*blink*

So that's it, huh? The school year's over already? Doesn't seem like it's possible.

Let's see, what's been up? Well, I helped chaperone a slumber party last weekend for the 5th grade class and the Junior High basketball team. It was pretty fun, and noone was too poorly behaved or annoying (thank god). At one point I let the kids use my camera, which resulted in about a hundred pictures (like the one at right) on my card in a stunningly short period of time. Which is cool by me :-)

What else? Oh, got to drive the boat over to Akiuk for the first time this spring. We took off after sunset, which worried me a little bit seeing as the sun had already set, but thankfully the angle the sun goes down in this part of the world meant we had more than enough twilight to get there and back, still able to see the paths and cuts between lakes. It was cool, actually my first time driving the whole way, so now I'm pretty confident in my knowledge of the path. It was like the first time snowmobiling to Bethel...it's different when I'm the one that actually has to, you know, pay attention to the route :-P I'm really a hands-on type of learner.

Other than that, now it's all about getting stuff cleaned up, packed up, and moved. We're heading out a week from Friday, so we've got a little time left...thank god.

Link

Just wanted to post a quick link to this story I saw from the New York Times the other day. It's pretty sad, but I thought it was worth posting...the author touches on some important issues in this part on the world.

NY Times: In Native Alaskan Villages, A Culture of Sorrow

More Pics

Sara and I took Loki for a swim this weekend. He seemed quite excited to get back in the water after a long winter...or that could have just been me projecting. Here are a couple shots of the action:

Land of the Midnight (not quite) Sun

Here's a fuzzy, shaky, out-of-focus picture taken last night at exactly midnight. The sun goes down these days at about quarter after 11, but it's at such a crazy angle to the horizon that it stays light for a couple hours afterwards (and gets light way before sunrise in the morning). I know it's just because I'm not used to it, but it kind of messes with my mind.

It didn't help that as I was finally getting to bed, not even really tired, at 1am last night...there was a robin singing. Felt like I should be getting out of bed, not in.

The De-frozen Tundra

Well, we're getting right down to it, aren't we? Hard to believe we've only got, what, a couple weeks left of the school year? And then a little packing, a little moving, and we're on our way back to the Minnesconsin (or is it Wisconsota?) region. Not too much of excitement to report from the last week or so, but I do have a couple pictures...so how's about we do it that way?

The snow is gone and the tundra is (mostly) thawed, so it seemed like last weekend was a good time to go for a walk...with guns. Peter was headed out hunting just south of the village and asked me if I wanted to tag along, which of course I did :-) This is a picture of lovely "southside" Nunapitchuk taken from I-don't-know-how-far-away on the tundra.

Here's Peter with a shotgun and his handy walking stick (seriously...it came in quite handy), looking out over the tundra for sights/sounds of avian life.

Me, I was just happy to get out and have the opportunity to sight in my 17hmr...haven't had it out since getting it up here, and the scope had been knocked way off. Boo. (I'm not particularly fond of this picture...I think it's the low angle. But it's me with a gun, so odds are yeah, I'm going to post it.)

Also of note...the river ice went out over the weekend! So I guess that marks the end of ice fishing, huh? Oh well, I guess it's about time to get out on the boat anyway.

Into the Homestretch

So what have we been up to since Trivia? Not much, not much.

Last week was my first week post-subbing, and really, it was quite boring. Nice, but boring. I got our snowmobile put away for the summer (sad!) and some calls made and stuff taken care of for the wedding, but other than that, didn't have too much going on.

Then, over the weekend, we had to fly into Bethel for another marriage prep session at the church. Even without riding in on snowmobile, travel was a little hairy. The airport here in Nunap is on the opposite side of the river, which at the moment is right at that sketchy stage where there is ice in most spots, but it's not very good ice, and you have to have a good idea where to go or else you're going to get wet. Thus, with noone willing (smartly) to take us by snowmobile or 4-wheeler, we had to walk to the airport to catch our plane. We got there, made it to Bethel, walked around and got some dinner, and had a lovely time Saturday night at the White House. Sunday we made it to mass and got our last conversation in with the Priest, and still had time to do a little shopping before heading back to the airport for the quick flight back to the village.

So after worrying about whether the ice on the river was going to be good enough for us to cross back and forth to the airport a couple times over the weekend, what have we been up to since? Well ice fishing, of course!!

Gotta love ice fishing in May :-)

The Branch Office

Well, the last week and a half or so has been action packed, to say the least. Last week was my final week in the 4th grade classroom in which I have been subbing since February 1st. Long story short, it was a good experience, but I'll admit being glad it's over. They definitely didn't make it easy on me.

Last week was also, of course, registration week for Trivia (for those of you unfamiliar, you might want to check out my team's page, or the official Trivia page), which means only one thing...Trivia Times pictures! After much brainstorming, digging, and emailing, we were able to figure most of them out, and my internet limitations didn't hinder me as much as I was worried, so I thought that was a good sign for my ability to contribute while playing remotely.

So Friday rolls around, and after school lets out (after lunch...what luck!) I head home to gather up some stuff for the weekend, stop by the store to pick up some snacks and caffeine, and set up shop in Sara's classroom. It didn't take long for the sounds of Freebird to start wafting from the speakers, and the contest was underway. Something soon became clear - despite the fact that most the sites I was searching and trying to access weren't blocked by the school internet's filter like I had feared, the speed (or lack thereof) of the internet connection was a serious issue. Compounded by the fact that I had Skype open and streaming in order to hear the contest in real time, it made internet searching a slow, tedious affair. My normal method of internet searching during Trivia involves a lot of "middle-clicking", opening up search results in new tabs half a dozen at a time and then looking for search terms in the pages...something that just wasn't possible this year. If a single page that was loading had too many pictures or things embedded, it would often take half a song to come up. Combined with some issues in the chat with members back in HQ, it made for a really, really frustrating year of Trivia. To be honest, it wasn't much fun.

Still, I soldiered on in Dad's Computers' Alaska branch office, managed to stay up all but 3 hours (6am-9am Sunday...when I wasn't even all that tired, just feeling frustrated, isolated, and needing a break), and was thrilled when the results were announced. 6th place! The top-ten three-peat and our best finish yet! And while I left school Sunday night feeling like I had done nothing to contribute to this year's success, it's made me even more determined to find a way to make a contribution in the future however I can, on a yearlong basis, so we can come back next year and "rock this house" as a team member put it during the awards ceremony.

Because, as the Oz said in an interview before the contest this year, "No matter what gets you down, Trivia returns."

It's not like running to Copps

Happy Sunday! Just lounging around today, and since I'm able to get a bit of an internet signal here at home, I thought I'd post quickly just to share a link to an article about the looming hike in the bypass mail rate and its effect on the prices we pay for stuff out here in the Bush.

You know, just to give you all a little perspective :-)

But remember, when they're talking about Bethel, that's still a snowmachine ride (or at this point in the year, a plane ride again) away from us. Who knows how much it's going to affect prices out here at our little store...

The "Spring has Sprung" Update

Well, after a semi-relaxing week of testing (for me at least...everyone else was scrambling like mad, but luckily I was only tasked with a couple half-days of babysitting seniors and one morning of subbing in the third grade classroom), it was time for what passes as spring break here in Nunap...a 4 day weekend! Woo!

Except that, while Sara had accepted an invitation to head down to her old stomping grounds in Quinhagak for an Easter visit, I had decided to hang out at home for the long weekend and just enjoy the time off. Which, really, I did...at least for the first 12 hours or so. After that, I was bored as heck. You see, the temps have finally gotten up in the 40s consistently during the last week or so, which means melting snow, lots of water on top of the ice on the river, and generally horrible snowmobiling conditions. As such, I spent 4 days inside. Losing my mind.

Compounded by the fact that Thursday night before Sara left, the heat in our posh, trendy, luxurious teacher housing building decided to stop working. Which, while annoying, wasn't a huge deal. It wasn't -20 and windy outside, so we just put on sweatshirts and went to bed. Well, then after Sara left on Friday they came to "fix" the heat....translation: it was on full blast all weekend. Even with keeping the window wide open with a fan blowing in, and propping open the back door whenever Loki needed to go out to get some airflow moving through, my thermometer topped out at a balmy 91 on Saturday. Just lovely.

Take a guess when the heat decided to turn itself completely off (again)? Yep, about an hour before Sara got home. She might not even buy my story, now that I think about it...should have taken a picture of myself in shorts, with a straw hat, and a (fake) margarita!

Ahh, the wonderful world of the LKSD! And I'm not even going to rant about the other stuff...at least not today ;-)

April Fools

Yes, the apostrophe was left out on purpose. That's plural, not possessive.

So around here, people don't do much on Sunday. Store is closed, not much hunting or fishing or anything goes on. They go to church and that's about it. Religion is taken pretty seriously, which is understandable, considering the timeline.

Us kass'aq teachers aren't really bound by such restrictions. To us, it's the **weekend**, and we want to get out there and make use of the time off however we can. Sometimes, this means heading out for some hunting on our precious last day before the new week begins.

Sometimes this choice to disregard the fact that Sunday should be a day of rest....well, it comes back to bite us in the butt.

The original plan for the weekend had included a trip up to the treeline by the Yukon river to collect some wood for this week's school bonfire. I've never been, but supposedly it's a 3-or-so hour trip each way, and a pretty rough one at that. However, the weather didn't seem to want to cooperate, as the temps had (finally) gotten up to a couple degrees over the freezing mark, which made for some pretty thick fog and pretty slushy snow conditions. Not exactly the best riding weather.

So, the treeline trip scratched, Peter and I decided to take a quick trip out beyond the village to poke around for some ptarmigan. Not too adventurous, but it beats sitting around the house watching TV, etc. Little did we know what the fates had in store. First, Peter manages to dive his machine nose-first into a gully between drifts, getting hung up and monumentally stuck. After trying to dig for a while with hands and sticks, we decide to give pulling it out with mine a shot. Now, knowing the snow in front of his machine is going to be similar to the snow he's stuck in, I'm not feeling too good about where this is headed, and the prospect of having both machines stuck a few miles outside of Akula is making me a little nervous. As I pull in front of him, I feel my track getting sucked down, and after momentarily getting stuck I'm able to gun it out....and right over an 8 foot drop. Next thing I know, I'm flying through the air, off my sled, and I land on my back on the snow with my shotgun planted barrel first down to the trigger guard about 10 inches from my ear.

It's at this point I start wondering about the Sunday + April Fool's Day combination we're dealing with.

But, my machine is still free, and we've proven that pulling Peter's out isn't going to be an option, so after shaking the cobwebs from my head we get back to work digging. This is when we decide that larger sticks might be more useful, so Peter whips out his trusty Leatherman to use the sawblade....and promptly breaks the tool. So after digging for a while and trying to lift the back end out with no luck, we decide to head back home to grab more help, some shovels, etc. So after we get my machine all rigged up with out stuff and both jump on, and then finally decide with the help of GPS and a compass which way to head through the fog, we get on our way. On our way, of course, meaning needing to get out of the area of deepish, melting slush we've been digging through. I decide to try to move pretty quickly to avoid getting bogged down, which worked well, until the fog and lack of contrast between the air and the snow caused me to bang headfirst into a drift that turned out to be a pretty sweet jump...had we been prepared for it. Peter banged his face into my back, and we hit so hard that the GPS around my neck actually snapped off its strap and went spinning through the air in slow motion. Luckily, we didn't land on it.

So, after getting back and grabbing shovels and a couple people to help, we headed back and got the sled out...embarrassingly easily, in fact. I contend that we had loosened it up before we left. There was a little bit of an issue with getting separated on the way back, and having to double back and look for people, but at that point my machine was starting to not like the >32 degree weather, so I limped home before adding an overheated sled to my day's list of woes.

Moral of the story? Maybe there is something to this "no hunting on Sunday" rule. I'll definitely think twice next time, I know that.