A few more pictures

A few more pictures. The village of Chevak (with the new school in the background). The trees of Alakanuk. A new playground structure and the local school in Alakanuk. And riding in the back of the truck into town (don't worry mom...you can't go more than about 5 miles per hour).

Must be willing to fly in small planes....

I’ve now been working for about 3 weeks. My work hiring date was kind of mixed up as the director of the Family Infant Toddler program informed me that she was quitting her job a couple of days after my arrival in Bethel. This didn’t exactly make for a smooth transition. Anyway, after a week of waiting around, my first couple of days consisted of hospital orientation. YKHC (Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation) is literally that…a big corporation. Orientation was comical as they talked about “the corporation this” and “the corporation that.” As the largest employer in the area and the 7^th largest employer in Alaska, they have about 1800 employees and are famous for bureaucracy. Combined with overall bureaucracy, they have many problems with getting employees to come to work and to stay at work. They are quite proud of their current retention rate which is about 40% for the year. They have a lot of rules which are a bit funny when taken literally…you can’t come to work with more than a .08 blood alcohol content and your kids can come to work, but they are not allowed to stay all day.

Anyway, after a couple of days of orientation, I was ready to start my real job. I arrived promptly on time and was hoping to meet with my new boss who would show me around (if even just for the day). Turns out her flight to Bethel from Anchorage was cancelled and so she wasn’t going to be arriving until about 3:30 in the afternoon. As I was taking my coat off, one of the ladies in the office said something like, “Well it sure is going to be a boring day for you with nothing to do.” Hmmmm. Then they showed me where my desk was and told me to go ahead and start working. To make a long and boring story somewhat shorter, let’s say that I had a few very boring days in the office. At least my internet privileges started working on about day 3 or so. But other than that, I’ve determined that everybody is much more content if you just pretend to be working rather than asking for any kind of a project, some direction, etc. The staff is nearly all native Yupik people which is definitely cool, but requires some major adjustments on my part for overall speed of working, productivity, communication style, etc. Relax, I keep telling myself. My fellow co-workers are definitely on the passive side. One example was a little surprise going away party we held for the boss. They were so excited and went out and bought her a cake and a gift and had a big plan for surprising her. Then when she walked into the room, all they did was all stare at her at once. No “surprise!” or cheering. Just smiling and staring. The boss finally figured out it was a surprise as everyone was looking at her!

So I was anxiously anticipating our first travel day. My first flight was to a village called Akiak, which is only about a 15 minute flight. We flew on a charter company called Craig Air. The plane was a 4-seater and I ended up with the seat right next to the pilot. I did OK on the way to the village, but I was definitely feeling ready for the flight to be over when I looked down and saw the gravel runway. On the way back, it happened to be quite windy and combined with a small case of nerves, a helping of agutak (Eskimo ice cream---basically whipped Crisco and berries), and diligently watching all of the dials on the plane, I was quite ill when we got back to Bethel. I couldn’t believe it. Sick on my first day of travel and only a 15 minute flight. For the rest of the day, I sat at my desk (working quite hard of course) thinking…I don’t think I’ll make it if I’m going to be this sick every day of my job. It took me 1 hour just to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I went straight home and ordered a device over the internet which is called a sea band and looks like a watch but it applies a little electrical stimulus on your wrist and reportedly is very helpful in decreasing motion sickness. The other PT said it works amazingly.

So the next day, I was quite nervous upon going to work. It was another short charter flight on Craig Air. This time to a village called Napakiak. I boarded the plane with trepidation (a big 6 seater this time) and to my amazement….no sickness. I’ve now been to 6 villages on all sorts of different planes, and haven’t been sick again. So at least I have that going for me, must have been the first day jitters (or the wind). The other villages I’ve been to are Quinhagak (pronouced like Quinn-a-hawk and it’s not labeled on the map below, but it is on the coast south of Bethel), Chevak (near Hooper Bay in the north—about an hour and 10 minute flight), Alakanuk (also far north) and Kwethluk (about 15 miles up river from Bethel). I’ve been on the major air carrier for the region which is Era aviation and you even get Alaskan frequent flier miles. This is a bigger plane (a Twin Otter), but most of the seats are removed and used for cargo. You really feel like you are part of the day to day working on the bush villages as we stop in villages along the way and deliver the mail, packages, etc. I’ve also flown Yute Air, another regional charter operation. On all the flights, you fly very low to the ground, so you can really see the tundra/look for wildlife, etc. Mostly it’s an amazing maze of lakes and swamp with yellow, orange and red fall colors around them. There are occasionally some hills or plateaus and if it’s clear you can see mountains in the background. I’ve seen a lot of birds and possibly a moose or two.

So the general procedure when you get to the village, is first to make it to the village health clinic. Every village has a clinic which is staffed by local villagers who are trained as health aides and do just about everything from delivering babies (if it’s an emergency), stabilizing emergencies, stitching people up, giving shots, routine health care, etc. This is where we set up shop for the day. To get to the clinic, we either walk (sometimes up to a couple of miles) or get picked up by someone with an ATV or a truck. We hop on, hold on, and head into town. Then we call all the families and set out for home visits. There are various delays (for example, one family’s 16 year old son had just killed his first seal and his mother was busy cutting it up for the town elders so we had to come late in the afternoon). Sometimes the pace is fast if we have a lot of kids to see, but usually there are just a few kids and we have about 1-3 hours to hang out in the clinic. I quickly learned to bring a book along as everyone else gets out their knitting. It’s also fun to check out the local grocery stores or take a walk to the beach. I learned today that it is a policy that we have to spend at least 4 hours in a village, even if we only have 1 kid to see.

The family’s homes have all been fairly similar. Many don’t have running water, but it’s not very obvious. The health clinics all have had running water so far (many are quite new). Some houses have full kitchens, others just a microwave and a hot plate. Some have furniture, others a couple of mattresses on the floor. Overall, the floors have been fairly dirty linoleum so it’s not optimal for putting babies down to play on the floor. I hate to be making so many generalizations, but I’m just trying to give an overall description of things. One thing that definitely amazes me is the number of children. We’re typically there to see the youngest baby and there are often 2-3 more kids under the age of 5. Plus the school age children. Having big families is the name of the game here. My co-worker was telling me about how sad she is that her sister only has had 2 kids. She said, “she could at least have a few more.”

I’m trying to get the hang of how much to interact with the kids/families. There is generally a lot of Yupik speaking and they’re pretty touchy to people coming in and interacting with their kids/giving them toys, etc. But I’m sure with enough observation I’ll be able to figure something out. One of my co-workers was going to train me to perform a developmental test. It was mostly a parent interview test and she did the entire thing in Yupik. Then handed me the score sheet and asked if I had any questions. Me, questions??

Anyway, that’s an update for now. This week, I’ll be heading to Napaskiak tomorrow (that’s across the river from Napakiak), then Toksook Bay and Kipnuk on Wednesday and Thursday. That is, if there are no travel delays (which kept me working hard in the office for 2 days last week).

Enjoy the pictures and think of me flying through the air!

Caciitua (Indispensible Yup'ik Phrases)

Waqaa. (Hello). Today in the office our friend Jimmy was teaching us some Yup'ik. He was laughing so heartily at our attempts to say hello, we thought he must be pulling a fast one on us, teaching us to say whale penis or something. So we looked it up on the all knowing internet, and it turns out he was being honest and just laughing at our pronunciation. If you are interested in the language, here's a link with a few words you can listen to:
Learn to speak in Yup'ik

May you be ever umyuartuluni!

Garage Sales and The FUN Run!

Well, a typical Saturday in good old Bethel. Saturday mornings are the best times for yard sales. This is a term I use quite liberally, as I haven't seen one take place in a yard yet. It was a little difficult for us to figure out at first, but now we have the system down. I can get a list of some addresses through my work e-mail address or you can also look on the bulletin boards at the grocery stores. If neither of these options work, there is a lady named Susan who knows where they are. Then you drive around looking for the address, which is usually hard to find since street labeling isn't big around here. There is usually no sign on the house or anything else indicating that it is the place for the sale. You learn to just be bold and knock on the door, inquiring if there is a garage sale. Of course, last week I accidently had the addresses for the week before and we boldly went to a house which definitely was not having a yard sale! But usually there is stuff spread out throughout the house and just about anything is for sale. A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned out a lady's cupboards and got lots of spices for 50 cents each. Sometimes even the house is for sale if the people are getting out of dodge. The picture is Dawson next to our first sale for the morning. Can't you tell it's a garage sale? The ones lately haven't been too good...I think it's the end of the season and it's just stuff people don't want cluttering their house for the winter.

Today, the Diabetes Prevention team and the Physical Therapy department of the hospital teamed up to sponser a Fun Run. Lying in bed this morning and listening to the wind and rain, I was sure that the event would probably be off for this morning. But we stopped by anyway, and saw a hearty group of runners getting ready to take off! So I thought, hey, I better keep up with the Bethel Go Get It spirit and joined them in a trek through the mud puddles. It was a 10K route that took us down to the river which was at high tide and due to the rain swell, was over the banks. We had to take a little detour through the tundra and ended up trudging through puddles up to our knees. We re-named it the Bethel Mud Run. But it was fun too. And I got a cool T-shirt to strut my stuff around town. Plus I finished strong at 40:10.

Where the heck is Bethel, Alaska?

Not exactly a tourist mecca, Bethel is about 70 miles up the Kuskokwim River. The Kuskokwim and the Yukon rivers are the two largest rivers in Alaska. The area surrounding Bethel is called the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (or YK Delta for short). Home to millions of birds, this corner of Alaska is about 75,000 square miles and is similar in size to the state of Oregon. There are no roads which connect the villages and it takes about 3 hours in a small plane to fly from the northern to the southern villages of the delta. There are also many small villages near Bethel on the Kuskokwim which can be reached by boat. Of course, once the tundra freezes over, it's a whole different story and the snow mobile options are endless. Plus they make the frozen river into an ice highway. There are about 6,000 people who live in Bethel and about 25,000 in the YK Delta. Bethel is about 400 air miles west of Anchorage and Nome is about 400 miles north. Russia is approximately 400 miles to the west. I include this map as I'm getting ready to post my fun experiences as a travelling pediatric therapist, flying to all of the little villages around Bethel!

Berry, Berry, Berry Tasty

Here are the fruits of our labor. We continue to harvest nature's bounty and happily consume it. The catch of the day this time was blueberries, cranberries (technically lingon berries I think) and blackberries (possibly cloud berries?). We made 6 jars of Dawson's Tundra Berry Jam, 2 jars of berry ice cream topping, 2 loads of blueberry buttermilk pancakes, 2 batches of blueberry muffins and 1 blueberry pie. Did I mention we are buying a treadmill this week? Dawson's worried about fitting through the door come December. The picture of me is where we were picking the blueberries, right off the boardwalk in the middle of town. We went behind the hospital to pick the cranberries. It was Dawson's first jam making experience, and he did it all by himself. It brought enough satisfaction to have jam making dreams that evening. (I was having weird dreams about accidentally insulting dog sized cows that were actually oompa loompa like people with large hooved feet. I wasn't sleeping well. But after the jam production, I had nice dreams of making jam with my brother. It all makes Perfect Sense. DW)

Bethel Health Issues

Well, so far we've mostly raved about the positive aspects of Bethel, so we figured we would share a few of the more challenging issues. As you may know, Bethel is a damp town. That means it is illegal to buy, make, or sell alcohol. You can bring it in and unfortunately a lot of people have access to it. There is also a problem with inhaling substances such as Lysol or Listerine. This is called huffing and there is actually one of only 2 inhalant abuse centers in the United States located here. When you go to the grocery store, all of the abused items are located behind the counter. This includes Lysol, mouthwash, vanilla, cough syrup, cooking wine, and probably a few other things I haven't noticed. We saw these lysol cans and empy vodka bottles at a little encampment in the bushes by the river. Other problems include a very high rate of diabetes and tooth decay due to the high sugar diet. Staples, such as eskimo ice cream (agutak) used to be made with seal oil and berries, and are now made with Crisco, berries and sugar. When I go to the villages, it is common to see babies drinking Coke in their bottles or sucking constantly on lollipops. Combined with difficulties with access to dental care, most people are missing a fair amount of teeth. Some little kids I see in the villages start losing their teeth at about age 3. One final negative attributed to the high sugar intake (combined with steam bath togetherness) is a high rate of boils. This one, especially, strikes fear in Dawson's heart (as an official boil survivor).

Dedicated to My Brother

Whenever I see floatplanes I think of my brother Regan, who is an avid aviator. So I take pictures of them and daydream about the day when we'll fly around the Alaskan bush in our own float plane. Just like the old days in the ultralight, but with propellors that stay attached to the plane permanently, and other related safety measures available in modern small aircraft.

Random Bethel Action

Here's a few more pictures of Bethel. Dawson bought some rainboots, so he is very excited about walking through mud puddles and showing me just how wet his feet don't get. They don't have my size for boots at any of the 5 stores in town. I need to order some soon, as my coworkers are amazed that I show up to work without them. The picture of Dawson on the container is in our front yard. Our thought is that people buy the containers to ship stuff up and then just keep the container in their yard. Maybe there's another explanation, but the bottom line is that a lot of people have big boxes in their yards! All of the water and sewer pipes are located above ground and this one shows the insulation to keep the pipe from freezing. In the villages, I've seen ATV's with insulated water storage tanks cruising around to fill up people's water tanks in their homes. People tend to use the spray-on insulation quite generously, spraying everything from their tanks to their houses.

More Fishing

Here's a quick look at the fishing process. These pictures were supposed to go with the other fishing pictures, but due to a technological glitch, here they are! The basic process is to go out in the boat with the Judge. You go to a spot in the water (we usually go to a little island right off shore). You start throwing the net in the water while the engine is in reverse. It is important to throw out the top and bottom parts of the net at the same time. Once the net is all the way out, you put the engine in neutral and cruise down the river a ways, catching fish. It is a gill net, so the fish swim part way through the net and get stuck by their gills. Not a very pretty idea, but it definitely works. You have to time it with the tide for best results. Even though we are 70 miles upstream, we still get a 6 foot tide difference. On our first attempt, we yielded 2 fish. The second attempt was the slightly disastrous 12 fish that we didn’t know how to cut up. On our third trip, we were both hoping not to catch very many due to the previous troubles, and we ended up with 17 fish. But we split them with another judge and he taught us to process them so well, that we were really wishing we had tried harder!

berry picking and other pretty tundra vegetation

This was my first day of berry picking. I picked blueberries and blackberries. The blackberries are not the typical blackberries at the store (I think they may actually be cloud berries, but I'm not sure). Out of the berries, I made 2 batches of blueberry muffins and 2 rounds of buttermilk blueberry pancakes. Mmmmm. There are lots of brightly colored mushrooms and plants on the tundra too. You have to look closely and you'll see lots of pretty vegetation.

Boardwalks!

Bethel has a network of boardwalks set up across the tundra which you can use to walk around town. It's a very nice system because walking on the tundra itself requires great ankle strength as the ground is marshy and uneven and you invariably turn your ankle and your foot plops into a hidden mud puddle. And walking next to the roads is not very fun as there are a lot of cars in Bethel...all trying to navigate the pot-holed dirt roads at mock-Bethel speed (about 35-45 mph!). The number of cars here was one of the most surprising things about Bethel. The town is very spread out and everybody seems to have a car. Or take a taxi. They are 3 taxi cab companies in town and they run a very profitable business. More on the taxis later, but it costs $4 to get around town and $6 to go to the airport. The boardwalks are really the way to go, however. They are also susceptible to the heaving of the tundra and sometimes have a roller coaster feel to them, but they are really nice to walk on. There is one that takes me about 1/2 way to my work. And we're discovering some more as we weave our way through the maze of Bethel.

Go Grizzlies!

One of the coolest things about Bethel is the small town friendly people vibe. When you meet people here, everybody is very friendly and people often invite you over to their house for dinner. I think we've been over to people's houses more since we arrived in Bethel than during our entire 3 years in Michigan! It's just a little challenging to figure out what to bring as you can't bring a nice bottle of wine. So par for the course, when we went to set up our bank account, the bank manager noticed my driver's license and said that he also was from Missoula. He was a Hellgate High graduate in 1984 and remembered Dawson's brother. He invited us over to his house for dinner and took us for a tour of the town in his big Suburban with grizzly plates. He took us out to an old abandoned military camp where you can climb up on a building and see endless miles of tundra. The tundra doesn't show up very beautiful in pictures, but it is actually quite beautiful. Especially right now as the foliage is changing colors (the blueberry bushes are bright red!). Another cool thing about a lot of people here is that Bethel isn't really a place you move just for the fun of it. Most people have some kind of plan to make a lot of money and then do something cool (like travel for a year and move to a small town in the west where you don't need very much money). So it's always exciting to hear other people's plans. There are quite a few people here from Montana. Go Grizzlies!

The Mighty Kuskokwim Salmon Fest

This is Genevieve driving Judge Devaney's boat out on our first fishing mission. We only caught two that time, but it was enough to break the Michigan curse. (We never caught a fish in Michigan, despite our skillful attempts. Of course, we never had bait, which may have been a problem.) The Judge let us take home one of the fish, which was great. Our friend Gilder tried to talk us through our first salmon filleting experience. It took us about an hour. And a trip to the store for a better knife. We ended up with Salmon steaks. Fillet shmillet.


Here's a nice view of the river. The part to the right is actually an island, so the Kuskokwim is actually about three times wider than it appears in this shot.

This is a cooler of salmon. They are not small. We had twelve after fishing attempt #2 and were no more skilled at the fillet process. Further complicating the matter is the fact that we didn't gut the fish while out on the river due to the heavy rain and ass cold temperature. So, our palacial kitchen became a mass of fish guts, fish heads, fish eggs and fish blood. They have a lot of blood! After four hours of hacking and packing, our freezer was nearly full. We gave up on the fillet method and resorted to steaking once again.

We labeled the fish appropriately. "Mangled. Not for guests"

We later got a primer on the fillet maneuver from Judge Windahl. We now have several more salmon fillets in our freezer and they are beautiful. It takes no time at all once you know what you're doing. And you have a sharp knife.

Permafrost and Salmon Eggs

Here we are with a bag full of salmon roe. Darlene makes some excellent caviar out of them. It's a bit salty, but nice on a bagel with cream cheese.



This is what permafrost looks like. It's amazing to be able to see the distinct frozen layer on the cliffs. Above and below the icey layer are layers of peat moss with a unique earthy smell.






Quoya at the helm as we navigate the mighty Kusko.






As the river erodes away the banks, the permafrost is exposed. Sometimes they find wooly mammoths, with hair and everything, in the banks. According to my dad, sometimes they eat the mammoths. Who they is is a mystery, but they probably died.







Fish gutting.