Shishmaref

This week I spent 2 days in Shishmaref, the village I visited last November just before Thanksgiving. The purpose of my trip was essentially the same: to talk to local youth about Serpentine Hot Springs and get their perspectives on the area, but this time the experience was far more successful and fulfilling.

On my way there, I was once again the only one on the flight. There was a seat open in the back, but the rest of the plane was packed with cargo -- boxes of milk, orange juice, canned goods, and produce. The pilot asked if I wanted to ride copilot instead: Heck yes!! He even ran inside and got me a headset, and we spent the entire flight talking cameras and aviation. He was pretty excited I had a GoPro and a good Nikon.  

Trying out the GoPro

Off and away!

Off to Shishmaref for a couple days tomorrow! High of -5 for the week, lows in the -30s. Bring it on!

A day in a village

The sky is just beginning to get light as I walk into the terminal for Bering Air to check in for my morning flight to the village of Deering. I'm only going for the day, to help out a park ranger from the region and speak to the high school class, but as always, I'm prepared as best I can for the unexpected. My pack is stuffed with classroom materials, extra warm clothes, my camera, a few survival essentials, and a satellite phone for emergencies. It seems a strange combination of things to pack, but necessary, I suppose. 

It turns out I'm the only one on the flight besides the pilot, so we walk out together across the windy tarmac to the little 9-seater Navajo charter plane and I settle in for the 45 minute ride. 

Sunrise from the morning flight

Through the Lens: Winter

Cemetery

Boat frozen into the harbor

Frosty

More of the cemetery

Nome sweet home

Color in a white land

More frostiness

Ups and Downs

This has been a week of ups and downs in more ways than one. The day after my birthday was the worst. It started out quite well -- we spent the snowy day snowshoeing up King Mountain and sledding back down.  

I got the most epic GoPro shots yet, but alas, I will never see those shots. 

Mush!

Instead of watching the Superbowl on Sunday, I found myself at a dog sled race, driving a snowmachine. A friend from town was helping out with the Nome Kennel Club Dog Sled Race, and offered to let my roommate and I borrow his snowmachine to go out on the trail and take photos.

GoPro: Hiking to a Dredge

It's finally here: My GoPro HD Hero2! Took it out for a practice run yesterday to snowshoe to one of the gold dredges just outside of town. Took some getting used to, and I still need to work on stabilization and composing my shots better, but it's not too bad, all things considered. 

It was about -8 degrees when we left, but got increasingly windier as we got closer to the dredge and dropped to about -20 with windchill. I was feeling pretty close to mild hypothermia in the dredge so I stopped filming once I couldn't press the buttons on the camera anymore (we did make it to the top of the dredge though!). Managed to get a couple more shots on the way back through a ground blizzard, which looked pretty spectacular in the sunlight!