Crowberry Jelly

Remember all of those berries we picked when we first got here? We've finally learned how to make Crowberry Jelly with them. 

We haven't really heard of anyone in the village who makes Crowberry Jelly. A much more popular use of these berries is for Akutaq, which you read about in our post about the funeral. I've heard of them being used for pies, but have heard that there isn't anyone in the village who can make a good pie. Remember, these berries have a very sour taste.

The berry juice going through the strainer after boiling for a few minutes. Straining the juice from the berries is a tedious process and took 2 people! 

Finally the finished product. We tasted a little bit this morning on some toast and decided it has a pretty good flavor. The bitterness of the berries still comes out a little bit in the aftertaste. Overall, we enjoyed the new taste of Crowberry Jelly. 

Now, I'm sure you're wondering where you can get your hands on a jar of this tasty jelly? Right?! We've got the opportunity that you've been looking: for a place where you can get a jar of our Fireweed Jelly and Crowberry Jelly.

Our friend John has been battling cancer for the past 10+ years. Recently the cancer has returned and he has had surgery to remove another tumor and has spent quite a bit of time in hospitals, rehabs and with at home health care nurses. John and his wife Chrissy have 2 sweet boys that we happen to be pretty fond of. It goes without saying that the past several months have been quite an economic hardship for the family. So, some of our friends back home have organized a benefit dinner for John and his family which will be hosted by Everson Evangelical Church on September 27th in their multi-purpose room. The dinner will be held from 4-7pm and the cost is $6 for adults and $3 for kids 10 and under. This is where the chance for jelly comes into play; they will be having a basket raffle and we're preparing to ship 2 jars of our awesome jelly to go into an Alaskan themed basket. (More on that later) I'll update this post with a link to the Facebook invite page and a contact number for Amber within the next few days. 

***EDITED TO ADD DINNER INFO***

You can find the Facebook Event Page for the dinner here. If you have any questions that can't be answered by the Facebook page feel free to call Amber Etling at 724-858-8694. 

A Day in the Life

Here's a video of our daily drive from our house to the school across town. We've listed a few landmarks below with their timestamps for your viewing pleasure!

0:45- store and post office (white and blue building on left)
0:49- glimpse of cemetery on the left
1:00- the body of water directly in front of you is Goodnews Bay, which feeds into the Bering Sea about six miles from here.
1:13- CVRF- Coastal Villages Region Fund. Native-owned company that processes and sells fish.
1:48- Bristol Bay Health Clinic (on the right)
1:49- Town hall (on the left)
2:04- Steam House (on the left in front of blue house)
3:02- the rest of the teacher housing
3:10- front door of Rocky Mountain School

Photo Avalanche

Our first delivery of fresh halibut! Swimming in the Bering Sea just last night!

Look at the size of those filets.

Walnut crusted halibut. Tasty!

Meat from just ONE salmon.

The final product: 27 salmon patties for the freezer!

Finished product of the fireweed jelly.

Garbage day here in the bush.

The dump and incinerator. All garbage from the village comes here.

Sickness...

Thankfully for times of sickness there is the Bristol Bay Health Clinic. I had my first appointment there yesterday after school. They usually only stay open until 2:30 but often make accommodations for teachers. YAY! So, as soon as the Kindergartners were gone, I rode off into the village on the school's Honda for my appointment at the clinic.

After many questions and lots of probing they decided to do a Strep test…I passed it with flying colors! Then came the options of a shot or pills. I’m sure you can’t guess what I decided on, a shot. That will come as a shock to many of you but may indicate just how sick I was feeling.

Overall I had a great experience at the Clinic and was feeling better within several hours.

The Clinic here is pretty unique and staffed with Health Aides from Goodnews but also from other villages. The Health Aide yesterday was from Tooksook Bay, which is only about a 30 minute flight from here. The Clinic was originally supposed to be unstaffed Friday-Monday this weekend because several of the Health Aides are on leave for various reasons. However, Mary the Health Aide’s schedule was changed to provide the village with a Clinic over the weekend. Mary told me that Goodnews is one of the busier clinics that she works in. She works in about 4 clinics doing 2 week stays at each of the clinics.

Fishing, Fireweed, and a Funeral

Last weekend, we finally had the chance to go fishing here in Goodnews, thanks to Brad, who is a traveling counselor in our district. Brad has been an avid fisherman and hunter for the better part of 40 years, and he told me very passionately that Goodnews River is one of the top 5 rivers for salmon fishing in the United States. I would soon find out that his conviction was not without merit!

We had one of the local guys, Jonathan, take us out in his boat. We've said this before, and it perhaps is more true of this than of some of our other experiences, but the pictures simply do not do it justice. Speeding along in our little motorboat, flanked by mountains on both sides that stretch endlessly to the horizon, as far as our eyes are able to make them out in the distance, the sky stunning, the air clear and fresh and whipping our hair all about, the experience was exhilarating, the scenery beautiful.

We boated a couple of miles down the river to where Jonathan said were some of the best holes for salmon. We started by fishing from shore, but we ended up getting more snags than bites.

I have this reputation among my family as the bear magnet, a distinction I maintain with pride. While I haven't seen any bear yet, I have come across sign, including this set of tracks here along the river bank. I also saw a fisher, a pair of eagles, and a beaver on this trip. 

We got back in the boat and anchored offshore. It wasn't long before Brad had three or four nice salmon. Finally, I felt a gentle tug on my line. I set the hook and suddenly my pole was alive, quivering, bent almost in half. I was able to reel the fish in alongside the boat, where Jonathan was able to bring it aboard. 

These fish are about 30" long and are too long to lay flat in the 20 gallon tubs we brought.

After securing the salmon, I told Jonathan that it was the biggest fish I've ever caught. He proceeded to give me a puzzled look and then laughed. It was hard for him to believe that fish are not as large and plentiful everywhere as they are in Alaska. 

These panoramic shots come the closest to capturing the awe of the views up here.

The proud owner of a pair of Alaskan silver salmon.

In about a 45 minute stretch, I ended up with 5 salmon on my line. I managed to reel in 4 alongside the boat, but we were only able to get two safely aboard. The 5th salmon I had on took my lure, half of my line and cracked my new pole in a brief two or three second struggle. A few minutes later, a massive fish began jumping about 20 feet in front of our boat- and to our amazement we saw my lure in its mouth! This fish was so large that it never fully surfaced when it jumped- even Jonathan said it was a pretty big fish. I yelled at the fish for mocking me and tried to catch it again for the next half hour or so, but we never did see that fish again. 

This is Ben, who is also new at Rocky Mountain School, taking over the 3rd and 4th grade classroom. We all had a great time fishing and I think we entertained Jonathan pretty well as he spent most of his time laughing. He said that we were the first teachers he has ever taken fishing. We responded: "Hopefully not the last!"

At one point, we got caught in a pretty heavy downpour. This rainbow extended unbroken from horizon to horizon. It was so big we couldn't get the whole thing in one shot. But it was pretty awesome to see.

Salmon in the fridge. We cut the fish in half, wrapped them in garbage bags, and put them in the freezer.

The next day, we decided to try to make fireweed jelly. Fireweed grows everywhere here in Goodnews; there are fields and fields of it across the tundra. We heard that another new teacher in Nepakiak was planning on making fireweed jelly, and we thought that sounded fun, so we ordered our jars and pectin and started collecting blossoms.

Getting enough blossoms to make jelly is a tedious process. You first have to cut off the tops of the fireweed plant where the blossoms are and collect enough to fill a garbage bag about 1/4 of the way full. Then, each blossom needs to be picked off the tops. We boiled the blossoms in water to make fireweed tea, a brew that was at one time quite popular here. 

 Lots of sugar and some pectin later....the final product.

The color is a pinkish purple; we were surprised by how tasty it is, too! Much better than grape jelly.

We also experienced our first funeral here in Goodnews. We were told by many since taking these jobs that bush villages will shut down whenever someone dies and that often, the funeral will take place at the school. At least for this funeral, we found most of that to be true. The funeral was scheduled for 2 PM this past Thursday at the church; accordingly, we let our students out early after lunch at 12:45. There are many instances of students missing school for non-academic related issues, but more on that in another post. 

Even the store shut down for the funeral.

After the funeral, which lasted about 2 1/2 hours, and included elders telling stories in Yupik about the deceased, everyone relocated to the school gym for a potluck feast. A number of the teachers ended up serving for the feast, which included many traditional Yupik dishes. 

This is the famous "Eskimo Ice Cream," better known up here as its Yupik name, Akutaq. It is made with crowberries and includes crisco and sometimes fish. The first few bites were a little bitter (it is not sweet like ice cream is), but once the palate adjusts, it's actually pretty good. Everybody here loves akutaq. It's probably the most popular native dish.

I didn't catch the name of this dish, but it is comprised of herring eggs on kelp. It was actually pretty good, and tasted like the ocean. 

School Life

We know that you’ve all been dying to find out what school is really like here. It is quite different from any schools that we have experienced in the lower 48.

Our school days start off with our commute to work sometime around 7:30 (we are required to be at school at 8am). A few days a week we have borrowed the school’s Honda, but other days we walk to the school from our house. The walk takes a good 15 minutes and is nearly a mile. We live on one side of the village and the school is on the other side.

A shot of the school off in the distance.

                                              Rocky Mountain School....Home of the Bears!

The janitor’s daughter, Sheila, is home visiting before she returns to school for the fall semester. During her visit to the school earlier this week she explained to me exactly how all 9 of my kindergarten students are related! There is no disagreement like a family disagreement, right? You can only imagine the implications that these relations have in the classroom, both positive and negative.

The relations don’t stop in Kindergarten—they continue right on into every grade level. Remember there are only about 250 people in the whole village. We’ve finally decided that sometimes school doesn’t seem any different to the students than a great big family reunion. It isn’t surprising to turn around and find an older sibling, cousin, uncle, aunt, etc… standing at the door wanting to check on so and so. As you can imagine that doesn’t do much for cultivating an atmosphere of learning. We’re slowly working on encouraging students to stay in their own respective areas of the building.

So, what does a day at Rocky Mountain School really look like? The students are permitted to enter the building at 8:15 every morning. There are usually students outside waiting to get in beginning around 7:35.  Breakfast is served from 8:15-8:45; during this time all grade levels K-12 eat breakfast and hang out in the gym together. Jr. High and High School start at 8:45 and the elementary students start at 9:00.

There are typically students in the building from 8:15 to 4:00. Kindergarten is currently ending at 2:40 every day. Remember, this is the first time these kids have attended any type of structured school. That’s right teacher friends, we are usually having melt downs of epic proportions around 1:30! Another thing to consider is that it isn’t getting dark until around 11 right now, so kids are still staying up WAY TOO LATE! I had a parent tell me that his 5 year old stayed up until 1 AM this week. Don’t worry, I promptly responded that he was killing me! LOL (Maybe it was the strep getting to me?!) The same parent came in Friday morning before school to tell me that his son has been going to bed much earlier- usually by 9:30. Whew! Should I mention that I’ve not made it past 8:30 recently?

Simon didn’t escape the crazy either- his schedule is crammed full of classes students need in order to graduate on time. He is teaching several High School classes, which include students in grades 9-12 and 1 Jr. High class that includes students in grades 5^th through 8^th. In working to help students stay on track with their required credits, Simon is prepping for 7 classes a day. Those are just the classes that he is responsible for teaching. He is responsible for the classroom management of 3 other classes. The classes that he is responsible for management of are VTC or Blackboard courses. VTC courses are classes taught by a teacher who is located at the main office of our district. The Blackboard coarse is a dual credit class that the students are taking through The University of Alaska at Fairbanks. His schedule looks something like this: Algebra 1, Algebra 2 (VTC), Language 1, Language 2, Native American Literature, Earth Science, Intro to Health Careers (Blackboard class), Government, Microsoft Office (VTC), and Jr. High Health. Needless to say he is equally as tired at the end of a day.

All of the insanity aside, we are finally settling into a routine here in the village and it feels great to have a place we call home. We’re really enjoyed getting to know the families and students the past few weeks.

The Move

For our move we shipped 8 18-gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck totes from Pittsburgh to Goodnews Bay. Those totes had everything from home that we thought we couldn’t live without. The totes ranged in weight from 40-50lbs and ranged in price from $60-80. Thankfully, Amazon Prime honors their free 2-day shipping and we were able to purchase several items that would’ve been too expensive to ship.  It is extremely difficult to find someone who will ship to the bush let alone a company that will ship to the bush for no extra cost! If our move persuades you to move to Bush Alaska—we recommend a subscription to Amazon Prime.

A shipment of boxes from Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime saved the day several times! We have purchased a wide variety of things online from sheets and towels to shelf stable food. We didn’t get all of our food from Amazon though. We spent about 2 days in Anchorage on our way to Bethel. During that time we shopped at Sam’s Club, Walmart, REI and Sportman’s Warehouse in order to arrive in the bush as prepared as possible. Sam’s Club and Walmart will both pack and ship your purchases for you—however, that seems a little too easy for first timers, so we decided to pack and ship our own stuff! After a trip to Sam’s Club our first night in Anchorage that filled our rental car to the roof, we purchased totes and set out packing them to ship. OH YEA—I should mention that as we were checking out with our first order from Sam’s Club our credit card was denied. The cashier suggested that sometimes this happens when people purchase as much as we had and said she would try again with half of the balance. Still no. We’re super thankful for great fraud protection, but at this point we had both been awake for about 20 hours and we were ready to sleep.  This was possibly not the most ideal time for a shopping trip, however, after another few attempts we were able to get the purchase to go through.

After packing all of the above food into the blue totes to ship, we decided that another trip to Sam’s Club was in order. This time we purchased quite a bit less and had a good 6 hours of sleep under our belt to help with the process. In total we shipped 11 totes of food from Anchorage. Whew. That was quite a task and one we’ll likely never do again. It was fun, but it was something you’ll only find fun once.

We spent our entire full day in Anchorage packing and shipping the totes. At the post office we discovered something that made us super excited—our 11 boxes of food were only going to cost us approximately $20 to ship to Goodnews Bay. If you’ll recall from above, our totes from Pittsburgh averaged somewhere between $60-80, and these food totes were MUCH heavier! That was a huge relief.

Thankfully, we got most of our totes here in Goodnews within about a week of shipping them in Anchorage. We were happy to find that we only had a few shipping casualties.

We Have Arrived!

After 3 days and almost 5,000 miles of air travel (it's hard to say for sure, since Google maps won't calculate distances in the bush. Must be something about no roads...), we finally arrived to our new home in Goodnews Bay, Alaska! It's been a whirlwind of a week since we flew up here 9 days ago- we've been busy setting up our new home and classrooms- but allow us to flood you with some pictures and a few brief stories to tide you over until we catch our bearings and can post a bit more thoughtfully. To those who have been following our posts on Facebook, this will mostly be a repeat performance, but know that in the future the majority of our news will be posted to this blog...so be sure to check it from time to time!

We spent most of our time in Anchorage shopping for food, since groceries in the bush are scarce and expensive. We purchased, packaged, and shipped 600 lbs of food...the friendly postal worker said it might last us 2 months, but we're hoping a bit longer!

But it wasn't all work and no play...of course we caught a Pirates game as well!

                  Forget Texas...everything is bigger in Alaska!

Our first real indoctrination into bush life came when we flew into Bethel, the main hub in our district. Due to low hanging fog, we ended up stuck in these seats for a total of 17 hours over two days as we waited for Yute Air to end weather hold. We discovered first hand just how much those in the bush villages truly live and wait by the bush planes. 

Thankfully, someone from the district office came and picked us up so we didn't have to spend the night at Yute. We slept on couches with a few other teachers who ended up stranded in Bethel too.

You've gotta have a sense of humor about bush flying and the waiting that it often entails....check out the YUTE Technical Weather Window 5.0! We learned later that there needs to be 500 feet of clearance in order to fly into the villages.

All of that waiting didn't put a damper on our excitement to fly on a bush plane!

 The wait was well worth it. The first leg of the flight to Goodnews Bay is full of endless lakes and streams (see above). This is where we saw massive beaver huts as well as a pair of moose feeding on the grassy lowlands.

Once you hit the mountains, you're almost there! The Cessna 207s that service the villages fly between 500 and 3,000 feet. We flew right alongside these mountains.

                         This was our first view of Goodnews Bay.

Here's a video of our landing in Goodnews. The large blue structure you first see is the school. Our house is on the far end of the village. The bush flights are not nearly as "dangerous" as we thought, but the views are just spectacular. 

Welcome home, weary travelers.

   Lots of unpacking awaited us...4 suitcases, a dozen bins, and endless boxes from Amazon Prime!

                         A shot of the school off in the distance.

Home of the Bears! Literally and figuratively- our first day in Goodnews, a bear warning went out over the VHF. A bear was spotted on the other side of the hills behind our house.

We discovered that we had opposite dilemmas in our classrooms. Not enough stuff in Simon's room....

...and too much stuff in Christina's classroom! We've spent the last few days working on our classrooms and trying to shape them into spaces conducive to learning, discovery, and community. Stay tuned for photos of our finished classrooms!

A plane flying over the bay. We depend on these for our mail and packages. Some days we get 3 or 4 flights and sometimes we'll go days without a plane.

Most days when we walk back home from the school, we are greeted by a group of young kids saying "Hi! Can we come over and visit?" These crazy kids were jumping off the railing of our porch into the tall weeds. We had a couple of kids over the other night and we taught them how to play Uno. No doubt they will keep things lively for us, especially over the long winter.

One day, we went out looking for crowberries (the locals simply call them blackberries), elusive little berries that grow on the tundra floor. It wasn't until we stopped to take a few close up pictures of wildflowers on our way back home that we spotted them...only to discover that we had been walking on and amongst them all along! They literally cover the tundra floor for acres and acres. 

The view on a hike the other day. The term "God's country" is not altogether unfitting.

One of our finds as we cleaned out Christina's cabinets. I guess they're teaching safe sex earlier and earlier these days?? 

Our view on the way to new teacher training back in Bethel. We ended up stuck in Goodnews for a day and a half, so we only caught the last day of training, but it was fun to meet some of the other new teachers (56 new teachers in the district this year). We took the jobs at Goodnews being warned that this was the "geriatric club," but as it turns out, there is another young first year teacher here in Goodnews and two mid-20s teachers across the bay in Platinum (about 6 miles away). When the bay freezes in the winter we will be able to 4-wheel across it to Platinum. We all plan on having some adventures together, so we're thankful for more young people in the bush!

Speaking of Platinum, here's a shot of the most remote village in the district. To the right is the edge of the bay, and to the left is the Bering Sea, where the next landfall is Russia. Goodnews and Platinum, being the most remote villages, can also be the hardest to fly into and out of.

Strangely, we've found ourselves with a few more creature comforts than usual. We were prepared to buy inexpensive flip phones for the bush, but it was actually cheaper for us to get smart phone plans (and better for all of you, since we are taking many more pictures than we typically would). And thanks to At Bat, we can watch every major league game live for just $10 a season....there's no blackout restrictions up here in the bush! So we'll be cheering on our Pirates as they make a postseason push once again. 

Every morning, we walk outside and think "Whoa- we're in Alaska!" I'm sure as the days progress, that shock will lessen, but we realize how blessed and fortunate we are to have such an opportunity as we do. The district here is incredibly supportive of their teachers, the locals here are very friendly (more on some of the people we've met in another post), and the views are simply breathtaking (the photos we've put up simply do not give it justice.) So, hopefully we still are as upbeat after our first week of school...check back next week to find out!