The weather is Changing and an the Earth Trembles

Last Friday was the autumnal equinox and while Saturday still felt nice, Sunday marked a distinct change in the weather.  Winter is coming.  The leaves have been off the trees for a couple of weeks now and on Sunday I had a bit of a surprise.  I was getting ready for church when I heard a sound like a European ambulance.  There IS an ambulance in Kobuk so I looked out my door to see if it in fact was the ambulance (I live in the former clinic building and so the ambulance which is parked outside the clinic is very close to my house), but it wasn't.  The ambulance was sitting there not in use (and actually it isn't an ambulance in a traditional sense and I don't think it even has a siren).  I then proceeded to call Sarah (a missionary here in town) and ask her.  She told me that it was the alarm signaling that somewhere in the line the water was freezing.  It hadn't been cold enough before, but she said it was a sound I would hear often.  Thus, we had a literal signal that the weather was changing.
Today, it started snowing.  It was funny everyone was so excited.  The students wanted to go outside in the snow and everyone was busy watching it.  It was enough to make one think that people never see snow around here. It's not yet October, there will be plenty of snow yet to come (the snow wasn't sticking at first, but by lunchtime it was sticking, but by the afternoon it had melted).
Today was an exciting day for another reason too.  We had an earthquake.  In the Anchorage area earthquakes are very common, but apparently here they aren't.  I was teaching my middle schoolers and I was kneeling down and leaning against a table when the room started to shake.  Now, I've told my parents before that since everything is built on stilts because of the flooding one could easily experience and earthquake in Kobuk and not even know it.  That is kind of what happened today.  It shook for probably 15-20 seconds and you could here things rattling around. One of my students said the top of my Smart Board where the projector is connected was shaking.  However, after it stopped I said to the students, "that was an earthquake," and they responded incredulously.   One student told me that earthquakes were rare here.  Several insisted it was someone on the stairs outside.  I insisted that it wasn't.  One even had to go outside and check (there was no one outside at all).  Others wanted to call the other middle school/high school teacher and see if they felt it.  She missed it, but her students, said yes they had felt it.  I decided it was a good time for a brief science lesson (I am the science teacher afterall) and so we went to the USGS website and found that the earthquake was a magnitude 4.4 and was located 33 miles from Kobuk with a depth of 11.8 miles.  We also filled out the survey on reporting if you felt the earthquake.  The kids were pretty excited by it and I have to admit I was too.

Trip to the Clinic

I went to the clinic yesterday and was very impressed.  I haven't been feeling well for quite a while now and on Tuesday I couldn't talk very well.  On Wednesday I had no voice and by Wednesday night I decided that was it, I was taking a sick day.  So I came back to school Wednesday night and laid out substitute plans (keep in mind that going to school involves walking about 40 yards!)  On Wednesday morning I went to the clinic.  I had been sick long enough I figured I should seek medical advice (My general rule is if I still don't feel well or something hurts after two weeks, it is time to see a doctor).
So I walked over the the clinic (maybe a 40 foot walk from my house, I live in the old clinic building) and when I got there they asked why I was there.  As soon as I tried to talk they had a pretty good idea.  Since I had never been to the clinic before I had to fill out the regular questions and then after they processed my paperwork I was called back my the health aid.  She did the regular beginning of a visit procedures - blood pressure, and weight.  Then we went back to an exam room.  I was really impressed by her professionalism and skill.  Health Aids only have a few weeks of training and so they rely on a manual that they use to get the symptoms and then call a doctor in Kotzebue for a diagnosis.  She also, gave me a rapid strep test (it was negative) and examined me.  She noted the scar tissue in my ears from all the ear infections I've had over the years and I felt did a really good job on the examination.  Then I left and she called the doctor.  I got a call back that afternoon and they had diagnosed me as having a sinus infection and bronchitis.  They also had the prescription meds filled for me (remember the pharmacy is officially in Kotzebue too, but they have a system set in place for this too...) I don't know all the details of how it works, and of course if the situation is too bad patients get sent to Kotzebue or if needed to Anchorage, but I think it is a good system for dealing with small things in such a remote location and even as a stop gap for large issues (the health aids also respond to emergency situations where the medivac flights are called in).

4 Wheeling!

This post is a little bit late since I already posted about Sunday late afternoon and Monday and this was Sunday early afternoon, but oh well.  On Sunday it started off real cloudy and overcast.  We were afraid it was going to rain, but we had decided we were going to take the Hondas out whether it rained or not (as long as it wasn't pouring).  Nonetheless, we waited until the early afternoon in hopes that it would clear and while it was still quite foggy when we left town it ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day.  We went out to the end of the road which is at Bornite a mining site that had been inactive for about 40 years, but is starting to become active again (I'm not sure, but I think most of what they are doing is pretty exploratory these days).  Here are some pictures from that trip.

This is apparently a new bridge.  The old bride was very scary I hear.

Isn't that just an amazing view?  This is a little past the end of the road near the cabins seen below.

The cabins are a cool look back at history

This was a cabin where they kept core samples.  There were also cabins where they lived and so forth.

I just thought this old bottle of Raid was really neat.

Is this a cool vehicle?

Driving the Old School Jeep!

Yet another piece of neat old equipment.

The road on the way back.  Don't worry I wasn't driving when I took this picture (we were moving, but I was riding on the back)

My turn!

There are these mile markers all the way along the road.

Labor Day Weekend

So I had a friend come out for Labor Day weekend and he is much better at taking pictures than I am, plus I downloaded all of the pictures from his camera before he left this afternoon so I thought I would upload them.  As I said in my last post we had a carwash out at Dahl Creek which is where Nova Gold is renting out the camp and we washed their vehicles on Friday.  On Saturday it was kind of rainy and dripping and I did chores and worked on my course work for my Alaska Transition to Teaching program and then came Sunday and Monday; the days when I had fun!  On Sunday my co-workers and I went out on 4 wheelers to Bornite (which is about 15 miles from Kobuk and at the end of the road).  We had a beautiful afternoon (the morning was pretty sketchy so we didn't leave until after lunch) and I really will try to get those pictures posted this week (they are still on my camera, which I never did find my card reader for, but I did find my cable so I can at least download the photos).  On our way back, we got to an easement trail that the others wanted to take, but I had to get back to Kobuk because I had a friend coming in from Fairbanks and I needed to meet his plane.  So earlier the 5 us of (the entire teaching staff at Kobuk school) had been out on 3 Hondas.  Katie and I were sharing one and Rob had one by himself.  I took the one that Katie and I were sharing and came back.  Rob was all concerned "be careful, be very careful."  I reassured him again and again that I would.  Katie said she was getting text messages (we were only about 4 miles from town) and to text her when I arrived back (I did and she shared it with Rob who was apparently worrying). 

 Unfortunately, the Era flight came in early yesterday.  This meant, that unbeknownst to me my friend had arrived before I got back.  When I got back to town I looked at the airport and didn't see any agents waiting to meet the plane so I figured it was all good.  I stopped in the school to go to the bathroom and listen for an announcement of the plane's arrival.  I had just decided to go to my classroom (which is a portable; see pictures below) and look up the number for Era in Kotzebue to learning the planes routing and stuff when I stepped outside and one of the kids told me that a man named Chris had been looking for me.  I asked the kid if he had come on a plane (silly question.  If a stranger in Kobuk is looking for me and the kid has the right name clearly it is the friend that I am supposed to be meeting).  I ended up tracking him through town.  Basically, I just kept asking people of they had seen a stranger and where he went.  The first kid said he'd gone down the street in front of the school.  The next ones said he went to the store.  I asked which store and they told me.  I went to that store where the adults said, "oh he was just here" and one of the kids told me he was down on the beach taking pictures, which is where I found him.  Not exactly an inconspicuous trip (although in a village the size of Kobuk, I think that's kind of hard to have, especially when you're visiting the middle school/ high school teacher - we saw 75% of my students around town last night).  So Chris is a lot better at taking pictures and took pictures of all the important things that people want to see like my house and school and the beautiful fall foliage so here are those pictures for everyone to enjoy.

Transportation Kobuk style.  Chris left his stuff at the airport (which was mostly all for me anyway) and we went back with the Honda to pick it up.

My stores in my kitchen.  In addition I get fresh vegetables every two weeks from Full Circle Farms (a new box arrived today!)

Hopefully, you can tell this is my living room.  I shipped up my 32 inch HDTV, now I just have to get the satellite and Internet set up at home and I'll be all set.

I think I posted a picture of this before, but I wasn't in it.  This is one of the two stores in Kobuk, O'Brown's.

I think this speaks for itself.  It is hunting time - I hope someone gives me some meat.

We had a gorgeous double rainbow yesterday!

This is the lake just on the back side of town (with the river side being the "front".

The lake again

The Honda's.  this is outside my building, but that's not my door.  My house is split into two and you can hear the other person sneeze!

My door (on the right side of the house from the angle of the last picture).  My house is about 100 yards from the Runway, but it is actually further from the runway than a good portion of the houses in Kobuk!

Me going up the steps to my portable.

Inside my classroom.  I teach so many different classes that I have one board set aside simply for keeping up with all the assignments.

I'm sorry, I can't find a way to change the orientation of the picture after I uploaded it and it is not all that easy to upload pictures out here so you'll have to either turn your screen or your head.  Whichever is easier. 

One of the classroom procedures.  We provide the kids with pencils and I hate the sound of the electric pencil sharpener during class.  Thus, why I have them simply exchange the pencils.

We had a little problem with my oven last night. I had made pizza dough in my breadmaker to have it ready for dinner and when we went to heat the oven last night to get the pizza ready it started arcing and smoke started pouring out of the oven!  We ended up cooking it in the school (which is where this picture was taken).  Today when I looked at it the heating coil was burned through and there was a 1-2 cm gap, which is why it was arcing!  Good thing the school is only about 50 feet (or less) from my house.

The cellphone tower and corresponding satellite dish, which are directly in front of my house.

The clinic.  The school will be building a greenhouse out on the clinic gravel pad shortly (hopefully we'll begin constructing that this week).

Another picture where you have to rotate your head.  Note that the high watermark is over my head (rather significantly actually)

This picture was taken this morning from the runway (I tend to walk the runway.  Sometimes along and sometimes with one of my colleagues).

Isn't it gorgeous?

Me in front of the main building of the school.

On the Honda!

Berry picking

It's really cranberry time now, but there were still some good blueberries left.

A small sand dune.  There is a big desert (see previous post) on the way out here from Kotzebue.

Dahl creek perhaps?  This is right by the Dahl creek camp.  Matter of fact there is a pump in here and a hose carrying water up to the camp from here.

Carwash Kobuk Style

Yesterday we had a car wash, yes a car wash in the Bush.  As far as I can tell only 1 person in Kobuk actually owns an automobile (we do have approximately 15 miles of unmaintained dirt road) and that is not the car we washed.  There is a company called Nova Gold which is operating a camp and runway at Dahl Creek (3 miles uproad from Kobuk - there is no down road though because Kobuk is the start of the road) and working on some other stuff up at Bornite (at the other end of the road).  They have 1 12 passenger van and 4 trucks.  They drove to Kobuk and picked the kids up and drove them to Dahl creek and then paid towards the youth center that a couple of my co-workers are working with a couple of students to create (this is not associated with school).
10 kids went and they had a blast.  I'm not going to post any pictures of this because I shouldn't/won't post any pictures of the kids.  Every time one of the vehicles was going to be moved 5-6 kids would jump in for the very short ride.  There was also a power washer and all the kids wanted to use it (in honesty so did their teacher and she got her turn because she simply asked them to hand it to her - I didn't use it long though just a few seconds.  I didn't want to take the fun from the kids).  They also provided us a barbecue dinner - huge sausage-like hot dogs, chips, macaroni salad, cupcakes, beans and mellon.  The weather was perfect and I think fun was had by all (I know I did).
Speaking of the weather.  Fall has definitely arrived.  The mountains and the tundra are all awash in yellow.  The overnight temperatures are dropping pretty rapidly, but the daytime temperatures aren't too bad.  I think we are still warmer than Anchorage.  I don't have a thermometer, but I would guess that it was in the low-mid sixties during our carwash yesterday (I know all the sweatshirts came off).
I will post pictures (I got some great one of the surroundings) as soon as I can find my card reader.  My card reader, my sunglasses and my keys are the 3 things that have always been a challenge for me to keep track of.

A not so good day in Kobuk

Sunday was not a very good day.  I woke up around 7:30 in the morning and since church isn't until 11, I just laid around.   I had spent the previous two nights sleeping on the floor of the high school in Kotzebue (which just for reference is actually the middle school and high school and the building is attached to the elementary school which is where I am currently laying on an air mattress typing this) and so I sort of fell back to sleep.  Somewhere in here I heard some banging, but ignored it.  I then woke up at 10:45 with a start.  I grabbed my phone and found the first piece of bad news.  A friend of mine texted me from another school district to say that if I heard about it there was a plane that had left McGrath the day before and had not made it to its destination.  She told me she was NOT on board, but that was the plane she was supposed to be taking that morning.  I tried calling her for more details (the text had been sent at 8:29), but didn't get an answer.  I'm hurriedly trying to get ready for church and I don't have Internet at home (and not really enough time to run over to the school to use it there), so I called mom and dad and had them look.  They couldn't find any details.  I ran over the church, but I was a few minutes late.
As I approached the church building, I knew something wasn't right.  There weren't any Honda's outside the church (in this part of the state everyone calls a 4-wheeler a Honda and the usually are).  I wondered since I had been out of town until the evening before if I had missed an announcement or something, but decided to try the door.  It was unlocked and I went in.  Sarah and the kids were there, but Luke (the preacher and Sarah's husband) wasn't.  Sarah told me that the school maintenance man (also the village VPO) had been in an accident, but she had no details.  Luke had gone over to the clinic.  When Luke arrived I learned that a barge had arrived and the maintenance man had been filling the school fuel tanks (with diesel fuel which we use for everything from powering the Hondas and snogo [snow machine to people from other parts of Alaska and snow mobile to everyone else] to heating the school and our houses) when he was electrocuted and they were waiting for the fog to clear for the medivac plane.  After we prayed we called it a day and I received a text from my friend that the plane had in fact crashed and a rescue was going on.  I went home and called my parents to update them on the plane and tell them the new development.  While I was on the phone I received a call from my principal that there was a fuel spill and asking for my help in cleaning it up.
To shorten this very long story, I will now simply tell you what happened rather than spell it out as I learned all the details in this crazy day.  Usually, in the spring Crowley's sends a barge with fuel and the barge also hauls other supplies that people have shipped up on it (heavy equipment and the like).  The barge tries to make it through and some years it can and others it can't.  This year it couldn't.  However, this year was unusual.  There has been a lot rain and the river is really high.  Thus, they tried to get a barge through and they were successful (we are the last stop because we are the village furthest up the Kobuk river).  So the barge arrived at 9:30 Saturday evening.  The men slept on the barge and then Sunday morning the maintenance man was working with the Crowley guys to fill the fuel tanks.  I later got to tour their boat and the man who gave me a tour explained that most of these places (and Kobuk is no exception) have equipment that isn't up to code.  If they refused to service all of those places they would go out of business and so their liability ends and the end of their hose.  The client is responsible for the nozzle and everything from that point on.  So our maintenance man was up on a ladder filling the tanks.  He was using a pole as a dipstick.  Unfortunately, the longest pole in Kobuk is a copper pipe.  Guess what's running up the school tanks?  The power line!  He hit the power line with a copper pipe and then couldn't let go.  He ended up throwing himself off.  He was pretty cut-up and I heard tonight (Tuesday night) that he is still in intensive care.  He was taken to the village clinic and the school secretary had been walking by so she tries to alert the staff, but most (or maybe all) of us weren't answering.  That was apparently the pounding I heard.  It was apparently at 8:30, but I ignored it.  The medivac plane couldn't get in because of the fog.  They in fact didn't get in for a long time after the fog lifted.  I spoke with the pilots while the medics were at the clinic stabilizes the maintenance man (which took nearly an hour) and they said we don't have any weather reporting and so they were delayed even longer because they had to guess off of neighboring villages (but we're the furthest up river so its hard to see a moving trend if we're clearing first).  It was 1:20 p.m. before the plane took off from Kobuk.  It was taking him to Kotzebue where he was then transferred to a Lear jet to Anchorage.
Additionally we had three different things that resulted in lost fuel.  Since I didn't witness any of them, I don't feel confident describing them.  However, I was told we lost approximately 280 gallons of diesel fuel (are tanks are full though because Crowley was still there and so we got everything filled).  The head of the district maintenance department told us not to do anything because of liability issues and so we didn't do any clean-up (we didn't really have supplies or know-how anyway) and a bunch of them arrived on a charter flight at 4:30 in the afternoon (remember the first accident was at 8:30).  Needless to say there is a big mess to be cleaned up in Kobuk.  When we flew to Kotzebue on Monday morning for In-service we left several men staying at the school (after all there are no hotels or restaurants in Kobuk) working on cleaning it up.
There were a few good points to the day.  One highlight was touring the barge.  I didn't take any pictures on the barge, but I did take some pictures of it.  It's too bad I don't have any way to show you how big it is in comparison to the town.  They run big orange fuel lines from the barge all around town to fill everything up.  It was quite interesting.  Enjoy the following pictures.

 The medivac plane on the runway.

 The ambulance meeting the medivac plane.

 The Crowley barge -  after fog cleared it was an absolutely spectacular day (except for about 10 minutes when the charter landed and it rained, but then the sun came right back out).

    The barge from the other side (this view is looking down river).

New Teacher Training

On Thursday afternoon Katie and I flew to Kotzebue.  It was rather interesting.  We didn't know when the plane would be arriving.  On Sarah's recommendation I called Bering Air in Kotzebue to find out what the routing was.  The plane was flying Selewick, Ambler, Kobuk, Shungnak.  Unfortunately, that knowledge didn't seem to help.  We could have listened oh the VHF radio to find out the plane was approaching, but we don't have a radio and we decided it would be nicer to simply sit at the airstrip rather than sit in the school office and listen to the radio there (although if it had been raining or later in the winter I'm sure the school would be the more preferable option).
Around 4 we went to the airstrip.  Several kids joined us and then the school secretary and pre-k teacher came and joined us.  Then as the Era plane was approaching (it came first yesterday), a bunch of people came.  Several stayed until the Bering plane arrived.  It was fun.  We got to know several people and know some we had met before better.  Also, several of the kids were trying to scare us.  It became quite a game.  It was also interesting because the kids were clearly concerned about our leaving.  Several of them were like, "you're leaving?" and we had to reassure them that we were returning.  It was quite heartening to have people concerned about our leaving.

The plane didn't arrive until after 5 (I had told my dad I was leaving between 3:45 and 5 well I was wrong).  There were still quite a few people on the plane and even more cargo (by the way quite a few means about 7 including us) so the pilot asked for a volunteer to sit in the co-pilot seat, just to Shungnak.  I quickly volunteered.   It was kind of fun sitting there and so when we got to Shungnak (and offloaded a lot of the cargo) he told me that I could stay in the co-pilot's seat if I wanted to, so I did.  Off and on through the flight he pointed out a few things to me and I think he might have pointed out more if I hadn't fallen asleep (it's kind of hard though because the engine noise is really loud and he would take his headphones off one ear before talking to me - I'm assuming to make sure that he was speaking loudly enough for me to hear, when he spoke to air traffic control it would be really quietly into his mic.)
When we got here I discovered several things: 1) my colleagues in Kobuk were right, most teachers come directly to Kotzebue without going to their villages.  I was surprised a number had just flown up from the lower 48 today 2) there were very few who are directly out of college.  Because of the number of layoffs throughout the country there are quite a few rather experienced new teachers.  When I spoke to many of them they had taken the job because it was a job that was offered.  That makes me nervous.  Most of them know nothing about Alaska and I'm afraid some of them are in for quite a shock.  One lady went into the home of one of the teacher's here in Kotz and she said that she didn't think it was very nice.  The three of us (all in the AKT2 program) who had been to our villages already looked at it and thought it was REALLY nice.  I hope the housing in her village is a lot nicer than in Kobuk (although from conversations it sounds like in a lot of places it is quite a bit nicer than in Kobuk). 3) I learned that the district teaches 6th grade as part of elementary school.  Katie and I are the only ones who are teaching 6th grade as secondary students.  This is because Kobuk is so small that we only have a k-2 and 3-5.  They didn't want to make the elementary grades include 4 grades.  However, the 6th grade will be taught reading separately (according to the current schedule we received they will have language arts with Katie and perhaps with some high 5th graders and then go to the 3-5 class for more reading.  The rest of their subjects will be with the 7th and 8th graders though).  4) The final thing I learned is that most teachers in the district are not teaching as many subjects (or grades as mentioned in 3).  Tom (my friend from the program in Shungnak) and I were the only ones in our group that were teaching 2 subjects and looking at the other schedules Katie appears to be the only other person teaching more than core subject.  I'm sure this is part of why Corrine said when we were at training that we should look around at people and think, "my job is harder than yours."
Katie and I also got a schedule today.  I'm not sure how this schedule came to be and Katie is pretty certain it isn't going to hold.  The other teachers didn't get schedules so I don't really understand why we got one.  However, our site is rather different from others so that might be how this came to be.  I think most of the other schools have things more set by the principal.  I don't know.  There's lots to learn.  The way the schedule goes now I am teaching 7-12th PE (first period), math and science then a middle school technology - keyboarding elective and some sort of high school technology elective (I think it is also some sort of computer based elective).  These should be pretty fun so I hope that at least that portion of the schedule remains.
Here are pictures our trip to Kotzebue.

 The view from the Kobuk "airport"

 Here comes the plane

 Here's our ride.  I got to ride in the co-pilot's seat

 Kobuk from the air.

 Another picture of Kobuk from the air.

 A cool building in Kotzebue.

I tried to get all the village names in the picture, but I didn't succeed.  I know I missed Ambler and I can't read the right side, but I think I missed some others to.  Anyway, this is our district office it is directly across the parking lot from the middle/high school which is actually connected to the elementary school (even though they have different names and offices and everything).