Back in Alakanuk- January 2011

Eating some baby beluga whale at a lunch that the aides put on for us the day we got back. I'm wearing a beautiful quspaq from Helen. She made it for me over Christmas break for my Christmas present!

A special Yup'ik treat: Salmon and rice, salmon loaf, homemade crackers,
two different types of whale, moose, and dried fish strips.

Getting gas at the Native Store; the gas is in the con behind me

Josh drove me to Emmonak to pick up my new snowmachine

Students play on the outside deck during their break

This is how freight gets transported from the airport to the P.O. or stores

There is a new show on the Discovery Channel called Flying Wild Alaska. It's about an airline that frequents Alakanuk-- Era Alaska. On Friday night, a few of us teachers had a potluck dinner and sat down to watch the new reality show (Let's add that to other reality shows featured in AK like Deadliest Catch, Sarah Palin's Alaska, Ax Men, etc.). In the first few seconds of the introduction, we had already seen a few pilots we knew by name from flying us to and from the village. However, it's interesting to scoff and laugh with fellow bush employees when the narrator tries to dramatize relatively simple summer flights. I hope the TV show was able to film some of the winter flights to get some real drama. I've heard and experienced much more intense flight situations. It sounds like MUCH of what they filmed was cut due to legalities.

I feel fortunate to be a part of this way of life. When I heard about Alaska from WA, I'll be honest and admit that you don't feel like there is a part of the United States that is still so isolated. Now that I'm out here, I can see why many people have positive attitudes and a willingness to help. It's necessary. We are at the mercy of what God provides-- weather, animals, and outside help at all times.

We plan our lives around this. For example, the last two days I haven't gone to the Post Office because what little amount of planes that I heard rumbling above my house didn't seem like they would have come early enough to be mail planes. Although I did hear from a student's father that 14,000 lbs of food flew in on Wednesday and Thursday, so I went to the store to pick up some dairy ($7.75 for a half gallon of milk and $4 for a loaf of bread).

When our transportation is mainly by bush plane, we end up having new words added to our travel vocabulary. Some of these words associated with flying are "weatherhold", "400 ft. ceiling", "low visibility", and "icy runway."

I've learned that weight limits are important, especially when you have to "vote" people off the flight when they have to add 600 extra pounds of fuel in case we have to make an emergency landing in Dillingham. We were trying to beat a storm to get out for Christmas and the pilot with Grant Airlines couldn't promise that another plane would come for the people who reluctantly volunteered to stay behind. Once we had the 207 up in the sky and the tangerine sun shown bright, we cruised to Bethel airport. As we were making our descent about an hour later, I was looking out my window at the top of the clouds. One second later I saw pavement and felt our wheels bump the ground. I bet that ceiling wasn't any higher than the actual ceiling in our small school gym. You know it's risky business when the two pilots wait until the plane is steady and they high-five each other enthusiastically and give us a thumbs-up.

When we got to the other airport terminal we found out that Alaska Airlines wasn't able to get in or out of the airport earlier that day so it was crowded with people hoping to make it on the later flight with us. Five hours later the rest of the crew did make it to Bethel and after the fog became so cold it dropped, we made it out safely.

Just as a small disclosure: There were about 30 more very crucial things (having to snowmachine to a different village to get out on their longer runway, how they wrote down my name wrong (no electronic reservations) and it's possible I didn't have a seat on the plane, etc.) that also happened in just that one trip that if I stated them all you would have either fallen asleep from all the details or had a small heart attack by hearing about all the stress.