Arctic Adventures

 Oren is such a great helper when we go out.    Can't beat campfire coffee and sunshine. I'm so thankful for Full Circle Farm!   We get a box of produce from them weekly, but they also offer other grocery items which allows us to have access to random things (like chicken sausage for hot dogs) that are compliant with Anya's restricted diet.    "I want to cook my hot dog!"  (She'd live on these things if we let her!) This kid is full of stories and ideas  Ryker is learning the way!  "I'm gonna try this hill!"  I saw some fancy harnesses as a way to pull kids while hiking or skiing.....turns out a good ol' rope works just fine ;)

We had a perfect family outing.  Brett has really been wanting to camp, so on one of his last trips to help his buddy, Brent, get housing supplies he checked out the shelter cabin on the Kivalina trail and saw that we could do some cleaning up there.   "Dad, can you just put the camera away until we get there?" asks Oren. Thursday was just perfect.  Clear, sunny skies, a little breeze and just about 20 degrees.  We got all packed up and took off before lunch (that's a record for us!).  On the way we stopped and cut down a few trees so we could stock some wood at the shelter.  When we got there we had to shovel out the entry and inside the door to the cabin.  The boys had a blast picking up trash, stacking wood, and exploring around the cabin.  We cleaned up a few trash bags of garbage and organized the useful items.   After some lunch we headed out into the hills to find some caribou.  Ryker was keen on shooting one with "...

What we do adventuring. We like to go hiking, but we do not really get a chance to go.  We make a fire or hunt too.  Sometimes we snowshoe.  One time we saw a moose and a different time we saw a rabbit. We hike on our small trapping trail.  It is about one mile to the end.  Mom pulls Anya in the sled.  There are two traps on the trail.  I caught the first marten of the season in one of the traps.  We make a fire at the end. I took these pictures.  Ryker says, "I like to make a fire!" Ryker took these ones: Dad teaching mom what to do when the snow-go goes off the trail.

There was a sled dog race from Kotzebue to Noatak and back this past weekend. There were 5 mushers running for a $7,000 purse. I thought I should round up some dogs from Noatak and try to run for that kind of money. I passed on checking my traps to attempt to take photos of the race. I struggled mightily, but may have gotten a few decent photos. Mushers left Kotzebue at 10:00 am and the leader made it to Noatak at 5 pm and the last team got in at 6:45. There was a mandatory 6 hour rest before heading back to Kotz. That meant the first team out left at 11:00 pm and the last team left at almost 1:00 am. The boys have been following the Iditarod race throughout the week, so we were excited to watch the mushers come in. The problem was that we thought the first teams were going to get in around 3 pm. and went up to wait for them then. Anya and Ryker ran out of patience well before 5 so we went home and regrouped. Anya and Ryker stayed home to take a nap. Oren and I headed back up to wait...