Mummification 101

Step One: Dump boiling water on your hand. (Why was I boiling water? See "Queen of Boiling Water" below.)
Step Two: Stick hand in a bag of snow. Try to avoid the yellow stuff.
Step Three: Trudge through biting wind in temperatures that freeze your brain, frost your skin and make your teeth ache—with your hand buried in a bag of snow.
Step Four: Bang on the clinic door and beg entrance.
Step Five: Sit for an hour while the health aide methodically takes vitals and a thorough medical history. Meanwhile, repeatedly send husband outside for more snow.
Step Six: Another eternal wait for the doctor to call with treatment plan. Pick dog hairs from bag of snow (or are they wolf?).
Step Seven: Finally! Cream and bandages—and much relief. (Bless the inventor of Silver Sulfadiazine.)
Step Eight: Vow to find an easier and preferably pain-free way of avoiding dish duty in the future.

The Queen of Boiling Water

I have one purpose in life, and that is to boil water. True. I spend all day long boiling water. And then I filter it.

I boil water for washing dishes, rinsing produce, cooking food, making hot chocolate, making juice, and just plain drinking. Actually, I have a complex system. OK—maybe complex is going a bit far, and it’s not really a system so much as a daily routine in drudgery. But hey—it keeps me busy.

My day is complete when I maintain two filtered water pitchers in the fridge, two plastic “standby” pitchers of unfiltered water on the counter, and a big pot of boiling water. Yup. That’s the pinnacle of life.

So basically my day goes something like this: boil water, make breakfast, boil water, do the dishes, boil water, fill the pitchers, boil water, start on lunch, boil water….. You get the picture. I’m the queen of boiling water.

But this past Christmas, the familiar routine took a temporary twist—and I wasn’t even here to see it. I’d had to return home because of a family emergency—so I spent Christmas with my mom.

During one of my more-than-daily phone calls home, I asked my son what he had planned for the day. He replied, “Probably setting up the tree again.” “Again?”

Turns out that when my husband was decorating the school for the holidays, he ran across a perfectly good artificial Christmas tree. The only thing it was missing was the base. Well, base or no base, that is quite a find, considering that we live in the tundra where the closest thing to a Christmas tree is a short, scraggly bush-looking thing. So, following his “waste not, want not” philosophy of life, he hauled the thing home to grace our living room. Getting it there was no problem. Getting it to stay up on its precarious pole was another matter all together. But he is an ingenious soul who can fix most anything. And when it can’t be fixed, there’s always duct tape. Yup. They taped the tree to the couch and the wall. Only problem was that if they made any sudden movements, sneezed, or breathed hard, the thing came tumbling down. And since the house held nothing but active males, there was a bunch of chasing and wrestling going on. So the tree spent a lot of time horizontal, and they went through a ton of tape.

Their holiday routine became: boil water, set up the tree, boil water, set up the tree, boil water, set up the tree…

Isn’t change wonderful!

I Can't Believe it's Butter!

Keri went to Anchorage for about a week, and arrived back home looking like a smuggler. He walked through the door, and I barely got a hug in before he was emptying the pockets of his snow jacket, snow vest and snow pants. That man must have been carrying 20 pounds of butter on his person!

He spent his last two evenings in Anchorage doing nothing but shopping. My hero! (Actually, he was shopping until about 3:00 AM both nights.) We are almost out of food at home, and buying stuff in the village is outrageous. A gallon of milk costs $12. Stuff is just downright pricey. But since that is a problem through the whole of the Bush, Anchorage is set up to accommodate it. They have some big stores (like WalMart and Fred Meyers) that have 24/7 bush order departments. You simply stock up your shopping cart, and they box it up and ship it off for you COD (cash on delivery). I hear there is also a post office open 24/7 for those who want their stuff shipped faster. It’s cheaper to shop that way than to buy it in the Bush.

The last night, he got all the produce and frozen stuff. He’d taken two empty totes out with him on the plane. He filled one tote with long-lasting produce (like potatoes and carrots and stuff) and mailed it back. The other tote, he filled with frozen stuff and short-lasting produce (like lettuce and kiwis) and was going to take it on the plane. Word to the wise—don’t try shipping bananas. No matter how you pack them, they just don’t survive. You get to the other end with brown mush. Anyway, the airplane tote was about 20 pounds too heavy—so he took out the butter and filled every pocket and crack and crevice in his clothes with the stuff. Then the tote weighed in perfectly. The plane was just as heavy, but at least the tote passed inspection.

You’d think carrying butter on the body might be a problem. You know—melting? But it actually works just fine on these flights, because the planes aren’t heated. You combine an Alaskan winter with high altitude flying, and it gets pretty nippy. So we wear long johns, sweats, jeans, snow pants…. We layer up for survival—not comfort. It’s definitely not the way to lounge back and relax. But it’s a great way to smuggle 20 pounds of butter.

Sick? Just drag yourself through the snow!

The picture is of Keri and his friend Larry Myers standing in front of our snow machine just before they went hunting a week or so ago. Unfortunately, they didn’t get anything. How is it that this place is flat, with small trees and scrub brush, and yet the giant moose can hide so well? Just doesn’t make sense. They were rather frustrated. Especially when they got lost—three times. They ended up in a different village and went to a teacher’s house to warm up before heading back. Good thing they had a GPS to check, or they’d still be out there. They are going again this week when Keri gets back from Anchorage.

Taco (Jeremy) got sick, and it went straight to his chest. He missed two weeks of school because he had a horrible cough. The second week, I tried getting him into the clinic in either Alakanuk or Emmonak (a neighboring village), but there were so many people sick that I couldn’t get him in. Finally, after a week of trying, the clinic in Emmonak said they would work him in. (I think she felt sorry for me, because I called every day and I think she could hear Taco coughing in the background.)

So Keri took the morning off work, and we bundled up and climbed onto the snow machine to drive through the tundra in Arctic winter weather over the frozen Yukon River—to have our son checked for pneumonia. On what planet does that make sense?

The trip would have taken about 30 minutes, but we got lost—twice. So it took a little longer. Taco was sandwiched between Keri and I, and I had to reach around him every time I whacked Keri for getting us air born from driving too fast. But we made it.

Taco was put on antibiotics and steroids, and he is starting to get better now. (When he found out he was being put on a steroid, he said, “Cool! Does that mean I’ll get strong?”)

Church--on a Conference Call?

Church is really interesting here, and we just had some big changes made today.
First of all, we are in the Anchorage Bush Branch. It is huge—several thousand square miles big. It is over 500 miles long, running from Anchorage to the Bering Sea—and I don’t know how far it runs going north/south. But that makes for a VERY large branch, area-wise. And that’s just our Branch. There were six branches in the Bush District. I have no idea how big the District was. But today, we got the big news at District Conference, that the District is being dissolved! We are all being incorporated into the three Anchorage Stakes. They are each getting two branches (there are six in all). When it was announced, my first thought was wondering if we were going to be kind of like the ugly stepsisters—in the way, unappreciated and misunderstood. At least when we were in the District, we were all in the same boat. But each of the Anchorage stake presidents spoke, and they all seem excited about getting the branches. And all the speakers (previous District Presidency and new Stake Presidents and the General Authority) said it will be wonderful for us to be part of a stake—that there are a lot of benefits that we haven’t been able to have before. So I guess it will be good, or they wouldn’t have made the change.

Our church is different from any other I’ve been at. We listen to all the meetings on the phone—a conference call. Sometimes it’s hard to hear. Sounds like something between static, beeps, and “Signs” (you know—that scary movie with all the clicking over the baby monitor). But we can usually get the gist of it. This week, Keri is in Anchorage for some kind of training, so the boys were listening to Priesthood by themselves at our house. Well, not quite by themselves. I usually eavesdrop too. Well, today the Priesthood lesson was about Free Agency and the Garden of Eden. This past week, Tanner had had a question about that very thing. (Why did the Lord give two conflicting commandments that made it impossible to follow both?) So I un-muted the phone and asked the question. The men spent the rest of the meeting answering Tanner’s question. Well, later today, Keri had a temple recommend interview in Anchorage with President Jacks (the Branch President). Keri phoned me and said that Pres. Jacks wanted to talk to us. I said, “Am I in trouble for butting into Priesthood meeting?” President Jacks just laughed and said, “I don’t think you’re the only woman who listens in. And it’s great that you’re involved in your sons’ lives.” But he did let me know that both the District President and the General Authority were on the line and heard too. Goody. But it’s OK, because Keri admitted that he’d listened in to Relief Society so he could hear how my lesson went. (Try teaching a lesson without hand outs or a chalk board or anything like that. It isn’t easy.) As for President Jacks, he just wanted to ask us to talk in church next week. So we will be giving a talk on the phone.

It has its challenges. But hey—WE get to go to church in our pajamas if we want. Things have a way of balancing out.

Alakanuk--Where the blazes is it?

Here is Alakanuk from the air. The big building is the school; teacher housing is to the right. We are by the Bering Sea just below the Arctic Circle. No—not the Arctic Circle with ice cream—the Arctic Circle that’s cold. We have a special kind of ice cream here. It’s called Eskimo ice cream. It used to be made out of melted whale fat with crushed up fish and berries mixed in. Now-a-days they use shortening (like Crisco) instead of whale fat. But they still mix in ground up fish and berries. I hear it’s good (although I don’t know a single white person who has actually tried it). So far, I’ve avoided the experience.

Alakanuk is a tiny village nestled on the banks of the Yukon River. Well, maybe not nestled exactly—more like “dug in” or “hunkered down” or “standing against all odds.” But it is tiny and it is on the Yukon. All the buildings are built on a platform, or a series of stilts, and stand a good three to six feet off the ground. You see, most every year, the Yukon floods—so they build up to save themselves from getting washed away.

You can see a satellite photo of the town by going to http://earth.google.com/ and searching for Alakanuk, AK (after you download the program). Most of you have probably used it before, but if you haven’t: in the top, right are the navigation buttons; click on + to zoom in closer and – to zoom out. The site is awesome. You can even visit the Grand Canyon or Eiffel Tower or anywhere you want to go. You should try it!

Cross Country Skiing

Lesson one of cross country skiing: A temperature of twenty-below-zero is not intended for humans. Polar bears, maybe--but not humans.
Lesson two of cross country skiing: A wind chill can drop the temperature another twenty degrees. Then it's not even fit for bears.
Lesson three of cross country skiing: A low honking/growl sound in the trees can make even the most novice skier fly over the snow. Especially when the noise sounds like a possible bear, and your twelve-year old is 100 feet ahead by himself. Luckily it turned out to be a moose with a nasal problem.
Lesson four of cross country skiing: Never let your twelve-year old get 100 yards ahead by himself.
Lesson five of cross country skiing: Distance changes. The trip back is a LOT longer than it was going out.
Lesson six of cross country skiing: It is a cold and exhausting, but fun thing to do!
This picture is of Keri, Debi, and Taco on the frozen Yukon River. We are having fun (in case you can't tell).

Our trip to Alakanuk, Alaska took two days, five flights, and four plane changes to get here. Unless you count our luggage. Then it took two days, seven flights, six plane changes, and three trips to the Alukanuk airstrip.
But we made it.
We got there in November just in time for Thanksgiving. This picture shows Tanner and Taco in front of the "big" plane. After this, we got on a small bush plane that maxed out at six people. (I sat in the copilot seat.) It was an adventure.