Life in the Arctic

While visiting in Michigan over break, I was asked to share what general life is like in the arctic.  I find this difficult, because all of the things that seemed so crazy and out of the ordinary only 4 years ago, have now become part of the norm for us.  For some of you that have come in contact with our blog AFTER my first year here, I will try to recap some of the big changes we had to adjust to.  

1)  Our village is a fly-in village.  We are not on the road system and you cannot drive here by car.  In the winter, people travel by snow-go from Kotzebue which is about 60 miles.  When the water is high enough in the summer, many people boat down the Noatak River to Kotzebue as well.

2)  We order all of our groceries through the mail.  (Grocery stores overwhelm me now!)  We've tried a few different routes for groceries.  Fred Meyer has a "Bush Mail" department to which we can email our order;  they shop for us, box it up and send it out to us through the mail.  Lately, we've been using Amazon and buying many items in bulk.  One saving grace has been Full Circle Farm out of Washington.  They send organic produce to rural Alaska, so we receive a box every other week.  The only time we have fresh milk is when we go through Anchorage.  Otherwise, we use the boxed, shelf-life milk.

3)  In school, we don't have "specials" teachers, so not only do I teach reading, writing, and math but also music, PE, art, and technology.  One thing that is kind of exciting is that I get to wear jeans every day if I want.  We don't need to dress up for work!

4)  Most mail takes FOREVER.  A priority box from Michigan will arrive in about a week.  Other than that, we never know.  Some items take a month to come in!

5)  There are no cars here and very few trucks.  The "roads" are all gravel and raised off the tundra.  Everyone gets around with four wheelers "Hondas" or snowmobiles, "snow-gos."

6)  Our village consists of the school, housing, Post Office, General Store, Search and Rescue, Clinic, and tribal office building.  So, no, we cannot go out to eat, etc.  

7)  Doctors, Eye doctors, and dentists travel through the village a few times a year.  Between those visits, the clinic has heath aides to help.

8) The one that really cracked me up this year:  Brett went out to get meat; that is, he went out on the tundra and came back with a couple of caribou.

9) I love that my students are comfortable knocking on my door.  Last night a student knocked and asked if he could have help on his homework because his mom was out of town.  He ended up staying over and playing with Oren until his brother got home.  

Somehow it seems like such a simple way of life.  We can walk anywhere we need to go.  For fun, we can go fishing, riding, skiing, hiking . . . 

 Oren got to try out skiing this week!

 Playing with his bubble maker

 "Fishy swimmy swimmy (through) bubbles"

 LOVES to paint.  Here we are painting with dyed pudding!

LOVES play dough!