Extreme Weather

If Extreme Punk # 1 from Harold and Kumar was here, he'd say this about the weather: "Dude, on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being not so extreme and 10 being extremely extreme, I give this a 9.5!"

The super extreme cold continues, with the wind chill below -50. (Incidentally, the wind chill chart was revised in 2000, and by the pre-2000 measurement the wind chill would be 70 below.) It is so cold the K 300 has been postponed until tomorrow at a time to be determined. Unfortunately, this means we won’t be able to volunteer, at least during business hours.

First we checked out the craft show and the cultural center museum. We got there a little bit early so the craft show wasn’t full on yet, but here’s a shot to set the scene. And the museum has a lot of amazing traditional Yup’ik artifacts. Imagine not just surviving, but thriving in this climate without all the things we take for granted! Like metal.

We turned the lemon of the K300 cancellation into lemonade by taking a spur of the moment flight to Eek and Quinhagak. An airfare war is afoot so the R/T fare is only $50 – the best deal in Bethel! It’s like a personalized 2 hour scenic flight. The trip was old hat for Genevieve, but awesome for me as it was my first trip to the Bering Sea coast. We had decent views of the Kilbuck mountains and incredible views of the tundra.

Yesterday the State Troopers found a guy who had attempted to walk the 45 miles from Eek to Quinhagak. He lost the trail and had been missing for three days in the midst of these gnarly temperatures. Nobody knew he was going so people didn’t even realize he was missing until the third day. Apparently, at some point he fell into water. Amazingly, he survived. He only lost his toes.

For evening entertainment we enjoyed our first taste of Camai dancing. Camai means a warm whole-hearted hello, such that you’d use when first seeing a good friend after a long absence. I liken it to aloha. Anyway, it was awesome. Here’s a 20 second video of it.

We capped off the evening watching the coldest fireworks display known to mankind, but how can you go wrong with fireworks? Even Genevieve enjoyed it, and reportedly as a child fireworks and poopypants were inextricably linked for her. Almost as entertaining as the fireworks was watching the river fill up with parked cars and snowmachines for the viewing. We weren’t so clever, so we watched fully exposed to the elements.

And finally, we met the infamous Hoppy, who having just returned from some volunteer work in Sudan was hosting a large bonfire party. Her house is on the river and sports a nice view of the fireworks site. It was a bit cold to feel the warmth of the fire, but we managed to roast a hot dog or two and chat with some new and interesting people, including our pilot, Ernie, who had earlier flown us to Quinhagak.

At the end of the night, in an effort to test our new sleeping bags (claiming a temperature rating to -30), I camped out in our yard with a -51 windchill. The sleeping bags held up! That's good to confirm before we head out for reals.