Arctic Adventures

This weekend was the annual SIVU basketball tournament. SIVU means "the beginning" in Inupiaq. I believe it is in reference to the beginning of whale or seal hunting but I am not entirely sure. It also means the front of the boat. There were five men's teams and four women's teams. Teller, Buckland, Selawik, Kivalina, and Noatak. Every team played everybody once. It just happened to work out that the last games of the last night ended up being for the championship. It was Noatak verse Kivalina in mens and womens. The women won by seven in a low scoring tightly called game. Noatak held Kivalina to four points in the second half and the final was 41-34. Kayla is helping coach the womens team so she felt a little bit better that she was able to be here for the tournament. The mens championship was another close game. Noatak held a comfortable lead up to the fourth quarter but then Kivalina went on a run to start the fourth and Noatak couldn't recover. The final was

Last weekend we traveled out to get our cute little Christmas Tree.  Our mode of transportation continues to be by foot or sled. We found it!  The trees that grow on the tundra are sparse looking-little Charlie Brown trees. Half the tree fell off when Brett cut it down. The sunset-at about 2:30~3:00 pm Notice our VHF radio in the background--we've got to be connected to the village!

This past weekend Noatak hosted the mixed 6 volleyball regionals. It's quite the event with teams coming from as far as Wainwright. The first and second place teams advance to states. There were 7 teams that attended. Pt. Hope, Kiana, Upriver, Selawik, Kivalina, Noorvik, and Wainwright as well as Noatak. The games were supposed to start on Thursday night but the weather was so bad that no planes were flying and only a few teams made it in. The weather on Friday was pretty bad too but a couple of teams managed to make it in the morning before the weather got bad again. Thursday nights games were canceled hoping that the rest of the teams would make it in on Friday. Two of the teams didn't make it in for the games on Friday so they had to forfeit their first games. It was a double elimination tournament so that meant that the teams that had to forfeit their first games couldn't lose or they were done. The teams finally ended up making it in on Saturday. Kiana and Noorvik had