Arctic Adventures

I love my sweet potatoes! ..and my sippy cup! It's Saturday morning, not light out, -55. . . and Brett is out fishing (crazy guy)! I figured maybe I should take some time to write a quick update. The Haul The temperature dropped back down again, so it's tough to get out. I am very thankful for my parki; it turns out that you can actually be quite warm at temperatures near -60! We were feeling a little lazy and tired after a long work week, but Tina and David called us over for caribou soup and Tina arranged a basketball game: Staff vs. Mas and Pas, so I peeled myself off the couch. I tucked Oren into the back of my parki and 'amaqed' him over to Tina's. As soon as we step outside he just relaxes and goes along for the ride. I would like to have him stick his head out and get some fresh air, but it is just too cold. The kids love to see Oren at the gym. The poor guys is mauled by, "Hi Oren! Hi Baby!" "Can I hold him now?" "Play bal...

Oren Likes Pears It has finally warmed up after the nearly month long cold snap. This whole week has been near 0 degrees during the days. Nights have been cool but after -40 for a month straight - 20 doesn't feel so bad. Finally I got to go out and go fishing this weekend. I have been chomping at the bit to get out and set some traps and go fishing too. Oren Likes Books Friday after work I threw my stuff together to go fishing and a few traps to set. We headed out to my fall time hotspot to try it through the ice. Unfortunately my new hand auger was not long enough to get through the ice there. I drilled all the way down to the elbow on my auger and didn't make it to water. I tried one more spot in that area and still couldn't make it to water. I gave up on that spot and went to where the ice was thinner. Nice Fro We were able to fish for about a half hour and got one trout each. When it started getting dark we went and set the trap and then headed home. It was a really nic...

Taking a Bath Last week I was moping that it was 4o below. This whole week it has been 50 below. All week. No joke, no rounding up even, an honest to goodness, straight up 50 below. There is not much to do when its this cold. It is not windy at all and my cheeks were almost frozen between school and home. I was using a heat gun outside and I bent the cord a little bit and it cracked like it was dipped in liquid nitrogen. The NOAA website says its finally supposed to warm up this week. I won't believe it until I see it though. I boiled some water and threw it outside to see what happened. I thought that most of it would vaporize. About half of the water actually made it all the way to the ground as water. Some of it froze in midair and fell to the ground as ice. The rest of it made a sound like quietly ripping sheets as it vaporized into a cloud of steam. Too Many Aana's Kayla finally finished her Parkie that she has been working on... and then the thermometer rose 40 degrees. I...

It's still a while from springtime, but the temperatures have been almost constant -40 F. Friday it finally warmed up, I did a double take when I looked at the thermometer and saw -20 F. I was hoping to get out fishing today (Saturday), but when I checked this morning -50 F. Needless to say I won't be fishing today. The Noatak boys basketball team had games this weekend. Friday they lost by one point to Noorvik. Oren has been sitting up really good lately were just waiting for him to take off crawling any day. Saturday I took trash to the dump. I guess it was too cold because something in the fuel system froze up and my machine died on the way back. It gets cold even walking when its this cold.