Youth Temple Trip

This past week, our boys went on a youth temple trip for the bush branches. It was something that had been planned before the district was dissolved and incorporated into the stakes, but they went ahead with it.

It was a wonderful experience for them! The kids all flew into Anchorage on Friday afternoon. (Keri and I took our boys to the airstrip in Emmonak by snow machine—about a 40 minute ride—where they caught the plane to St. Marys and then on to Anchorage.) The kids were all picked up in Anchorage and taken to the host homes to drop off their stuff, grab an apple, and run to the temple for their first session. There were 14 kids—9 boys and 5 girls. (Note the picture at the top.) All the boys stayed at the Harrells’ (a truly brave couple) and the girls all stayed at another home.

They had a baptism session Friday evening, and then again Saturday afternoon. They also had time as a group to socialize and hit the mall and play games together. Saturday evening, there was a church dance for the older kids and bowling for the younger ones. On Sunday, they were able to attend a “real” ward that actually meets in a building. The rest of the kids left Sunday afternoon, but our boys and one other stayed until Monday because the planes don’t run to our part of the bush on the weekend (too remote, I guess). So Sunday evening they went to a fireside.

It was an amazing experience on many levels. They were able to get to the temple. They were able to do service. And just as importantly, they were able to associate with good kids who have the same standards. Sometimes, in the bush, it can be very difficult and lonely. Not only are many of the kids the only members of the church in their village, but they are so isolated that it can feel like they are the only members on earth. And this gave them the opportunity to meet other kids who are just like them—standing tall while living in an area fraught with immorality and low morals of all kinds.

The boys came home all excited and chatty about what they’d done, who they’d met, and what a great cook Sister Harrell is. They had questions and comments about the fireside they had attended. And they were thrilled because as a group, they had done enough baptisms to make a ward.

But the truly amazing thing is what went into this trip to make it possible. This trip took an enormous amount of work and planning. People gave of their time and themselves, and they housed and fed the group of energetic and hungry teenagers. But another logistical difficulty was getting the kids there in the first place.

Getting to Anchorage from the bush is not an easy feat. There are no roads, so the only way in is by plane. And flying around the bush is a very expensive venture. It would have cost us $1400 for our boys to go. But some amazing members in the bush donated their frequent-flier miles so that all the youth who wanted to and were able, could attend without it costing them anything. And the people who donated miles didn’t even have anyone attending. They were going to kids whom they may have never met. Our boys were able to go on the trip because of a man by the name of Blake Hillis. I’ve never met him before and don’t even know what part of the bush he is from. All I know is that he is a kind and generous man who donated enough miles to get two boys to the temple and back.

So just know that the Lord has many anonymous heroes helping with His work—even out here in the bush.

Zombie Fish

I’m sure you will all be happy to know that zombie fish are alive and well here in the village of Alakanuk. Actually, throughout the Yukon River and beyond.

Yes, it is true. They are known as blackfish. But the truly strange thing is that people catch and eat these mystical monsters. In fact, I hear they are quite tasty. The problem, as with any supernatural fiend, is how to get it to the state of being dead. You see, these fish can live quite well out of water. True. Apparently, they have the benefit of both lungs and gills. And after being frozen, they come back to life when thawed. Also true. If cats have nine lives, how many do blackfish have?

The boys made blackfish traps in Yup’ik class. The picture is of Taco with his trap. It works like this: You set the trap in the river, fixing it in place (I’m not sure how), and just leave it there. The fish come swimming along, and they follow the wooden “funnel” right into the trap, where they swim around, unable to figure a way out. (They are mystical—not smart.) Sometime later, you return and pick up your trap, which is full of fish. They are rather small, only about 6 – 8 inches long, so the trap can hold a lot of fish. Then you eat them—assuming you can get them dead first.

The Yup’ik class is going to take a field trip where they set out their traps, and see how many fish they can catch.

Their Yup’ik teacher said that one time, he was in a hurry, so he took the blackfish he’d caught and just threw them in the freezer all together. A couple of months later, he took the solid block of frozen fish out and plopped them in a pot of water to thaw them and then cook them. When he came back a little bit later, there were a bunch of fish flopping around on the floor. They had come back to life and flopped their way right out of the pot. Kind of creepy, if you ask me.

While I realize that this makes them perfect for the frozen north (they can survive the winters because when the rivers freeze, they are still alive come spring), it makes me a little wary of making a meal of them. This breath-out-of-water and come-alive-again fish is just a little too weird for my liking. Maybe a wooden stake through the heart might do the trick. Works for vampires. A box of toothpicks should do nicely.

Spring Fever & Rabbit Stew

Excitement abounds here among the hunting crowd (the hunting crowd being Keri and his hunting buddy Larry). They caught a rabbit!

A couple of days ago, Larry showed up at the house with a grin and a bunch of nylon cord. He’d rescued a set of blinds bound for the dump and put them to use one last time by unstringing the cords—and made them into rabbit snares. So Keri and Larry took off for the trees and spent several hours setting traps. The next day, when no unsuspecting bunny had inadvertently run through the snare, Larry baited them with wilted spinach. And today, success! There stood Larry at the door holding a big snow white rabbit by its back feet. He’d gone out to check the traps—and they’d gotten one!

So Keri butchered the thing and I helped him stretch the skin (now there’s something I never saw myself doing). We are all going to eat rabbit stew tomorrow after church. Leigh and Larry Myers are the other couple in the village who are members of the church. So we get together every Sunday to listen to church on speaker phone, and then have dinner. They are good friends. I like them a lot.

This evening, Keri and I went out to check the traps again. But I think Spring Fever has hit a little before it should, and that makes us do weird things. It was 25 degrees above zero outside, so beautiful and spring-like that I dressed down—jeans only, no snow pants; no hat or face mask; and ankle socks instead of my long socks; my spring boots instead of Tanner’s warm ones. Well, about 100 yards out I missed my hat when the wind started whistling in my ears, but I didn’t turn back for it because the sun was starting to go down and we still had a hike ahead of us. And I noticed the lack of snow pants when I started wading through knee-deep snow in jeans and also when I fell flat on my face. And apparently, my sock and my left boot didn’t like each other, because they would not cooperate. My sock kept catching on my boot and being pulled down, so I didn’t have a sock on for insulation and I was walking on a ball of crunched up fabric.

Turns out we didn’t catch another rabbit, but Keri built up the walls around the snares. They put a border of sticks on one side of the snare with the idea that the rabbit can only get to the spinach from the other side, thereby having to reach through the snare. Tomorrow, I’m going to leave some crackers with peanut butter and see if that doesn’t get their attention. Peanut butter is smelly. Sure they normally eat vegetables. But who says they wouldn’t like a change of pace? Just because they aren’t offered desert doesn’t mean they won’t like it. So I will try to remember to report on the success of a change in diet in the rabbit world.

I was about frozen by the time we headed back. My kneecaps were ready to fall off, and I couldn’t feel my ears. As we trudged along, we heard yelling and screaming coming from the direction of the school. When we rounded the corner, there were about a dozen kids playing their version of kickball in the snow, and another bunch on the playground—wearing no hats, and coats flapping open. Seems I’m not the only one around here affected by a sudden case of Spring Fever.

Tales of Monkey Tails

OK. I have got to pass on words of wisdom from my son. The other day, Tanner and I were lounging around talking, and the conversation wound around, covering all sorts of topics like conversations tend to do.

Well, we’d been talking about the pre-existence, valiant spirits coming to earth, whether or not there would be animals in heaven, were animals as valiant as people when they were spirits, and on and on. Then somehow, the conversation took a turn and it came up that I am sometimes klutzy.

Tanner said:
Actually, Mom, I think you were supposed to come to earth as a monkey, but God had mercy on you. God said, “I can’t send that poor creature down as a monkey and expect her to handle a tail; that would really throw her off. I’d better send her as a human so she only has four appendages. Five would really do her in.”

I about fell off the couch I was laughing so hard.

Beached Whale Sighting

There was a beached whale reported just outside Alakanuk the other day. You might ask yourself what the blazes a beached whale was doing up the ice-covered Yukon River. Well, I’ll tell you—she was stuck in waist-deep snow. Seriously. I should know—I was there—and I was beached.

We were skiing along a couple of days ago, and Keri decided we should take a slightly different route. Well, that slight difference just about put me 6 feet under—under the snow, that is. I hit a soft spot, and my skis sank in and came to a dead stop, but my body kept on going. I tried catching myself with my poles, but they disappeared up to the handles. I know this, because I could see the handles sticking up a few inches from my face, which was now planted firmly in the snow. I tried getting up, but every time I moved, my skis sank in further and my legs got more twisted. And I couldn’t reach my feet to pop my skis off. I resembled a pretzel.

That’s when a plane just about ran us over. You see, I happened to get stuck at the end of the airstrip, so the plane buzzed our heads as it came in for a landing. (And this wasn’t one of our bush planes, it was a big one. It must've held twelve people, maybe more.) How embarrassing.

Keri popped out of his skis and waded over to me—the closer he got, the more he sank. After much grunting and nose scrunching (he always scrunches when he’s concentrating), he was finally able to get my skis off. But now, I didn’t want to move. When he yanked my poles out of the snow, I could see through the hole—and it looked like a long way down. Turns out we were skiing on top of a mess of bushes and scraggly trees. Since I didn’t want to crash through and be stuck ‘til spring, I decided to try and roll over to where it was packed solid. (We knew it was solid because there were fairly fresh snow machine tracks.) Problem was that it was slightly uphill...and there was nothing to grab onto...and I could hardly move because my snow clothes were suddenly restrictive...and they felt like they weighed a ton. So I did the only thing I could think of. I laid there and laughed—hard. The whole situation just hit me as being ridiculous. And the harder I laughed, the less I could move.

That’s when the plane took off—again, right over our heads. I was lying on my back, and had such an up close and personal view of the plane’s underbelly that I could count its rivets.

But that gave me incentive to inch myself to solid snow and get out of there. I didn’t want to be around when Search & Rescue, the Coast Guard, and the Marine Animal Rescue Society show up in response to a pilot’s desperate plea to help save the beached whale. THAT would have been embarrassing.

Potlatch

In February, we went to a Potlatch in the village. It’s a night of native dancing. Kind of like a Hawaiian luau, but indoors and without the food. The thing ran two nights, and each night was about 8 hours long. It went from 6:00 in the evening until about 2:00 the following morning. We left about 11:00 both nights. (I know—pathetic; we just couldn’t stick it out.) It was actually pretty fun—especially since we know so many of the people who were performing.

People come from neighboring villages, and it's a big party. Each village holds two Potlatches every winter. They don’t have any after the thaw, because it is a busy time until the next freeze. During the summer and autumn, they are fishing (they actually go to fish camps where they stay and catch fish and prepare the meat, etc.), they are hunting and preparing meat and skins, and they are gather berries. So they don’t have time for celebrations. Besides—during the winter, it is much easier to travel to other villages for the Potlatches because the rivers are frozen over, and they can use snow machines to get around. And the Potlatches help break up the monotony of the long winter. They practice for several weeks beforehand. Just a couple of weeks after the one in February, they began practicing for the next one.

It's a big deal when a child performs at their first Potlatch. It's like a debutante dance, or a Spanish quinceaῆera, except it's for boys and girls. The child and his/her parents make special matching costumes, and they have special dances that they do together. The family brings a LOT of gifts for people who come. It is a very expensive event. At the one that we went to, I was given some warm knit gloves and a cool crocheted potholder. Keri was given a hat with ear pieces and some socks. Taco was given candy. And we were given sodas and cups of water. You multiply that by 200 to 300 people, and that is a lot of gifts being handed out. There were also some very expensive gifts that were given to the elders—like tools, torches, spears, stuff for ice fishing, etc.

After the child’s first Potlatch, when they have been presented to the village, then they are able to dance in any Potlatch. It was fun to watch our friends and their children.

The dancers move their body and use a handheld feather thing. Drummers chant and beat a type of drum made of a covering over a giant wooden ring. Each dance is quite short, usually only lasting a couple of minutes but the dancers repeat the dance as long as someone in the audience yells “more” or “again” in Yup’ik. (I can’t remember the words.) Most of the time, they are up there doing the same dance for about 20 minutes or so, but on some of the dances, the dancers repeated it for over 45 minutes. They looked exhausted.

The pictures show: part of the parking lot at the Potlatch (nothing but ATVs and snow machines). In the group shot, it shows my friend Stephanie and her daughter (in dark purple, and Stephanie wears glasses and has her hair piled on top of her head); her husband is kneeling on the ground with their son (also in purple, and her husband has glasses). It is their son and daughter’s first Potlatch. The other group picture shows Stephanie and her daughter (both in pink) dancing the second night.

I took some videos of it, because Stephanie’s camera broke and they didn’t have any pictures of their kids’ first Potlatch. That would be like not getting pictures of a high school graduation. But it was too big to e-mail, so I put it on YouTube. If you want to see some, just pull up YouTube.com. Then put AlaskaGirl8 in the search bar at the top, and it will bring up my Potlatch videos. There are seven of them, and they are all short.

Just Call Me Frosty

I have made a discovery that will turn the psychiatric world on its head. That is:
Cabin fever leads to temporary insanity. And I have the story to prove it.

Here we live in the frozen tundra, but I got such a severe case of cabin fever that the fever part must have affected my brain. I was BEGGING to get outside. Unfortunately, “getting outside” around here is a team sport. It is stupidity to try it alone. And although I may have become insane, I’m not stupid. I needed an outside-buddy to come be miserable with me. The nature of the terrain, the freezing temperatures, the grumpiness of the wildlife when they run across humans, and the chance of getting lost all make it necessary to go with a buddy. That way, if you die, you have company.

I’d asked around, but no one seemed to want to take up cross country skiing—mainly because it involved going outside. After many not-so-subtle hints, a bit of nagging, and an episode of tears, Keri finally agreed. The problem was that he rarely got home before dark—and usually arrived long after. And “getting outside” is not only a team sport, it’s a daytime sport. Otherwise, you find yourself hanging around wolves and other cute and cuddly fanged beasts. So he began heading in to work earlier. Much earlier. That first morning, he got up at 4:00 AM so he could get enough work done to come home before dark. That is about the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard of. I think he likes me.

Even with the 4 AM start, he had a hard time getting home—but he made it, with about an hour and a half of sunlight to spare. So we grabbed Taco (Jeremy) and took off. (Tanner wanted nothing to do with it. Apparently he is immune to cabin fever.) It was marvelous swooshing through the snow and just being outside! Who cares that it was 20 below zero—40 below with wind chill. We were having a blast.

The trip was problem-free for about five whole minutes. That’s about how long it took me to realize that I couldn’t see. Seems my glasses don’t take too well to sub-zero temperatures. They somehow formed a layer of ice over the lenses. And since I am legally blind without them, and couldn’t see with them, it posed a bit of a problem. But I refused to turn back. I just alternated between looking over them, under them, and through tiny cracks in the ice. Occasionally, I stopped to chip the ice off, and I’d get a couple minutes of sightseeing in. But the ice didn’t stop at my glasses. It covered my body. My hair and jacket turned white with ice. (Notice the picture at the top? That’s me.) Keri started calling me Frosty.

Even so, it really was wonderful to be outside. We skied through the trees and scrub brush for a mile or so, dropped onto the Yukon, and headed back up river on the snow-covered ice. Eventually, we got back on land and kept going parallel to the river, looking for the turnoff to take us back to the village. Meanwhile, the sun went down. And it was dark. This was a bit worrisome. But it also turned out to be a good thing, because with no sun, Keri was able to spot the rotating light of the Alakanuk airstrip. It was behind us. WAY behind us. Apparently, we’d shot right past the village. We were on a fast and furious trip to the North Pole.

By the time we got home, we were frozen and exhausted. I was actually glad to be INside again. I collapsed into a chair, and since Tanner had stayed home, I elected him to pull off my boots and snow pants while I sat there and thawed. I ended up with frostbite on my left ear. (FYI: frostbite hurts!)

We slept well that night. And the next day, I covered up my left ear really well, and we took off on skis again. It really is great to be outside!

The Moose is in the Mire

Keri and his friend Larry have been trying to get a moose since they got here. But the moose have been doing an even better job at hiding. Finally, with hunting season almost done (it finished the end of February, which happened to be on a Sunday), they made one last ditch effort to bring home the bacon—in moose meat.

The last Saturday of the month, those two left early in the morning, and they were gone for almost 12 hours. If we’d been almost anywhere else on the continent, I would have been suspicious of them hanging out at a local diner laughing it up, and then putting on quite an act when they came home empty handed. But we have no diner. Or movie theater. Or mall. Or library. Or anywhere else that one might go to pass the time. Besides—no one can fake the exhaustion they had. When they returned, Larry went to bed for two days. His back had given out on him. And Keri was a wreck. And they were both frozen. They’d shot a moose, but it took off into the bushes. They tracked the thing for over two miles in knee-deep snow. Sometimes, they were having to crawl through the brush. It’s amazing what spaces that animal could fit through. Finally, when it began to get dark and the wolves were coming out, they headed for home empty handed.

The next day, we were faced with quite a dilemma. Go look for the moose on the Sabbath, or keep the letter of the “Sabbath day holy” law and let meat go to waste. We decided that it would be worse to let meat go to waste. So Keri, Tanner, and Taco headed out in search of the elusive moose. (The picture is of Keri and the boys just before they left on their moose search.) Several hours later, they too returned empty-handed. They’d picked up the trail right away, and followed it easily at first. Well, easily is a bit of stretch, considering they were crawling through brush and digging through snow.

But it seems the moose gradually began to get stronger until the trail stopped. Which is good news for the moose. So we are assuming that it healed and will live a long and prosperous life—until next hunting season.

Think Your Church is Noisy? Bet I Can Top That!

Today, we had a change in our Branch Presidency. When they dissolved the District and divided the branches among the three Anchorage Stakes, that presented a problem in our branch. Our Branch Presidency all live in Anchorage (they have to for logistical reasons), but they are responsible for the people in the branch. But our Branch President lived in the wrong stake. So they had to replace him. We now have a new Branch Presidency.

We have our meetings over the phone. Everyone calls into a conference line and inputs a special PIN, and we are all joined on the same line. We are all supposed to mute our phones unless we are making a comment (like during class time) or actually speaking or teaching. But sometimes, people forget to mute or the mute doesn’t go through. Then things can get pretty interesting.

Anyway, today’s Sacrament meeting was largely about the switch. The previous presidency and the new presidency all spoke, and several wives too. We had people speaking from Hawaii (one of the new counselors is on vacation), driving cross country (the other counselor was travelling back up from the lower 48), Anchorage, and across the bush. But they weren’t the only ones contributing. Others participated quite by accident. We had the usual echo and background noises of static and clicking (like the movie Signs), and today we also had running and screaming children, sneezing, static and feedback sound that hurt our eardrums, and a flushing toilet. But the thing that was the most distracting was when someone slid their phone into their shirt pocket, and it picked up their heartbeat so loudly that it drowned out the person speaking. It sounded like Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” That’s when the branch president interrupted the meeting and asked everyone to mute their phones.

So next time you hear a baby fussing or kids whispering, don’t sweat it. At least your meeting isn’t like something out of the Twilight Zone. I’ll take screaming kids or flushing toilets any day. Just don’t give me the BA-BOOM...BA-BOOM...BA-BOOM...

You Want to Know Cold? I'll Tell You Cold!

We live in the bush of Alaska, just below the Arctic Circle, and our furnace broke this morning. It’s getting cold fast. I just broke a chunk of ice off of the inside furnace room. I’d go to a movie or the mall to warm up, but there isn’t one. And even if there was, it would require travelling in the open on the back of a snow machine.
So next time you scrape snow off a windshield and climb into a not-yet warm car, just be glad it’s enclosed. And meanwhile, enjoy your heat!
Sorry—I’m looking really hard, but I just can’t find the humor in this one. I think it’s been frozen out of me.
(By the way—I can tell you most positively that Hell has nothing to do with fire and brimstone, and everything to do with ice. Come visit sometime and I’ll give you a sneak preview.)
Gotta go put on a second layer of socks.