Happy Graduation Shaktoolik High Schoolers!

We had our graduation this Friday for our 3 graduating seniors this year. Unfortunately, 33% percent of the graduating class couldn't attend because they had gotten in snowmachine accidents and had to have surgery in Anchorage (he's okay, but a cardboard cut-out had to take his place at the ceremony). In a graduation this small, the slideshow is about each person and every graduate has to do a speech.



Kelly, Jake, and I were dressed to the nines. I had to suppress the urge to ride a bicycle and discuss the bible.



After the graduation ceremony we headed over to the "annex," the building for all celebrations in the village. I was totally in my element-phooseball, air hockey, and ping pong. Oh how sweet it was.





In other news, 9 days left until I go home! The count-down has officially begun (well we are in the top 10 days now).

My Own Deadliest Catch

The goal of this weekend was to bring home a mega-load of crab for my family, so I enlisted Calvin for help. The first thing we needed to do was go get some fresh crab bait, which is either trout or whitefish up the Shaktoolik river. It was nice and "hot" today, about 35 degrees, so Calvin had to check the river to make sure we didn't fall in. I kept imaginiing Calvin breaking through and getting swept away, but he was okay.



And then, err, we broke through about a mile more upstream. We managed to pull the sled out and make it past the thin part, but riding in a sled right next to the open water of a questionably deep river still makes me nervous.



After a quick hour of ice-fishing, the bait was caught and we headed off to Cape Denbigh. Crabbing was so much more pleasurable this time around! When Silas took me crabbing it was dark, 0 degrees and we caught 1 crab all night. That and the sled ride was so bumpy that my jacket has sled marks in the back of it. This time the ride was smooth, and it was sunny and windless at the cape. I even got a little nose sunburn! The open water was right there at the edge of the ice:



But wait, doesn't that ice break off and float away? Haha, yes it does, that's why you have to be careful. People have stories of the time they lost their crab lines because the ice broke off and floated away, or whole crab pots even. There wasn't a "North Wind" blowing though, so the chances of a chunk breaking away were relatively low. After all of our hard work handlining (see previous crabbing post), we raked in 13 crabs! I had to hold two on the sled ride home because the cooler was overflowing. Calvin is standing proud with our catch:



I thought it was pretty interesting how the locals load/unload their boats from the water too. I took another video for you, which is almost like a 360 degree picture. I should have done more of these throughout the year...


We got back home after a long day at 1 am. It was just about dark. After taking my share of the crabs and buying a few off of Calvin, I had 7 crabs to process. I got to sleep at 4:45 am this morning, just as the light started to come back. I can see why king crab costs 20 dollars a pound. Fun times!

Break-up! Sort of...

If anyone is wondering why I haven't been posting for a while.....well that's because nothing terribly interesting has happened. Until now...



So "break-up", the fabled breaking of the river ice from winter's deathly grip, happened during the past week. The ocean is still frozen solid, but the Tagoominick River behind Shaktoolik showed some major flowing yesterday. It was actually below freezing, but the sun has finally got enough power to melt through the ice anyways. I felt inspired to take a video, and yes, it's usually this windy:



Cyrus, a student out walking with me, is taking a video too!

Flowing water is a beautiful sound. Cyrus and I were so elated that we even took a trip down to the dump! And check it out-seagulls! They only show up when spring is truly around the corner.



We both found old foam hockey sticks in the discarded waste, and after a few jousts among the filthy garbage I was quick to declare Cyrus the winner and "Lord of the Dump," a title of which he is very proud.



I had to stop and think for a second, "Wait, I am really having a foam hockey-stick duel with an eskimo student at the dump in the Alaskan tundra?" Then I realized that just a few days before, I had been sprinting down main street in 15 degree weather, a mayo jar in one hand and tortilla shells in the other (we were making crab-herb fajitas) of this same remote village. Everything seems really normal until you try and explain it to somebody else...

Oh well, I'm just glad to see the road! It turns out there was earth underneath all of that snow and ice!