That baseball is the national pastime of Americans is news that hasn't yet reached the ears of too many native Alaskans. This is probably for the best, since we've been saddled with near 0 temps and we're getting about 6 hours of daylight per day. Besides, Josh Harrison's amazing rundowns last season wouldn't have been quite so spectacular if he had tried juking out defenders on open tundra. Most villages don't have the right climate, terrain, or disposable income to play most of the sports lower-48ers enjoy, but every village has a school, and every school has at least a basketball hoop, and that's a recipe for how basketball (or simply "ball" as its called by the natives) has become an obsession in villages in western Alaska.
While Ben and I have been attending open gym on Tuesday nights, this weekend we experienced our first tournament.
Oh boy. The whole village came out to witness the three day tournament, which was filled with passion, intensity, cheering, jeering, profanity (fans and players alike), fights, blood, and even a broken nose. Kids were everywhere, and the school was transformed from a place of learning into a giant jungle gym. Refs regularly whistled play dead due to kids running back and forth across the court. The hallways reeked of cigarettes and the porch reeked of pot. One of my teammates spent halftime of the championship game rolling cigarettes. The more social events we attend in the village, the better understanding we get of the challenges our students face and why they act the way they do.
Ben and I each got picked up by a team. I played with two of my students and two younger guys in the village. I'm still not sure why they chose me. I'm short, I'm not a baller, and I can't really shoot outside of the paint. I'm left to conclude that they either enjoy my company, or they were desperate for a fifth man! But it was fun to play and to spend some time with students outside the classroom.
After losing our first game, we heated up and beat Ben's team; slaughtered them, as one of my students said. While our team was pretty youthful, Ben's team was composed mostly of guys in their 30s or older. Most of them couldn't keep up with our fast-paced offense, though I unofficially named Ben MVP for scoring half of his team's points. (And yes, 10 of those 114 points were mine!)
After three days of intense play and a failed championship bid on my team's part, I woke up around noon on Sunday with sore joints. Needless to say, we're glad the festivities are over (for now, more tournaments are on the way). We approach this coming week with some trepidation, knowing that our students did not get a lot of sleep this weekend, and that there was a lot of partying going on after the tournament ended.
I'm excited to be teaching Trapping this semester, a new credit-bearing class that the district is piloting. I've been trapping with my dad since I was a kid, so the opportunity to share these skills with the next generation is very rewarding, even though teaching Eskimo youth how to trap is a bit surreal. Last Monday, we set out 2 foothold traps for fox. When we went out to check our traps the next day, it was foggy and dreary, having rained the night before. I prepared my students for disappointment, but when we reached our second trap, I saw a pair of red ears sticking out above a bush out on the tundra. The first day they had caught a fox!
Next week, we'll be working with setting snares. Since snaring has a lot of restrictions in PA and I've never used snares before, I set out three on Friday after school to give myself a little practice before showing the students. Saturday afternoon was a chilly 10 degrees when I went out to check my snares, again, not expecting much. In my first snare, underneath a dusting of snow, was a red fox.
As I approached where my second and third snares were, one in each rut of a set of quad tracks where fox like to run, I saw that my third snare was missing and there was something rustling in the nearby brush. Thinking I had caught my second fox, I cautiously approached the edge of the path, gun in hand. Upon hearing a low growl and seeing a flash of black and tan, my heart jumped in my throat, thinking I had caught an elusive wolverine, the ultimate catch in these parts. But no- it was a puppy! A range of emotions swept over me- first, I wanted to laugh at my quick change of fortune; then, I felt horror at catching someone's puppy and the inevitable conclusion that would bring (Gary had already told me to just shoot any dogs I caught, there were so many strays and starving dogs in the village). I had two guns with me, a 20 gauge shotgun and a .45 handgun. As I approached the dog, I was debating which firearm to use to dispatch the doomed animal. Like the fox 100 yards down the trail, I had caught the dog around the neck. While that catch was enough to kill the fox, miraculously, the dog appeared unhurt (I later decided that the young pup wasn't strong enough to pull the snare hard enough to strangle it.)
I really didn't want to shoot the dog when it appeared unhurt, so after weighing my options, I ran home for some equipment and enlisted Rick for some help. While Rick held the dog down with a grip and grab tool, I worked at the snare around the dog's neck. The dog, who at first growled defensively at his us, hair standing on end, quickly understood that we were trying to help it. Rick tossed aside the grip and grabber and we worked together at the snare, the dog laying quietly as we worked. After about 15 minutes, I began to lose hope, and told Rick that if we couldn't get it off soon, we would have to shoot the dog. I knew this news upset Rick; while a hunter like me, he had formed an attachment to the dog, who clearly responded to Rick.
At Rick's suggestion, I tried one more idea. It worked! The pup was free. Unfortunately, it was so cold and in probable shock that it just sat there. Rick offered to stay with the dog while I went to take care of the fox I had caught. When I came back 5 minutes later, the pup was still in the same spot, refusing to budge, so Rick picked him up and carried him back to the Honda. We took him back to Rick's house, where we sat out a bowl of water. Slowly, the pup began to come out of his daze and explore the living room. We went and stood in the kitchen with the door leading outside wide open. Sure enough, after a few minutes of exploring, the pup shot out the door. We raced after him and circled around Rick's house to see where he went. There he was, running down the road towards the village. As I sit here writing this from the school library, the pup just ran by with a pack of dogs, headed down the same road I caught him on! Apparently this dog hasn't learned his lesson. I guess I'll be setting snares a little further down the trail next week.
