Wild Moose Chase

The village I'm living in is considered a coastal village. Tunt is relatively close to the Kuskokwim River, which flows directly into the Bering Sea. The natives in this region have always relied upon the riches of the sea for their survival. Whales, seals, and walruses are plentiful during certain times of the year. I wanted to know what it was like to take that journey south down the Kuskowim--the same journey that Eskimos having have been taking for thousands of years. I decided to ask a Yupik man that works at my school, named Mark, if I could observe him hunting seal.

Now when I say observe I put extra emphasis on that word, because literally it's all I can do. Seal hunting is only permitted when the hunter is a subsistence hunter. The subsistence hunter does so for survival. There is no waste. The entire animal serves a purpose. Hunting is not a game here, it's a means of living. I, myself, am only allowed to watch. It's illegal for me to steer the boat or even touch the motor from what I've been told. 

When I asked Mark after school about tagging along he simply said, "4:15. The river near the school." Mark is a man of few words, but he is a man of many jobs. He handles "maintenance" at the school, which means he is responsible for all kinds of odd jobs around the school from electronics to plumbing. He is also an excellent fisher and hunter when he's not fixing something at school. I told him I'd be there, but did not really know what to expect.

I met up with Mark down by the river. He picked me up on his boat with his 8-year-old son. I wore shin length rubber boots, waterproof pants, a NorthFace raincoat, and a winter stocking hat. I was still cold. Mark was wearing a bubble jacket and a tan fedora. I noticed a rifle and a harpoon lying on the boat with several empty cans of Diet Dr. Pepper. He flipped me a life-jacket and we were off. We traveled south down the Kuskowim river for about an hour. There was no sign of any seals. I imagined the place we were going to be some frosty coastline abundant with seals lying out waiting to be picked off. On the way Mark mentioned that there was only a 10% probability that we would see a seal. Hunting takes more patience than I thought. 

After fruitlessly scoping out all the seal hotspots, Mark turned my attention to some enormous round tracks in the mud. "Moose tracks," he said slowing the boat down and leaning over to examine the large prints. "Fresh moose tracks," he repeated confidently. All of a sudden we were on a different chase when we saw several more sets of tracks along the water, evidence of a thirsty moose. Mark tapped me on the shoulder when he saw kept seeing more tracks. "We will probably see a moose," he remarked. With his attention turned to moose, Mark gave the steering wheel of the boat to his son who maneuvered through the extremely narrow twists and turns of a tributary nearby. While I was watching in astonishment at the precision of an 8-year-old driving a boat, Mark was busy surveying the surrounding land with his binoculars. I turned my attention to Mark, whose sharp eyes were deliberately scanning the area. If there was a moose to be found, I knew he would find it.

After searching for a while, Mark grabbed my shoulder, and simply said, "Look!" I turned to see a moose on the edge of the water staring at us. We couldn't shoot it because it's not moose season yet, (it starts in September) but Mark wanted to see where the moose would be so he can come back to this spot later. It was my first time seeing a moose in person, and it's just a bizarre animal to me. It's like a cow on stilts that effortlessly steps through the brush with powerful strides. I was able to snap a few pictures before the moose decided to turn back into the seclusion of trees behind it. 

Zombieland Rule #32: Enjoy the Little Things

Today during school, I thought of all the little things I appreciate with greater awareness now that I'm living up in rural Alaska. I thought I'd make a Zombieland themed post about all the little things I have been enjoying, including some of the stuff that's going on in my classes.

In case you haven't seen the movie, there's a set of rules that the lead character, Columbus, follows to stay alive in a zombie apocalypse. One of those rules is, "enjoy the little things." Check out the movie if you haven't seen it! But here goes my list:

Little Things I Enjoy

• Having my own apartment
• Getting mail- it really makes my day
• Being able to walk to my house and grab a Pop Tart and a Diet Coke during lunch
• Daylight till midnight (at least for now)
• Not having to carry a wallet - I never thought I would carry a flashlight and a pocketknife more than a wallet, but now I do 
• Driving a four-wheeler as fast as I possibly can down the boardwalk
• Having time to read- Even if it's reading the stuff that I'm going to teach the next day. But in addition to reading "teaching stuff" I've actually done a ton of leisure reading since I've been here.
• I get NESN on satellite TV, which means I get Red Sox games
• Art class- The last two classes of my day are art classes and they've been great so far! Didn't think I was gonna enjoy them as much as I do. We've been creating oil pastel drawings while listening to The Beatles. 
• Seeing a teeny, tiny bit of progress in my writing classes!
• Having technology from the school (this may be considered a big thing) - I have been given a Macbook Pro, an iPad, and I have a Smartboard coming soon. And I have access to Macbooks for all my students to use
• Freedom that I wouldn't have at a regular school- If I want, I can take any one of my classes outside. I've done this for an art class and it's just nice to be able to feel like there's not so many restrictions on me.
• Peace and quiet
• Not being able to spend money- definitely a good way to save
• Becoming more independent everyday
• Not having to wear a tie to work- it's actually pretty casual
• People saying hi to me when I walk by
• Playing a lot of basketball
• Being able to watch the progress these kids make throughout the year

Everything isn't great, but I figured people would rather read a list of positive things than a list of complaints. The good thing is that my list of "Little Things I Enjoy" seems to grow everyday. 

My New Wheels

There are no roads in Tunt. Therefore, no cars are to be found. It rains so much, the ground has the consistency of Jell-O pudding. As I've written before, there are wooden boardwalks connecting everything. In the summer, the three modes of transportation are walking, bike-riding, and ATV four-wheelers. I've done a lot of walking because the weather's been fairly nice (for Alaska), but I'm fortunate enough to have access to a four-wheeler while I'm here. I learned how to ride it last week and I've been driving it all over the village. It's actually pretty fun. Oh, and when it starts snowing, I get to bust out the snow-mobile. Here's a picture of my new wheels.

The Dump

My trash was piling up and I asked what to do with it. My principal said to drop it off at the side of the school on designated days. From there, he said it is driven to the dump on a four-wheeler. "You don't want to go to the dump," he said cracking a smile. Lately, when people have been telling me to do something, I have done the opposite. That day I set off to explore the dump. 

Obviously, it was a pretty disgusting place. It's located over a mile outside of the village pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It was a clear sky that day, so you could see flat tundra for miles and miles. As I approached, I started to smell the unpleasant scent of burning garbage. There's an incinerator in the middle of the dump that had smoke rings rising up from it. Large ravens and crows hovered above the massive pile of trash. I couldn't bear to be there long, threw my bag among the heap, and left.

Why the heck did I go to the dump? I can't really say I wanted to go. I do, however, want to experience every aspect of this village, including the parts that are ugly. In order to have the full experience, I feel like I need to see and do everything. I can check the dump off that list. 

First Week of School

My first day of school was Monday, and here I am Thursday night to talk about it all. I've been a little behind on the postings and it's partially do to the fact that I've been so busy with the new job. I'm a high school English teacher by trade, but teaching in bush Alaska is not exactly like teaching at a high school in the lower 48. In fact, that is a major understatement.

First of all, there's one school in Tunt that services all children kindergarten through grade 12. There's about 140 students in the entire school. I had twice that number in my graduating class of high school alone. Out of the 140 students in the school there are a little over 30 high school students. There are only two high school teachers, including me. The entire high school education for these students is provided by two teachers. And, yes, that means I am teaching more than just English literature.

I have eight classes in all. Seven of them require different preparation work, which means I'll be very, very busy this year. I'm teaching Pre-Algebra, Literature I, Literature II, Writing I, Writing II, Alaska Studies, and two art classes. I'm not too excited about the math (at least it's only Pre-Algebra) and I'm unsure about the Alaska Studies (after all I've only been here a few weeks). It may be the toughest job I ever have, but it will only make me a better teacher in the end.

My classroom was a narrow, windowless room, void of anything when I arrived. It remains narrow and windowless, but I did my best to brighten it up before the first day. I went scrounging around in the attic for supplies and posters. There wasn't much of anything so I had to make a few things from scratch. I drew pictures of famous authors and put their quotes and faces on my wall (sorry if this sounds cliche, but I like it). I'm not the best artist, and I think my Charles Dickens face look a bit like Saddam Hussein when they found him in the spider hole, but I'm leaving him up anyways. The other problem was the fact that it had only three walls and no door. There was just a wide open hallway in place of the fourth wall. I fixed this problem by taking three book shelfs and converting them into a makeshift wall.

My students are friendly, but for the most part introverted. They have been respectful so far. They call me Patrick, not Mr. Merrigan, or not even "Mista," like the kids in Pawtucket called me. Calling a teacher by their first name is customary here. It is not a sign of disrespect and most teachers do not have a problem with it. I'm comfortable being on first name basis with my students, especially considering I'm an outsider coming into their community.

I spent Monday passing out syllabi and going over the expectations I have for the year. We have eight 45 minute periods, but there is no bell that sounds when students are to switch classes. I simply say, "Okay, time to switch." Sometimes that means two or three kids switching rooms and the rest staying. It's pretty hard to mess up your schedule when you should be in one of two rooms. Overall, it's been a pretty smooth four days. I'm a little overwhelmed by the amount of work and by the fact that for some of these students, I am the teacher for 80% of their high school year. It's a large responsibility that I take very seriously.

One of my goals here is to emphasize higher education. I found out that the percentage of students that go to college from this school is 1%. Strictly from a statistically perspective, it is unlikely that anyone of my students will go to college. I'm hoping I have a few outliers, or perhaps I can help some get started in that direction. I hope to share my teaching successes and failures on this blog all year. It's a way I can document this part of my life and hopefully look back on it someday with pride.

Getting the room ready. Fueled by Mountain Dew and Cheez-Its.

My desk.

Morning of first day

My artificial wall of books.

My doorway is a gap between a bookshelf and a filing cabinet.

My poor Dickens drawing.

The sunlight/darkness question

One question that people asked me frequently in Rhode Island was just how many hours of daylight and darkness would I be getting in my part of Alaska. A lot of people assume that the whole state of Alaska gets six months of light and six months of darkness. The reality is that different parts of the state get different amounts of sunlight. I can only give reports of what it's like in the southwest part of Alaska.

So when friends kept asking me this question, I wasn't quite sure what to say, but I told them I could answer them with my own observations when I got here. Now that I'm here, I have some clarification. I can only comment on what the summer is like so far. In the winter things will get considerably different. I've been in Anchorage, Bethel, and Tunt. In each one of these places the sun has gone down around midnight. On my second night in Anchorage, I walked around downtown thinking it was still early because it was bright out. It was 11 PM. I watched the sun set in Bethel after midnight while hanging out with a group of new teachers. The sun sets late and rises early.  I woke up at 4 AM in Anchorage (I was still functioning on east coast time) and it was bright out.

Therefore, on average it's been dark for about four hours a day since I got here. I'm enjoying the extra light right now 'cause I know it's going to dwindle in the winter. And when it's light out, I don't mean that the sun is beaming down from above. Usually it's very cloudy and often very rainy. The temperature has been in the 50s and 60s everyday. I don't feel like it's August. In fact, the other night was the first time I've worn a winter hat in the summer. The picture below was taken from my living room window. You can see the sun peaking through the clouds. It was 10:30 PM.

Village Life

I took a long walk on Saturday to explore the village. I walked past a general store, a cemetery, the post office and lots of houses. Essentially everything in Tunt is connected by a series of boardwalks, which makes everything accessible and easy to walk to without stepping through the marshy land.

The one thing I had to watch out for was dogs. Many of the houses I walked by had dogs that growled and barked as I walked past. Fortunately for me, most of these dogs were tied to a pole. From what I've been told, dogs are viewed more as work animals than pets in Tunt. They spend most of their time tied to something sturdy outside. The dogs that weren't tied up followed me along the boardwalk in a close procession growling, howling, and making every type of threatening motion short of biting me. Dogs were one of the last animals I thought I would have to worry about in Alaska, the land of bears, wolves, moose, and wolverines. The parade of dogs left me alone as one of their owners hollered from behind a shed.

My last trip was to the village post office to see if one of my packages arrived. There was a 60 pound box of groceries waiting for me. I needed to lug it about a mile back to my house. I reached about halfway home, fidgeting to find the right position to hold the box, when a young girl pulled up in a four-wheeler. She asked me if I wanted a ride, probably feeling bad for how awkward I looked carrying this massive box. I hopped on the back and off we went. I came to find out that this girl will be one of my students (not surprising in a village of 400). But this is just another example of the hospitality and wholehearted kindness that people are showing to a stranger. I came here as a teacher, but I feel like I will learn just as much as I teach.

There are lots of birds in Tunt. They enjoy the surrounding marshy land. 

One of a few cemeteries in the village

Walking down the boardwalk

This husky was the only dog that I walked by that didn't want to attack me. I had time to snap a picture.

Four-wheelers are the primary mode of transportation when it's not snowing in Tunt.