December in Unalakleet

COUNTDOWN TO WINTER SOLSTICE: 8 DAYS!

December is a cold hard month here in Unalakleet. As I have told some of you already the one thing I miss so far is winter. I know that sounds crazy but I miss the "friendly" winter. The winter up here is harsh and bitter. The snow is like sand blasting across the landscape. The bitter wind here blows all the time, 30-40 miles an hour. Sometimes there are wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour. It is also dark. The sun rises now at about 12:15 and sets around 3:00pm. I miss the days where you go out sledding in those great big flakes. You know the ones that float down and you can catch on your tongue. If you did that here your sense of taste would be ruined because you would have no more taste buds. They would have been scoured off.

Despite it all we do go out and try to enjoy ourselves, snowmachining, ice fishing, trying to stand up after the wind gust threw you off a hill. It is all fun.

So we have been staying inside a lot lately. Today Jeremy and Isa spent the morning building a "Jitterbug". It was so cute watching the two of them work on it. They were quite the team. Isa did not have to talk too hard to get her dad enthusiastic about building it. Isa named her Jitterbug "dotsy" and it now jiggles endlessly across the floor.

Speechless

I am sitting here in my snug little apartment while a winter storm rages across the tundra outside.  I grew up in Montana, lived in Idaho and Wyoming and I have never in my life seen weather like this.  The temperature is somewhere around -5 with a wind chill of -20 or so.  That is not so amazing but the wind good lord!  The wind blows down from the tundra and there is nothing to stop it.  It blows 40-50 miles an hour and has wind burts of 60 miles an hour.  That is hard enough that the wind just reaches inside your mouth down to your lungs and grabs the air right out of you.  It leaves you feeling like you have had the wind knocked out of you.  The snow is like sand from a sand blaster hitting you again and again as you try to stand in the wind.  It knocks Isa right over and pushes her.  Needless to say this pisses her off and she screams how much she hates the weather here.  Of course you can't hear her over the wind.  

Still that is not the amazing part, that is not what leaves me speechless.  As I gape open mouthed staring out side at the weather at 9:00 at night I can see two kids on a snowboard boarding down a hill by the school.  I guess with this wind they can really get going......tough son of a guns!  There are only 700 people in this village and in the last half hour that I have sat here looking out the window I have seen at least ten trucks, 7 four-wheelers, and 2 snow machines.  Where in the world are these folks going and why?????  My question is do they enjoy going out in this weather?  A test of manhood?  Some kind of initiation right of passage thing?  Or are they just insane? 

A visit from the in-laws

As many of you know Jeremy's parents, Richard and Virginia, came to visit us over Thanksgiving. You may be wondering why I had not written about it in my blog. No, it is not because I am still suffering through in-law remorse. Richard and Virginia are wonderful people and they really did great up here. I think they enjoyed it but you would have to ask them to get the truth! No it was because I could not find our camera with the photos to prove that they were here. So here is the Blog......

The weather was just horrid when they showed up. I mean horrid! It was -21 with a windchill of -41. I am not joking! They had left 70 degree weather in Wyoming and braved the cold and snow to visit our home on the tundra. We then promptly set them back on a plane and flew the family to Nome for some big city (pop. 2200) experiences where Isa got sick and spent the next two days throwing up in the hotel bathroom. With that setback and Jeremy in classes Richard and Virginia had to brave the snow, ice, and cold and drive the roads around Nome all by themselves. (A scary thought even in the summer.) They did it though and were rewarded with a rare view of the local Musk-ox population. They were told to pick up any souvenirs in Nome because there would be no place to buy anything once we got to Unalakleet.

Two days later we were back on a plane flying back to Unalakleet. It was still bitter cold and many hours had to be spent indoors. Richard, a winter pro, even got frost bit while out on the snowmachine. While here they were able to meet all of our friends including Isa's friend Judy. Judy's mom came over when she heard that Jeremy's parents were visiting and brought us some Muktuk (Raw whale fat and skin) for them to try. Virginia developed a taste for it. Richard tried it but decided to pass on any more.


After the muktuk we took everyone out to the river for a little ice fishing. This is still one sport I just can not get into. You sit on a little bucket over a little hole in -21 degree weather to catch fish. And they are not even salmon. They are some little trout fish and a thing called a smelt. We did our job and even Isa caught a little fish. I'll pass on the ice fishing but I can not wait to catch salmon in the fall!






Most of our activities where like this one. Nice, warm, and snug inside the house making Christmas wrapping paper. Thank you Richard and Virginia. I hope you enjoyed it we sure did.

Why do you live there?

Many of you have asked us "Why on Earth would anyone live in a place like Unalakleet?" Unalakleet sits out on a little strip of land sandwiched between the Unalakleet river and the Bering Sea just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle. I even found myself asking the same question the other day when it was -21, blowing wind, icy darkness and I was trying to take a walk.

But then why do any of us live anywhere? People here have a sense of community. Everyone knows your name and your struggles. You know where to ice fish for trout and where for smelt. You love the food and the smells. You plan for the annual pick nick and Christmas bazaar. No one here asks where you are from. And the space, good God, the huge expanse of the ocean, frozen and open, and the land that goes on uninterrupted for hundreds and thousands of miles no roads, no power lines. It is enough to make Montana, Idaho, and yes even Wyoming seem over developed and over populated.

For those of you of a more libertarian bent you have no need for a firewood permit, or a Christmas tree permit, or a burn permit. If you are native you need no fishing licenses, no hunting licenses. Ofcource with all of that freedom from oversight you are also left with no infrastructure. If you get lost in the woods there is no search and rescue. There are no fire trucks, no coast guard. But even that can feel like home to some. There is a great satisfaction in really taking responsibility for your own life. If you go out seal hunting on the ice you damn well better know what you are doing. No one will hold your hand and no one is going to be able to save you. If you know that and you are still able to live and thrive here you have a pride in your self and in your community made up of people like you.

So why do people live here? The same reason we all live where we do, because it is home. And if you live here you get the extra bonus of being able to call yourself "bush" tough.

December

We are finally settling into a rhythm here in Unalakleet. Isa and I are enjoying homeschooling. She fights me every day that she goes to school. She told me that she really likes to learn but hates going to school. Wise statement from one so young. I told her that she was learning all of the time and part of what she was learning was taught by elders at the school. There was no way she could learn Inupiaq culture from me. So for now we are at an impasse. She still goes to her class three times a week for some formal "learning", and I get a bit of down time.

I can not believe that it is December all ready! Winter Solstice will be a welcome sight. Things are very dark right now. We are getting about 4 hours of true daylight now and an extra two hours of "twilight". By December 21 we will be having only 2 hours of daylight! At least we never lose it completely. (and yes I have a sun light and I use it!)

Speaking of homeschooling here are a few more photos from our trip to the Alaska Native Cultural Museum. This is what homeschooling is all about! We were able to take our time and visit all the houses at the museum on a day everyone else was in school. This is the Tlingit house. We were able to go inside but the camera did not take a very good picture. It is huge! Many families lived together in one house. The house was great but the totem pole really caught Isa's attention. After visiting all of the houses we were able to view the movie on the making of the Totem. Very impressive, and it really seemed to make an impression on Isa. Much more so then just studying them in a book.

We are home

Isa and I returned home on the 12th. It was a good trip but both Isa and I were happy to be home and with Jeremy again.

Before we came back to Unalakleet we had the opportunity to visit some really neat museums in Anchorage. The Native Heritage Center was really great with life size homes from the five Alaska Native cultures. Isa and I enjoyed the Inupiaq house which was by far the warmest of the houses. Here you can see Isa standing outside the small entrance to the house. The house had an arctic entrance of 40 feet down into the ground opening up into a very nice, warm, and bright room complete with polar bear skin. To the left you can see Isa climbing down through the entrance. Once inside you pass through a small little hole into the house.

Here is a view of the Inupiaq house from faraway. You can see how snug and warm it would be.

Weather here is cold but not too bad. Beautiful winter landscape. Jeremy's mom and dad will be visiting us next week and staying through Thanksgiving. It will be fun to show someone around the place and share its unique beauty.

snow!!!!

Yesterday, the first of October, it snowed.  Not a cute little fall snow, but a real snow.  It stuck on the ground and more fell through the night.  People have all pulled out their parkas.  alapac!

Today Isa and I are heading to Montana where it is a hot 70 degrees!