Grandma and Grandpa Pietila Trip

My mom and dad finally got to visit Noatak! We had decent weather for most of their trip and they were able to get a taste of everything that we do in the fall time.

They got here on the Wednesday AM Raven flight. We had breakfast ready and then my trapping partner, Mike, stopped by to do some work on our door and ended up having coffee and visiting for a while. After lunch we went out to the end of the graves road and walked into the tundra to pick blueberries. The boys were not cooperative for berry picking, but we managed about a gallon between all of us. After berry picking we went down to the pit and went casting for salmon. The salmon were starting to get old there, but we got a couple that we brought home.  Dinner was barbecue moose ribs and then off to fly fish for grayling.

 
 
 
The grayling fly fishing is probably my favorite fishing to do. When the wind is calm there are fish rising everywhere, and it reminds me of catching sunfish off the dock at my grandma and grandpa Halonen's at Lake Sylvia. The weather was a little bit windy to be really good fishing, but my mom and dad both got a few grayling.

 Fighting a Grayling

 Got It!

 Dad with one on

 Slippery Buggers

Thursday we took the boat downriver below Ikpiks and set a net for salmon. The river is extremely shallow to make it to the pit and I knew it was going to make for an adventurous ride on the way back.
 
Taking Notes
 
Doris followed in their boat with Steve who used to live here and is back visiting. He hasn't driven on the river in a while, but he figured as long as he could follow me he should be good. We got a bit of a late start waiting for Ryker to wake up from his nap, but we got down there about 2 pm. We set the net out right away and built a fire for coffee. The first set had about 8 fish when we pulled it in so we set it again.
 
Picking Fish
 
Kayla and Doris showed my mom and dad how to cut salmon with Ulu, so they both got to try that out. Dinner was salmon and potatoes grilled over the fire.
 Using an Ulu

Fillet Knife
Kayla rode in Doris boat on the way back because I knew I was going to have trouble with the shallow spots. I made it through the first and second spots without hitting. Steve passed me on the second one because I lost planing speed and had to putter up to deeper water to get on step again. He decided to keep going and when we got up to the corner we saw them up on the bank. Kayla said they took the corner too fast and were not able to make the turn. Ended up on the beach. Luckily no one was hurt so we pushed them off and then made another run at it without any problems. Made for an adventurous outing though!

2nd half of the trip to be continued...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Girls Head to Anchorage

Image
The week before Easter, Anya had some appointments scheduled in Anchorage. Around that time gas went up to 15.99 in town. Yep. That's not a typo. $15.99/gallon. Gas is still $5.50/gal in Kotzebue, so we decided we could drive to Kotz and the girls would hop on the jet while the boys filled drums of gas and drove back to town. Our friend is a trooper in Kotzebue so we were able to stop in there to warm up and regroup. Brett went out to get gas and NONE of the pumps were working! It was such a bummer. He didn't even have enough gas to get home, but thankfully we have such kind generous friends that had some jerry jugs he used to fill the machines. Of course Oren ended up driving my machine back and was an absolute champ. It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get down there and about that for them to get home too. The Borough was working on making an ice road from Kotz to Noatak. We heard they didn't make it past this tricky spot and stopped to check it out. (The oper...
Read more

Uvlalautaq!

 "Good Morning."  Not really appropriate, considering its 800 pm, but its the only greeting I know :) Guess what I get to (have to) do this weekend?  REFEREE volleyball games!!!  Only here would I even be thought of for that.  In no way do I qualify, for I hardly know the rules!  Apparently, last year Timm, the volleyball coach, had to ref because no one else knew how to.  I guess better me than him... It's been around 10 degrees for the last week, but we still don't have snow!  The frost on the tundra sure looks like snow, but its just thick frost. With the time change, the sun is setting at about 5 now, so it's quite dark by the time I walk home. One of the girls in my class hurt her knee last week and was on crutches for a while.  Finally, today she came in without crutches, so I was talking with her about it and how excited I was to see her walking on her own.  She replied, "I sure pray last night for my knee to get better and I wake up this morning and w...
Read more

A new respect

I have a new respect for all officials.   I think that every coach should have to officiate a game, just to realize how difficult it is.  I had to referee volleyball games this weekend.  That's just one clue to how laid back everything is up here :)  The opposing coach was very loud and outspoken... she definitely made her complaints heard!  It did get a little bit easier with the more games that went on.   This was the only home weekend for the volleyball team, and on Friday the gym was packed.  Everyone was early, just waiting for the game to start.  Saturday was another story.  The games began at 12:30 and at 12:15 the gym was still EMPTY.  Everyone here really likes their sleep.  Community members and students trickled in through out the first match, but there was still only about 1/5 the number of fans as the day before.  They played two matches and a few more people came in for the 2nd.   Another funny story about being laid back:  with two minutes left of warm-ups, we still ...
Read more