What's on the Menu?

You might be wondering if we’ve tasted some awesome Alaskan cuisine yet; and the answer is YES. We’ll give you a look at our menu from this past week.

Deep fried halibut with a curry mayonnaise sauce. 

Country fried moose with mashed potatoes and gravy

Dolly Varden char. The fish don't have scales, so you can eat the skin. 

We stuffed it with butter and garlic.

As you can see, we’ve been getting our fill of the meats that this land has to offer. A few of the guys from the village have generously shared some of their catches with us and we’ve been so thankful. It’s been quite an experience to try some of these things for the very first time!

My favorite has by far been the Halibut—I know why I’ve never liked fish before because I’ve never tried Halibut. Quite a few of the natives will tell you that halibut is also their favorite fish. They can’t understand why we’d never had halibut before we moved to Alaska. We did our best to explain to them that Halibut is very expensive in the lower 48; a concept they can’t quite grasp because it is readily available here during the peak season. Simon doesn’t discriminate; he likes it all and has been enjoying a Salmon Patty for lunch every day for about 2 weeks now.

A Little Bit of Everything

It's been about a week and a half since we've posted last, and there have been lots of things going on in Goodnews, so this post will have lots of random photos and stories...enjoy!

First of all, congratulations to Donny Porter for winning our Alaska basket at the fundraiser in Everson last weekend. In addition to some delicious Alaskan jellies and rolls, Donny won the first season of Alaska: The Last Frontier on DVD. In our post Alaska Basket, we wrote that this is the only show on Alaska worth watching that gives an authentic picture of life in the bush. Our friend Gary actually knows some of the people from the popular show Alaskan Bush People, and he said that the show is fake, along with many others on TV. His actual estimation of Alaska reality shows went something like this: "The Last Frontier...it's a pretty good show. The rest of them are all BS." Most of the others have a lot of manufactured drama and try to sensationalize bush life. So if you want the Real McCoy, watch The Last Frontier or read our blog!

No manufactured drama here, either. Last weekend, I got my Honda stuck about 5 miles out on the trail to the trout stream.

 The quad sunk down in the mud so deep that the frame of the quad was actually resting on the trail. I spent about an hour trying to get it out by shoving sticks and grass from the tundra under the tires to try to give it leverage. But it was stuck pretty good. So, I walked a mile and a half and climbed a hill, praying that I would have cell coverage enough to call somebody. Luckily, I was able to get a bar on my phone long enough to call Gary. The poor guy was relaxing at home watching football, but he drove the 5 miles out to pull my quad out of the rut.

Gary actually got stuck here himself the day before, but he was with someone and they were able to get his quad out. After pulling my quad out, we made a new trail on the tundra that bypasses this section.

Looks like mink or muskrat tracks. These were everywhere along the bank of the stream. 

A 17" dolly varden char. 

This is actually pretty small for this type of fish. There were some much larger char I saw swimming by my line. I'll be back for them in a couple of weeks. 

My fishing pole bunjeed to the front of the quad and caribou antlers 

I found on the tundra bunjeed to the back. 

Sounds like the start of a great country song.

A bridge on the trail made from PVC pipes tied together.

We may not have fall leaves in autumn, but the tundra has some beautiful colors of its own. The smell is unique as well, a mix between fall leaves and evergreen; very aromatic.

The greenhouse behind the school.

This weekend I unboarded it, cleared out all the weeds and junk, 

and planted some cold weather crops.

The dirt is not very good, so we'll see whether anything will grow or not.

It would be great to have salad again!

Ben and I have been playing basketball at men's open gym on Tuesday nights.

It's been a good chance for us to meet some of the people in the village our age (and get a little exercise!) 

In addition to preparing for the week, our Saturdays are now spent as chaperons for school-age open gym. Each classroom has a time they can come up and play games in the gym (or play on computers for the older students). Here, Christina is showing some K-2 students how to play cornhole, one of our favorite games from back home. 

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.