My journey started up again, as my bags were loaded into the cars going to the Anchorage airport. We were expected to find our way to the village-- which meant dealing with Grant Airlines. This is a place difficult to describe. When I called to make a reservation, I was asked for my name. But, when I asked if they wanted me to spell that and they replied, "No." I wasn't sure quite what to expect.
Our day of flying was incredibly sunny and blissful as we left Anchorage. Our Alaskan New Teacher Mentor, Mary, took us to see this sight of Denali before we pulled into the airport.
We first flew on Alaska Airlines to Bethel. Bethel was a tiny airport, but Grant airlines was small and definitely had more character. Since they don't have a website, we called them many times to remind them we were on the 2:30pm plane to Alakanuk. Their entire airport consisted of one little building and an entire crew of people who ... had illegible handwriting (which caused me to "LOSE" my reservation--THREE times). An untrained customer service (which means filling out a receipt for a plane ticket took 30 minutes each). And terrible phone etiquette ("Hello? Uh. Can you call back?" Click.) Not to mention, after she weighed us and our luggage, she asked us where we were going. Then she turned around, looked at a sloppy board behind her, and faced us again to state, "We don't have that on the board."Through what I'd like to call some "Flexible-Not-gonna-care" mentality, mixed with "PowerPrayer," and a couple hours to do so, our name was called off a list to get on the next plane. He was a scruffy younger person I thought may be a mechanic based on his flannel shirt and unkempt appearance. He led us out the double doors out to an eight passenger plane and hopped into the pilots seat.
I was excited to be able to be close enough to the dials and to be able to see out on such a warm, clear day. Suddenly, I realized he wasn't able to turn on the propeller on the right side of the plane. With a putt, and a sputter, the engine struggled with its idle. Slowly he turned on the left one. By this time, my roommate and a returning teacher from Emmonak were giving each other nervous looks. My face winced as I looked out the window and tried not to appear as if I was listening to the revolutions of the engine. The pilot adjusted the throttle open and closed. We finally started moving the plane to the runway.
The back end of the plane felt like it was hydroplaning and drifting on the runway and even in the air. With a small plane you could feel turbulence pretty easily. Small little clouds are like hard white opaque rainstorms to fly through.
I put my headphones in to block out some of the droning engines. The terrain from Bethel to Alakanuk was drastically different from Anchorage to Bethel. It is much flatter. Surprisingly, I was able to match up our village from Google Maps. It was almost like zooming into the actual satellite map.
When we landed among green shrubbery, short trees, and Fireweed, we already knew our luggage hadn't made it. It felt weird to hop off the plane with no luggage, but we had been promised our luggage would be on the next plane that came in. (That was hard for my roommate because she paid seat fare for her dog and he didn't even make it on the flight with us.) No one was there to pick us up, but my roommate knew where our house was. I was surprised at how green everything was as we walked past tall green bushes to teacher housing along a rough gravel road.
This is the little engine that could take me to Alakanuk! It's leaving the Alakanuk airport towards Emmonak to drop off the rest of the passengers.
The left side of that duplex is where I live.All housing faces each other with boardwalks running to each of them because it's technically a swamp.
