Allons-y! A Summer in Review

It is with mixed emotions that I am here to report that I now know where I'm going. For the short term, anyway. After much hemming and hawing and budgeting on scrap pieces of paper, I bought myself a ticket back to Florida until the end of October. It turned out to be about $500 cheaper than my other travel schemes, and I need to see my family anyway. From there, the plan is to head to Spokane, WA, to seek out a new life, yet again. 

Adventures at the Top of the World

A steady snowfall of big, fat clumps of flakes descends from the gray, mid-afternoon sky, mixed with cold rain, and illuminated by an industrial floodlight on an adjacent building. The ground is muddy with puddles the size of small ponds outside. A faint aroma of gasoline and burning fuel wafts in through the slightly opened window pane, an ironic contrast to the soft touch of the Arctic ice crystals floating down from the heavens.

I am in Deadhorse, AK, sitting in a shipping container-turned-bedroom at an oil company work camp. I came here originally to visit someone for a few days, but that stay has turned into over a week, thanks to my flight getting canceled for foggy weather. I don't mind too much. It's been an interesting soul searching sort of experience here at the top of the world, I suppose.

Deadhorse: almost as far north as you can get in AK

A taste of culture

First, I want to share the video I made from the footage on my lost GoPro. It's basically a shortened version of everything I said in my last post. Enjoy!

In other news, yesterday I got to go shoot photography for a local cultural fall festival in the community. Almost as soon as I walked in, I was handed an Eskimo yo-yo made out of duct tape that said "I ♥ bacon" on it (SO random, right??). The woman tried to show me how to do it, but I was pretty hopeless at first. 

Paying it Forward, GoPro Style

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I was casually perusing the community Facebook group, Nome Post, to see what sort of things were going on. Something caught my eye:

My father-in-law found a GoPro Hero 2 camera on Dexter Creek (behind Anvil Mtn.) with winter outdoor footage from January of 2011. If it's yours or you know whose it is, post or call [Name and number]. We hope to reunite it with its owner! Thanks!

My heart stopped. Could it be? I had a flashback to this past winter when I devastatingly lost my GoPro Hero2 while snowshoeing in that same area. I had felt horrible about it for days, having saved up for months and had just bought it for myself. 

Pilgrim Hot Springs

Only in Nome, AK, does it make sense to drive 2 and a 1/2 hours north at 6 o'clock at night after work on a week night to visit a hot spring that you were told not to go to.

Well, on that flawless logic, that's exactly what I did with a group of friends. 

Grand Central Camping

Two weekends ago (already!), I went on my first camping trip of the summer. I guess this kind of surprised me because last summer was FULL of camping in the backcountry, sometimes several times a month. This year hasn't been quite as exciting in that regard, so after work on Saturday my coworkers and a friend from town headed about 50 miles up the road into the mountains for a night under the stars.

Village of White Mountain

Tuesday morning I found myself seated in the front of a bush plane, cruising due east under a high cloud ceiling, my flat hat sitting primly on my lap. I watched the landscape under me morph from light rolling tundra to the hunter green of dense coniferous forests. I was headed to the Native Village of White Mountain to give a Junior Ranger program to the local youth.

First forest I've seen in months!

We landed on a dirt airstrip at the top of a hill overlooking the gorgeous, colorful village. An older man in a rickety red pickup truck with mosquito screens for windows picked us up and somehow all 5 of us from the flight crowded into the cab.

One man who had come in on our flight asked the pressing question: "So where IS the 'White Mountain'?" The driver laughed. "It's not actually a mountain. It's that dirt hill over there. It reflects white when the sun hits it the right way. That's how the village got it's name." In fact, the dirt hill to which he was referring was even smaller than the hill with the landing strip, and looked about as mundane as you can get. He dropped us off at the Tribal Hall, where we were to give our program.

As it turned out, the village had no received our advertisements in time, and so word had not been spread that we were coming. Everyone was very friendly though, and began calling whoever they knew with kids and telling them to come to the Tribal Hall. Although we planned to start at 1:30pm, we were told that most kids would still be sleeping (Alaskan children have strange sleep schedules in the summer).

Nonetheless, eventually a few children filtered in, just 9 in all -- much fewer than the usual 30-45 we get for village programs.

Our topic for the day was the Ice Age, a program we've been developing over the last few weeks among our staff. It's a huge challenge to teach a topic like that to children ranging in age from 3-15, most of whom have never even heard of it, or have the same concept of time and history as they might have been taught in the lower-48.

We focused on Ice Age wildlife though, and after some indoor activities, we came outside into the mosquito-laden sunlight for some active outdoor games.

Playing Ice Age twister in the schoolyard

Making fossil crafts

Overall the program went well and the kids seemed to enjoy it, despite having such a small crowd. It was interesting talking to some of them and seeing what a strong influence the Fish River has on their lives. In the summer, they spend all their time with their families out fishing, hunting, or swimming. There looked to be more boats than 4-wheelers, and pretty much no cars at all in the village.

Afterwards, we had about an hour to kill before our plane arrived again, so we took the time to explore the forested village.

Tribal hall

View of town from Tribal Hall, and the Fish River

Main street through town

The Fish River

Inside the Native Store (the only store in town)

Dilapidated building

Cute little church

Fish drying

I found White Mountain to be at least as friendly as Shishmaref. Everyone seemed so happy and welcoming (perhaps also because they might have thought we were State Troopers or cops, as many people do!).

View from top of White Mountain

We found our way to the village's namesake and climbed up. I could clearly see why the town was named for it -- not only did it have abundant white rocks, but you could see all of the land for miles around from its low peak.

View from opposite direction of the village

Yours truly, on top of White Mountain

I don't like to pick favorites, but I have to say that White Mountain definitely won me over. Maybe I'm just tree-deprived, or was swayed by the warm sunlight that we've been lacking in Nome, but this village left a lasting impression on me. It felt like more like the imagined "Alaska" that everyone thinks of when they conceptualize the rural parts of the state, so it was fascinating to see and experience.

Reflections on Being a Park Ranger

I haven't talked much about my actual job on this blog, so I figured I would take some time today to do just that. But where to begin?

Well, as a uniformed interpretive ranger, essentially my job is to be the public face of the National Park Service, your friendly local ranger here to teach you about your natural and cultural resources. Beyond that, I am also a civil servant; this fact really hit home last week when my supervisor read us a thank-you letter from someone who wrote in, thanking us "for serving our country." This isn't to say that as park rangers we serve in the same way as the military, but I felt so humbled to be recognized for serving my country in a way that I'm proud of, and that is not always seen for what it is.

A Whale of a Time

It started with a report on the local radio station: "Whales sighted just offshore, east beach."

"Wanna go look for whales??" My supervisor asked, as she came out of her office, pulling on a jacket and grabbing the car keys. 

"Chyeah!"

Half of Nome turned out to watch

Catching up

So much catching up to do! My failure to keep this blog update is not for lack of trying. In fact, I have tried nearly half a dozen times, gotten entire posts written and pictures uploaded, only to have the internet crash and all my work swept away into the abyss of cyberspace. This time it seems to be working though, so here we go again!

Midnight Sun Parade

Work and Play

First order of business: I'm now officially a park ranger. Uniform arrived yesterday in all its oddly-proportioned glory. Apparently female park rangers are expected to have ginormous butts and 3-inch waists, according to the size trousers I received, but alas, it'll have to work over the summer. Go ahead, have your laughs. :)

Fellow park ranger and I, ready to serve America

Bipolar weather and end of training

I've been trying to update this blog for about 3 days now, but the internet is so slow it keeps failing to save or post. So here we go again -- fingers crossed. 

Looks almost like a painting!

Springtime in Northwest Alaska

This week has kept me busy with training at work, but on Thursday we got to get out on the road system for a little excursion and to deliver a 55 gallon barrel of aviation fuel to the airstrip at the end. It was cold and foggy in town, but as soon as we crossed over the mountains, it was beautiful and sunny, although the spring landscape remains pretty brown.

Coming down out of the mountains

My first few days

Somehow, although totally sleep deprived, I managed to go on a hike up Anvil Mountain on Saturday after I arrived in Nome. Around 8pm a bunch of us piled in a friend's truck and drove up to the local peak so we could all catch up again and enjoy the late night sun shining high in the sky.

GoProing in the truck bed

Begin Chapter Two

The view out my window, winter and today

After 23 hour of flights, a couple hours of sleep, and one lost bag (yet to be found -- I may be wearing this same shirt for a while..), I've made it to Nome for a second summer of arctic adventure. It's a perfect day, 55 degrees, dry and sunny. Way better than when I got here last year in mid-June when it was 40 degrees and rained for a week straight.

Second chances and new ambitions

Drawn with SketchBookX app

When I went to Alaska for the first time last year, I had a few simple goals:

• Don't die
• Try sledding, mushing, and snowshoeing
• Play in the snow (a lot!)
• See whales, grizzlies, and moose
• Learn basic survival skills

And a few others of the like. 

Going back again this year, I've been trying to think of ways I can take advantage of this second chance and make the experience "new" again in as many ways as possible. In light of that, I've come up with some new goals based on what I did and learned last year, knowing what I know now.

Goals for summer 2013 (depending on opportunities):

• Don't die (again)
• Jump into the Bering Sea
• Volunteer at the community garden
• Get my fishing license
• Go to Pilgrim Hot Springs
• Camp out on the tundra (outside of work)
• Go Geocaching
• Work out regularly
• Go rock climbing 
• Go on a midnight hike (it'll be broad daylight for a couple months)
• Do more night photography (when it starts getting dark again)
• Cook one new recipe every week

It's not a full list yet, so I'm open to suggestions. What else should I do this summer in Nome? Throw me your ideas.

First Law of Alaska Dynamics...

You may or may not be familiar with it. The First Law of Alaska Dynamics: The closer you get to the middle of nowhere, the smaller your planes get. 

Case in point:

Make Space for Dreams

"Dreams take up a lot of space?"

"All you'll give them." 

- From Blue Highways, by William Least Heat Moon

Rather than being the clarifying experience I hoped it would be, in many ways my 9 months in northwest Alaska left me feeling more lost than ever. Books like Into the Wild and even Blue Highways, which I just started reading, aggrandize the enlightening qualities of such solo pilgrimages into the unknown, but in all reality it takes more than just having the experience to learn its lessons. It's a cumulative process, a continually growing path built from the bricks of reflection, perspective, challenge, and constant questioning.

Alaska video montage

I've only been home a week and a half, but already Alaska seems almost as distant in memory as it is in miles. I'll be totally honest, as great as it was to experience a "real" Alaska winter in one of the harshest environments on earth, it feels damn good to be able to just walk out my door barefoot now that I'm back in Florida. No more spending 10 minutes to put on enough layers to step outside. I've even started to get a tan again (currently in the form of sunburn, but hey).

It wasn't quite as hard to adjust to living in "civilization" again as I thought it would be. It's nice to see affordable prices in the stores once more, and have more choices in products. The harder part has been getting used to living at home after being on my own for so long. I miss that freedom already, but I keep telling myself it's only temporary. Because I know it is. Hopefully within the next month I'll be on my way to a new job, whatever it may be (fingers crossed that it will be in Alaska again).

I hate this period of limbo where I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. But in between job-searching and car-searching and freaking out about the future, I've managed to finish putting together my video montages of all 9 months in Alaska. Just watching them over again gives me the travel bug, so maybe it'll inspire you to get out on your own adventures as well. :)  Enjoy.

Through the Lens: Northern Lights

As if by magic, during my last weekend in Nome, the northern lights put on the most spectacular display I've seen to date. 

I was sound asleep late at night, but my roommate had been downtown watching one of the Iditarod mushers come in, when she noticed a smudge of green across the sky. I was awoken by her text, and immediately jumped out of bed to check the window. Sure enough, a ribbon of light was pulsing through the heavens above. I don't think I've ever gotten dressed and set up the camera so fast in my life!

Beam us up, Scotty!

Through the Lens: Iditarod

After over 9 months in Northwest Alaska, I have finally returned to the lower-48 and the warm, sunny state of Florida. Over the next few days, I'll try to finish posting photos and reflections from my last couple weeks in Nome, starting with the best of my Iditarod pics.

The crowd awaits the first musher, late Tuesday night

Winning musher Mitch Seavey arrives around 10:30pm

Aliy Zirkle arrives in 2nd place around 11pm 

The media mobs Mitch Seavey at the finish line

Jeff King arrives in 3rd place

Mitch Seavey and Aliy Zirkle less than an hour after arrival

One of the sled dogs

Martin Buser passing in front of my office building

Brent Sass looking epic

Jim Lanier's dogs need a little guidance getting to the finish ;)

John Baker heads down the home stretch

Lance Mackey looking exhausted

Dog close-ups

Final musher Christine Roalofs jogs out from the finish with her dogs

Shaking off some snow

Mush!

As you can imagine, it's been an absolutely insane week and I have so many stories and pictures to share but still no time! Iditarod week was a blast and ended with the most spectacular northern lights I've seen to date.  This week I have a ton of wrap-up work to do, plus I have to pack up my life again (it's amazing how settled-in one becomes in 9 months), and start heading home. 

I will try to post pictures later this week, but for now enjoy the GoPro video I took on my dog sledding trip this weekend. So much fun, and super glad I got to give it a go while I'm up here! 

Playing tourist

Iditarod Week in Nome kicked off today with the moving of the Burled Arch to Front Street, and a snow sculpting contest in the town square. Beautiful weather today too made for a good day to play tourist and take some photos around town. Enjoy!

Angry Bird sculpture won 3rd place

Pineapple sculptors

Everyone hard at work

Awesome muskox sculpture 

The Burled Arch is in place!

Hard to believe this street is going to be packed in a couple days

The winning sculpture

Lounging in the snofa

Pretty icicles in the sunlight

Scary icicles on our roof