Moose Tracks...

Last weekend, Gary and I drove out to the trout stream that is about 10 miles from Goodnews, Gary to try and bag a moose and me to do a little trout fishing. The ride out is pretty breathtaking and a little daunting- flanked on mountains by both sides, we rode up and down mountains so steep and angled there were a few times I thought I might flip my quad. It's also a pretty bumpy ride, because the tundra floor is a lot more forgiving than the ground you're used to walking on. We sink up to our ankles when we walk on the tundra, so you can imagine what happens driving on it on a quad.

While a lot of the trail is wide open on the tundra, there are parts that are pretty thick with short trees and shrubs. This is why it's called "the bush."

Along the way, we spotted some moose tracks on the trail that looked pretty fresh. We both had binoculars, so we stopped every few rises to try and locate them. Gary finally spotted three cows (female moose) lying in some bushes in the shadow of a hill, so we drove around the back side of the hill and up the rise. The brush was too thick to see them from the top, so I climbed down the bank and through a patch of trees and was able to find one of the cows lying in the bushes less than 100 yards below me.

This photo was taken with my cell phone. This is the last time I go anywhere without taking our actual camera, but you can see the moose sitting in the center of the photo.

Gary knows I plan on trapping in the future, so he always points out to me good places to set some traps. At the base of the mountain to the right is where his son Jeffrey caught a wolverine a couple years ago.

Ptarmigan hunting is very popular among the locals here, even those who don't fish or big game hunt. Here, Gary shot at a pack (flock? murder?) of ptarmigan. After he missed, I joked that he better let me take the next shot. Unperturbed, he handed me his .22 the next time we ran into them. I crept up on them from behind some bushes, and just as I was about to shoot, Gary's brother Beeper showed up on his four wheeler, and the ptarmigan flew away. It's just as well, because he would've teased me relentlessly if I missed.

We finally made it to the river after 90 minutes on our quads. Gary stayed at the top of the hill to scope for moose while I went down to try my hand at some trout fishing. 

Even out here in the bush, there are, ironically, "city folk" and those who prefer to live out on their own. Ten miles from Goodnews, there's no cell service, no Internet, nothing at all.

Beaver huts are ubiquitous up here. There was one every 100 yards or so along the river, and there are countless huts on the trip from GNU to Bethel. 

Soon after I arrived at this stream, a storm began to brew, and a fierce wind kicked up, blowing 40-50 mph. On the way home, we gave our quads a rest on the top of a mountain and we were almost blown off because of the force of the wind. It was like nothing I've experienced before, but it did put a damper on my fishing trip. Views like this one, however, did help to make up for it.

Gary and I found this spot along the river where a bear had dug up the ground. Gary had been in this area yesterday, so he was able to confirm that this was fresh digging. Once again, I missed a close encounter with a bear, but I'm always on the lookout. 

Our view on the way back to Goodnews. You can see the Bering Sea off in the distance. We can't usually see it from the village because of our low elevation.

The breathtaking view of Goodnews that greeted us once we got back. I plan to head out again soon to try and nab some trout and just enjoy the views before the weather turns.

Shopping in Bethel

We left Goodnews for Bethel on Friday afternoon to attend a new teacher in-service on Saturday. Friday night after eating dinner at the district office, we headed to Swanson’s and as promised I took some pictures for the blog!

The stores here are all really great about storing food and purchases for you until you are ready to leave town.  So, after we finished shopping we boxed up all of our purchases, wrote our names and Mr. Boring’s name on them. The boxes are also marked as dry, chill or freeze and then held in the appropriate area until you pick them up. Mr. Boring from the DO arranged for all of the new teachers to write their name on their boxes so that he could pick them up while we were in meetings.

The front entrance to Swansons

Entrance to the movie theater, prepared foods section and check out lanes.

Now, some pictures of foods and their prices. Some prices provide more sticker shock than others! Remember, we don't purchase everything from this store, mostly just things that we can't get on Amazon or didn't ship ourselves. So some dairy products and other 'specialty' foods.

Notice the regular price of $13.49-- that is cheaper than Goodnews by more than a dollar. 

We were shopping with our co-worker Ben; here are some pictures of the items that we purchased. We checked everything out together so we could box it together.

The total of all of these items was $140.00! I'm not as surprised by totals anymore, but Simon is continually shocked by the request for that amount of money. On the plus side, Sawnsons is really great about marking things down, so if you can get there at the right time you'll get some great deals. For example, those little yogurts were marked down to 59 cents! Their regular price is somewhere around $1.50ish. 

Mumtram Pikkai Gasoline

Yesterday we filled up our Honda for the first time at the gas station in the village.  We purchased 2.3 gallons for $14.40. In case you don’t feel like doing the math, that means the gas was $6.26/gallon plus tax for a total of $14.83. Might be the cheapest tank of gas we’ve purchased in a very long time! We’re curious to see how long this tank of gas will last.  We’re thinking at least a week and a half.

The village store prides itself on the fact that they provide a full service gas station. With that said, getting gas is on the honor system. The petroleum distributor fills up your tank and then tells you how many gallons your vehicle took. You then go inside to the store and wait for your turn to tell the cashier how many gallons you need to pay for. 

You can see we also have some Amazon boxes on our Honda too.

Our official receipt

Alaska Basket

Tickets are now available for purchase for the benefit dinner for John and his family! All of the items for our Alaska basket are on their way to Scottdale. If you aren't able to attend but would like to buy tickets for the basket you can purchase tickets by contacting Amber Etling at 724-858-8694. As for details about the dinner those can be found here. If you don't do Facebook you can look here to find the information, just scroll down to the bottom of the post. Takeout will also be available the night of the dinner, so if you can't stay you can always pick up something for a quick dinner when you get home!

Now for a peek at what's going to be in our basket!

1 Jar of Alaskan Fireweed Jelly

1 Jar of Alaskan Crowberry Jelly

Season 1 of Alaska The Last Frontier (the ONLY show to watch if you want real information about Alaska, assuming you can't always read our blog!)

Photo book that details the process of making the jellies. A few bonus pictures of Goodnews as well!

Finally, homemade rolls so you can try that jelly out as soon as possible.

4 Wheelin' the Bush

Last week, our Honda finally made it to Goodnews. We ordered it about a month ago from Ron's Honda in Soldotna, which is a town east of us on the Kenai Peninsula (that is just north of Kodiak Island). Because our four wheeler had to be shipped on a freight plane, the shipping alone cost $1,500. We have found that the majority of four wheelers (as well as trucks and other vehicles) in Goodnews have been bought used from contractors, hunters, etc. who come here for a job or an expedition. Because of the enormous shipping cost, they sell them cheap to villagers rather than pay to have them shipped back out. In this way, villagers get to purchase discounted vehicles, but it is a bit of a waiting game to try and snag a used one. We haven't seen or heard of anyone coming in with one, so we would most likely be waiting months for a used set of wheels. We decided to forego that hassle and just purchase a new quad. Of course, our quad is now the envy of the village. Christina has already had people come up to her asking if they can buy it when we leave!

While the main reason for buying a quad was for our long commute from home to school, we are definitely excited to have the freedom to explore the area a bit more. Below are some pictures we took from a quick trip last weekend. These pictures are taken about a mile or two from our door.

A view of Mammaq from the road by our house. Once you scale this hill, it is endless lakes and mountains for close to 100 miles. The nearest village is Quinhagak, which is about 90 miles from here.

In this area, just about a mile from our house, a bear was shot last week. An announcement went out on the VHF for anyone who wanted bear meat, but we missed out because we don't yet have one of the radios.

To the left, you can faintly see a quad trail. There is a good trout stream about 8 or 9 miles out that way. We tried to find it, but ran into some pretty deep ruts in the tundra that made the trail impassable. I may try again this weekend if the weather clears out. (We've been experiencing some pretty intense rain and wind storms lately)

Good things!

Last week we spent the entire week in Bethel, which is a hub city for most of the rural villages in Alaska. We were there for an entire WEEK of inservice- yes, a full week teacher friends! Imagine that! :) Anyway, we stayed very close to the new movie theater in town which is inside Omni Swansons. Swansons is a full service grocery store--think small scale Walmart. It's as close as it gets to Walmart here in the bush! Of course we took full advantage of the nearby movie theater and saw 2 movies while we were in town.

As you can see movies aren't that much more expensive here in Alaska than they are at home. One of the very few things that doesn't have an inflated price.

We've had some good things show up at our house this week. A box-- boxes are always good! Target.com also delivers to the bush and they even have free shipping if your order is over $50. We've come to realize that they don't do nearly as good of a job with their packaging as Amazon does, but we're still happy they ship here. We will now officially have clean floors in our house. I've never been so excited to mop a floor in my entire life.

You can see the shipping label at the bottom and will also notice the letters GNU on the side. That's because after this box leaves Anchorage it isn't really traveling with a mail service anymore, it is traveling on airplanes. This box was waiting on our front porch when we got home from a late night work session at the school last night.

I'm not going to tell you what this next picture is; we're going to have a guessing competition. If you think you know what it is leave a comment with your guess! Gary, the awesome maintenance guy at the school, stopped by this evening to drop this gem off to us. He is a life saver for us in many ways, but more on that in another post.

Finally, a new recipe we tried tonight: Salmon Parmesan. It was actually pretty good, doesn't quite compare to Chicken Parmesan but it was still pretty tasty. (And much better for you than chicken parm)