Arctic Adventures

The (expletive) auger quit working Opening an old hole Brett's trusty ice scoop Lori (above) and Mark (below) had quite the set up.  They are also from the UP. Alision using one of Brett's handmade geppus. "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" Who needs chairs? As the guys fiddled with the auger, the girls took a break for some goodies. The girls- Lori, Kayla, Alision

We caught a lynx yesterday on our trap line. I was pretty pumped. Trapping totals: 12 fox, 1 lynx, and 1 weasel. Face Feet Grip and Grin Body Shot Tail

Kids say the funniest things: I teach PE for the whole elementary, and I had the 1st and 2nd graders on Tuesday. I was doing the butterfly stretch with them and one girl piped up, "Um... Ms Kayla I think you should be careful. You're going to rip your pants!" Kids in the same class always ask, "You still making baby?" "Yep." "Can I touch it?" hahaha at least they are starting to ask, I guess! The sixth graders often ask, "Why can't you make your baby here instead of Michigan?" A girl in my class was causing trouble all day. I took her aside and had a serious talk with her, as she walked back to her desk, she muttered, "Jeesh you're mean since you got pregnant!" On another note- We're definitely able to do a bit more exploring with our new snow machine. I took advantage of the beautiful, sunny evening and joined Brett to check his traps yesterday. Brett's new toy. P.S. Gas=$9/gallon Tall trees-looks ...

New, Teacher Housing Big Snowbank in Front of School This past weekend there were regional basketball games in Kotzebue. The 1A and 2A girls and boys games were there. In all there were 21 teams. They all stayed at the high school and middle school. Both of the Noatak teams had a chance to advance to the state tournament. Unfortunately for the girls only the first place team advanced to regionals. The Noatak girls made it to the championship game. They ended up losing to perennial powerhouse Pt. Hope. On the boys side both the first and second place teams advanced to state. The boys also made it too the championship game where the faced the 2-time state champion Pt. Hope Harpooners. They lost that game on Friday night and then on Saturday night they had to play the winner of the losers bracket to see who the second place team would be that advanced to the state tournament. The boys played Buckland a team that they must have played at least 6 times this year and beat them handily every...

These are some pictures of a house in town.  When school was cancelled on Wednesday, one of the local teachers called me and said she would have to wait to get dug out before coming up to the school.  Here's why: Their front door. A picture from outside their house The livingroom window! *photos taken from Velma's Facebook account :)  Thanks Velma!

Snow Inside our Bedroom Window I finally purchased up a sealskin and beaver hat that are common to the locals around here. I have wanted one for a while and then just the other day one of the ladies in the village was leaving our neighbors house and she asked me if I was interested in buying a hat. I asked what kind and then when I saw it I jumped at the chance. Sealskin and Beaver Hat I caught another fox in my traps yesterday. There were a lot of tracks around one of my sets that looked like they could be wolverine. Most of the tracks were hardly distinguishable because of the blowing snow but I could see some clearer tracks in the trees. They just circled around the trap that the fox was caught in. It must have investigated after the fox had been caught. I was supposed to go pick our snowmachine up from Kotzebue this weekend. One of the other teachers was traveling down so I was going to fly down and then follow him back by snowmachine. But after the storms and the warm up there is ...

We had our first official Snow Day of the year (and of my teaching career). The wind was whistling all night. Our window was shaking and when we woke up, there was a large pile of SNOW piled on the window sill, INSIDE our BEDROOM. Teachers could take the day off if we wanted to use a personal day, but some of us chose to brave the elements. Alision, Kyle, Brett and I set out at about 9:00, once there seemed to be some light in the sky. I wore my coat with the tunnel hood and goggles. The wind was crazy. At one point on our walk it was just white everywhere--we couldn't see anything around us. I was almost clausterphobic. The wind helped to edge us along, as it was at our back for most of the way. Every once in a while it would gust from our left and I had to focus to stay on my feet. I had a thought at one point that if I fell over, I wasn't quite sure how I would get up. Once we neared the school, we could make out the forms of the building and the school lights along with the...