos of them currently; so maybe that’s a topic for a future post.