Sunday, March 16, 2008

I just got back from the monthly “Saturday Market” where anyone can rent a table for $5 and sell, well, anything. I sold photo cards and actually did well. I had many requests to sell at the annual dance festival March 28th which makes me feel good. Camai is the largest sale of the year with many people coming in from the villages to both buy and sell.

I recently received pictures taken last year by Rebekka Halseth, my former co-interpreter. They are so great that I wanted to post some.


These are from our visit to Tuntutuliak last May. Rebekka, her husband Tom and I took advantage of some free tickets to visit the home village of one of our students. In the first picture I’m chatting with a couple of youngsters. In the second, we were looking for a store and the girl had pointed it out to me several times, and when I just couldn’t see it, she grabbed my hand and led me there. It was a small building make out of plywood without any markings or signage. I kept looking right past it because it didn’t look like a store. A perfect example of cultural bias (or preconceived expectations?). I couldn’t see it because it didn’t match my schema. The next two pictures show the outside and inside of that store. Mini mart?

These next two pictures are of a <slightly> larger store in Tunt.

People in the villages have steam houses. It’s the traditional way to bathe. The women and girls steam together and the men and boys steam together. Husbands and wives steam together. Unmarried adults do not bathe with the opposite sex.

Love to all
Vikki

Posted by Vikki at 02:22:25 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Happy Spring - in the lower 48 at least. I’m back from spring vacation and it’s back to snow and freezing temperatures. There is hope, however. Today I drove along the river and saw that scaffolding has been set up on the Kuskokwim River - it’s used to measure when the river breaks up. Now that’s wishful thinking! Break up won’t happen until May, unless we get really warm temperatures. Everyone is feeling tired from the spring time change coming on the heels of a week off. The next event to look forward to is Camai, the annual dance festival that will be held March 28th to the 30th.
Before spring break we were having clear sunny days. I chanced upon this eye catching sunset and the snow machine blazing across the tundra. I barely had time to focus my camera.

Posted by Vikki at 05:57:33 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, February 18, 2008

Hello Family and Friends,
Not much has been happening. Digging out from the snow, trying to keep warm, counting the days to spring break. Saying “so long” to a new friend - Jean has been laid off due to enrollement changes and will be relocating to Seattle. Getting together for dinners and visiting. In short - making the best of winter.

snow bunnies


Joe, Otis, Ben and Amy + puppy…………. Jean P. with puppy



Dog yard. It takes several people to get the dogs harnassed up and ready.

Off they go………………………………the ones left behind howl until the team is out of earshot.

Posted by Vikki at 18:50:39 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

K-300 race trail

There are still two racers out - they waited in Tuluksak for river conditions to improve and were supposed to head out this morning.
Posted by Vikki at 20:52:28 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Kuskokwim 300 Dog Sled Race 2008

The K-300 dog sled races started Friday, January 18th. The event consists of three races: Bogus Creek 150, Akiak Dash, and the K-300. As the name suggests, Bogus Creek 150 is 150 miles round trip and started at 5 pm on Friday, with the winner crossing the finish line at noon on Saturday.


Robert Tikiun, Jr. leaves the starting line in the Bogus Creek 150.

The K-300 race started at 6:30 pm on Friday. The teams started in pairs at the start/finish line. They will travel through the night, have a mandatory rest break, turn inland at Aniak, travel to Pike Lake and back and then head down river.


Can we go? Huh? Can we? The dogs are frantic to get on the trail.

The hovercraft - which hauls freight up and down the Kushkokwim River, supplied free hotdogs. Who could resist?

Unlike the Bogus Creek and K-300 which draw for starting position, the Akiak Dash uses a “mass” start. As the Dash was starting at 2 pm on Saturday, mushers from the Bogus Creek race were still finishing so teams were going both ways! I volunteered at the start/finish line and it was fun to be part of the excitement.

The last musher in the Bogus Creek had scratched so we were done. Temperatures warmed up over the weekend into the high 30’s creating a mushy mess on the river. While I was confident driving onto the river Friday night when it was still cold, driving onto it Saturday was literally hair raising. There is overflow along the shore, where the high tide pushes water over the ice, but it look like you are driving INTO the river, not ONTO it.
I chickened out and elected to follow the others to a different access spot - but obviously it would have been fine - in fact I used this access point later that evening and it was actually better than the one north of here.
Race and river travel excitement over, I headed home until my evening shift volunteering at race headquarters, but soon received a phone call asking me to go back to the start/finish line because the last musher in the Bogus Creek hadn’t scratched but was still on the trail. I picked up another volunteer, Kate, and we waited on the river from 5:15 until he crossed the finish line at 7:07 pm. Our wait was enhanced by a spectacular sundown.


Waiting for Robert Tikiun Jr., whose picture I had taken earlier!

Next it was back to race headquarters for an evening of answering phones, updating the computer with musher’s times at checkpoints, and updating the race board. I volunteered until midnight and people were still coming in to see how the races were going.

First place winner of the K-300 was Mitch Seavey, arriving at 8:09 pm Sunday night. 24 hours later, a father and son crossed the finish line, each with their own team. I know because I was there! They were short of volunteers Monday so I had been helping at race headquartes and was pressed into service again as a checker at the finish line. There was a foot of water in places on the river. Yes, I drove my car there but I followed a pickup truck and had no problems. It just looked really scary. The trail conditions were terrible. Warm temperatures continued to melt the snow on the river and mushers reported seeing trail markers floating by and that the dogs had to swim at times. At this time there are two mushers still in the race but yet to finish. Visit www.k300.org for more information and pictures.

Vikki

Posted by Vikki at 22:20:25 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

A few more pretty pictures of Bethel in the winter…

The local cemetary  - stunning on a sunny day!

Braving the elements…………………….traffic on the river

People travel on the river in various ways.
Posted by Vikki at 06:37:22 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Bethel grafitti!

Posted by Vikki at 06:22:16 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Pictures from a trip on the river

The first picture shows the “road” and the tracks that are easy to follow on the river. The branches mark the road and have reflectors tied to them for night driving. In the second picture I’m pulled over onto the snow machine trail.

Kevin Smart escorted us by snow machine.

Posted by Vikki at 05:59:32 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, January 14, 2008

Yesterday I had a new experience. I drove my car on the river ice road. Not quite like those truckers on Discovery channel, but hairy scary enough for me! My heart was pounding!! I took the Smart family for a quick visit to their village which is about 10 miles south of Bethel on the Kuskokwim river. The trail is generally easy to follow due to the visible tire tracks and for night driving there are reflectors tied to large branches along the trail. However there are several spots where drifting snow make the trail less obvious and one must be alert to stay on the main road and not wind up following joyriding tracks that might lead to trouble. I had one such brief encounter when I realized I had strayed slightly off the main road (so much for my local guides - they weren’t paying attention) and jerked back to the correct direction which caused my car to fishtail and threw my passengers around roughly. Talk about getting my heart rate up!! Probably the worse that would have happened was for my car to get stuck, it wasn’t as if I could go through the ice, but stuck is bad enough. I had many questions - who moves off the trail into the powedered snow when there is an on-coming car? What’s the protocol if I’m driving slower than others, do I pull off to let them go around me? Whats the speed limit? All my questions ellicted chuckles and the reply to “just drive”. (there is a snow machine trail along side the road which has flattened the snow and the car traveling on that side of the road drives on the snow when there is an on coming car) When it was time to exit the river and drive up onto the bank and into the village, even the locals had a hard time discerning the correct trail as there were so many snow machine tracks. We made it safely and the drive home just before sunset was beautifully golden. I look forward to driving on the river again but taking more pictures next time.

Hugs
Vikki

Posted by Vikki at 20:33:09 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bethel when it’s really cold:

Posted by Vikki at 19:45:53 | Permalink | Comments (1) »