Visions of Berry Fest

Although it's been over a week ago, I thought I would give you a few highlights of the Blackberry festival that occured here in Toksook this year. I actually can't give you highlights that occured in the village, just highlights of my weekend in particular.

Thanks to having a dog now, I have been forcing myself outside more often to explore and exercise my furry ball of energy. I've been hiking up the hill more times than I can count and recently been exploring more areas off the beaten path. I've been amazed at the number of berry patches that I have discovered by walking off the trail system. I have over a gallon of blueberries frozen in my freezer this year and last year I had less than a quart.

It's also been a great year for cranberries and red berries. The cranberries are darker red and the red berries are, of course, bright red. I haven't tried the red berries yet, but supposedly you can eat them.







And of course, you can't mistake these for berries. I haven't seen a live Musk Ox in the wild yet, but they leave signs all around the island. My 4th grade friend Coby said that he saw some just over the hill a couple of weeks ago. He's such a lier. Can you tell I'm jealous?











This picture is actually taken just a couple of days ago and long after blackberry fest. This is my friend Erin from Oscarville with her little dog, Macey and Coby, the 4th grader, giving Katja a little hug. Judging from the picture, I think that Coby will make an excellent dog sitter some day.

Well, that is all for now. I hope this doesn't seem like a desperate and random post. Stay healthy and live it up!

Dirk

My humble abode

Well, many of you are probably wondering what my home life is like up here in the most rural setting I've ever lived in. So I've finally gotten around to taking some pictures of my most humble abode. This building actually houses my boss/principal and family on the left side and me and Katja live on the right side. Yes, the walls are thin. As you can see, I also have a lawn, if you want to call it that. The landlord doesn't make me mow, which is fine by me. The big black drum outside is my oil tank for my heater. I have a board walk that goes right up to my front door which is kind of nice. Step off the board walk and you will most likely be in mud. Supposedly there is a small river that flows under my house when it rains alot, which it does because I live on the west coast of Alaska.

The house is quite a bit smaller than my old home. It is also quite a bit more rustic and closer to the center of the village. I did have a little fly problem, but that is slowly being taken care of with the coming of colder weather and my dog is a master fly catcher, although she leaves dead fly carcasses scattered around the floor. Good dog! Living closer to the center of "town" poses another problem that I didn't have last year. I get a lot of visitors. I think this is mostly due to my proximity to other families and their kids and also that Katja is such a friendly and sociable dog, kids just love her. I guess that isn't a bad thing. Almost everyone knows her name by now, so I just have to ask kids to hold her leash while I duck into the school quickly for something or they can tell me which way she ran off towards if she sneaks out of my sight. I like kids and I like my job, but usually, whatever you do for work is the last thing you feel like doing when you're not at work. (a.k.a. entertain kids) I rarely invite kids in for visits, but they are always asking to come in. Sometimes you just gotta be stern.

Anyway, back to the house. It's cozy for Katja and me. It does have lots of storage space, which is nice because I'm such a gear head. I don't have a real good place for a TV/VCR and such besides my bedroom, but I can drag the computer out to the living room to watch movies with Katja.

I have three windows in the house, but the screens are all torn out. Luckily there aren't bad mosquitos in town. Actually, I haven't seen any in or around my house despite the grass/swamp outside.

I am using every square inch of my house. One nice thing about the size is that it will heat up quickly, which I will be doing in another few weeks. I haven't turned on my heat at all yet, but it is noticably colder in the morning when I wake up and Katja is almost always cuddled in her crate instead of sprawled out on the floor next to my bed.

I have recently purchased some hardware to make Katja a little tether outside so that she can spend time outside when I am at work. Hopefully she will grow used to it quickly. Here you can see her little dog house, which my friend Brett left for me. She is a little co-dependent yet, so we will see if she tries to break her neck to get off the tether or not. She already climbs right into the dog house without hesitation. We will have to work up to spending long periods of time left alone outside.

That is pretty much it though. So when you are kicked back on your couch with an ice cold beverage of your choice, watching the football game on your wide screen, listening to the fire in the wood stove crackle in the background, just think of me in my humble abode and remember, I live in Alaska.

Thanks for reading.
Dirk

Back in the village

Well once again, I had written out an elaborate summary of my summer travels, my return to Alaska, and finally my return to Toksook Bay, but the internet went down just as I was posting it and it never made it. So now, I will try to pick my brain from two days ago, when I wrote it, and come up with something similar and likewise, worth reading.

Indeed, I am back in Toksook Bay, work has started, and my neck already hurts. I arrived in Bethel on Aug. 1st after a lovely stay with some friends in Anchorage. Bethel involved 10 days of training and a couple of down days that I got to sit around and watch movies in the Bed and Breakfast/hostel that I was staying in.

Some rather big news involves a new female companion that met while staying in Bethel. She is pretty young, very energetic and outdoorsy, a great cuddle bug, and absolutely beautiful. She listens to almost everything I say, she is gets along great with everyone in the village. Yes, Katja, my new friend, moved to Toksook with me. The best part is that she is also house broken, has had all her shots, and responds well to a shock collar. Some of you might be thinking that I went ahead with the mail order bride from Russia. Sorry to disappoint you. Indeed, she is a very athletic Husky/Yellow Lab mix. She weighs about 35 - 40 pounds and is roughly between one and a half to two years old. She is the perfect dog for me right now.














I also had to move to another house. We received two new teachers from Michigan, Jimmy and Kerri Dunn. They are enjoying the comforts of my old house and I get to move in next to the Principal and his family. His wife is the high school science teacher. Katja seems to enjoy the house. Even more, Katja enjoys long jaunts out on the tundra, eating berries, tripping over tussocks, and stretching her legs. She is incredibly fast and loves to chase birds. Sometimes I will look down for 5 seconds and look up to find that she is completely over the next hill hauling tail after some bird. She comes back eventually, but the shock collar helps bring her back a little faster. Just so you know, the collar has a tone that reminds her. If she doesn't respond to the tone after I call her, then I give her a gentle buzz.


Well, speaking of Katja. I better see how she is doing in the house alone. Thanks for not giving up on me and my blog. More to come soon. Stay tuned.

Dirk

Breaking the Ice

The weather has been warming up some recently and it's actually been in the high 40's and low 50's lately. Still it takes a long time for 5 - 6 feet of ice to melt and clear out of the bay. Well this week, the firm ice pack that I so comfortably rode my bike on to go ice fishing, finally broke up and started clearing out of the bay. I didn't realize how much I missed open water until I saw the frigid blue water and the ripping outgoing tide pushing all the mini icebergs out to sea.

Jamie and I hiked up to an overlook where we could see out to the mouth of the bay as well as the ice still packed pretty tightly around the head of the bay. It was about 45 degrees and around 10 pm when these pictures were taken.

Many of the men and boys have been going out seal hunting for the past couple of weeks. Students actually get excused absences, called traditional leave, to go out and seal hunt to contribute towards part of their subsistence lifestyle. Apparently there is the possibility of seeing a seal or beluga whale in the small bay during this time of year as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.












It is so nice to see water again!










This picture has an old cemetary from the village in the fore ground with one of the wind powered generators in the back ground. Kind of mixing a little old with the new. Apparently there are human skulls that can be seen in this graveyard, but I didn't want to go digging to find them. I was worried about being haunted just for taking this picture.





This is a picture of fish drying racks that they make to hang their herring, Salmon, and other fish from to dry them for later use. I recently had a chance to try some cooked dried herring and it was the strongest fishy tasting fish I have ever eaten. I couldn't even finish it, but I ate enough to let people know that I really tried to like it.



Here is Jamie, enjoying a cool north wind on top of the bluff just outside of town.




Well, that is all for now. I have almost survived my first year of teaching out here. I have only 5 more days of teaching to go. It's definitely been a challenging year for me, but I have also had many rewards that have helped me to decide to teach here next year as well.

I'm excited to see many friends down in the lower 48 over the summer.
Thanks for reading.
Dirk

The Prom

You would not have know that you were in a remote fishing village in Western Alaska if you were at the Nelson Island High School prom last week. Of course once you stepped outside the gym, you would slapped back to reality pretty quickly.

Our prom was held for all students in grades 7 - 12. About 65 people attended, which included a lot of people from other villages. For many people, it became a reunion of familiar faces that used to attend Nelson Island School and other people that were from the community.

The students were totally decked out from head to toe. Gents had all their bling bling out on display with a nice button down shirt or vest. A couple of guys even sported a penguin suit. The girls were all dressed up as well, wearing their fancy and elegant dresses.

Jamie and I attended even though I was feeling very sick that day and was tempted to stay home, but I caught a quick 3 hour nap and popped a couple of Alkaseltzer Cold Plus tablets and was good to go until about 2 am. After everyone left, I hung out with the DJ and the two site administrators for some good laughs about how everyone in the village drinks and that if anyone should be allowed to drink, it should be the teachers. That day is a tiny speck far, far down the road of possibilities. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

Thanks for reading,
Dirk

Stepping Out

I decided that this weekend I was going to get my work finished early so that I may enjoy some other more time consuming endeavors. Therefore, I packed up my backpack and headed out for just an overnight. The first trick I had to figure out was how to sneak out of the village without being seen. That proved easier than anticipated. Even the group of kids playing basketball as I passed the outside court, didn't even acknowledge my presence. I just didn't want any kids trying to track me down with snow machines or 4 wheelers to play late night pranks.

I hiked around our back yard mountain ridge to be shielded from the bitter North wind already starting to pick up. My goal was to get away from the village view point, so that I truly felt alone and away from things. Finally I found a camping spot, that wasn't too windy, in the bottom of a huge bowl of mountains that surround me from the north. My second, more challenging obstacle, was trying to get my tent stakes into the frozen tundra. After about 2 - 3 attempts, I quickly revised my plan and moved to a patch of packed snow.

After my tent stabilized as much as possible, using multiple stakes in some corners, I hiked up towards the north ridge to get a better view of the landscape before the slowly approaching darkness overtook the day. The 20 - 30 mile per hour winds brought the overall temperature to about 12 - 15 degrees F. During the night, as the wind picked up, I thought that my tent might blow away with me inside it. With this a forboding possibility, another thought struck my mind. Surviving a storm! Storms out here are no joke. Winds of 50 - 70 miles an hour that could be driving snow, bring the temps down incredibly fast. You can find yourself in -20 degree temps or colder in no time at all. With this thought in mind, I considered peeing into a bottle so that I could drink my urine to stay warm if necessary. In the end, I opted not to.

Morning came and I only lost about 1 hour of sleep to my troubled thoughts of having to chase all my gear across the tundra in the strong winds. Packing up and not losing any gear in the morning wind required much focus and planning. Gear caught by the wind would likely never be seen again. Eventually I got packed up and started my journey back to the village, this time, up and over some of the hills to visit one of my favorite places...the thumb. Climbing the steep back sides of the hills, still covered with much snow, made me wish I had a snow board...and a chair lift of course.

I eventually made it back to my humble abode, unpacked my gear to dry, and fixed myself a hot breakfast. I hope you enjoyed my little outing as much as I did. It felt good to get out of town and away from phones and the rest of village life. Like disappearing for a short time.

Thanks for reading,
Dirk

Winter basketball

Well, the temperatures have finally cleared 0 degrees farenheit for more than a week and the kids are really getting shifty in their seats. To add to the high ampage of energy building in the early teenage bodies, they had to sit still and quiet for most of this week and take their SBA's (student based assessment tests). Therefore, when the idea of going outside to play basketball entered my mind, there was really no question. "All right kids, grab your coats!"

The outside basketball court isn't your traditional court to begin with. It is basically a giant deck with a basketball hoop at either end and a low wooden bench on one side. Now add about 2 feet of snow and you have yourself a real interesting basketball game.

Basically, it is just shoot around for about 20 minutes, but the kids come up with interesting games and rules that give the game an additional twist and make it more fun.

I like these activities, because it allows the kids to get rid of a little energy before I have to make them sit and listen for another two hours through Geography and Science.




The snow is starting to melt quickly, but I'm told that there will still be snow around in late May when I leave to fly home. I'm also told that the snow machines stay out until then as well. I've already seen people driving snow machines around on the dirt and mud. "We don't need no stinkin' snow"

On a different note, I'm looking forward to getting a short, nearby camping experience in before I fly home. Getting away from this developing country we call Toksook Bay and getting back to the wild Alaska that people say still exists. That may be my next blog entry. Stay tuned!

Dirk