Fairbanks In-Service & Shopping

Yukon Flats School District throws a fall in-service each year in Fairbanks. The purpose, bring together all the teachers and aides from all seven schools in the district for professional development. The training ranged from integrating technology in the classroom hosted by Apple contract technicians to application of Reading Mastery mandated curriculum. There were also several roundtable discussion groups regarding curriculum and best practices used by the teachers at each school.

This was an extremely rewarding and productive week for me. Coming from five years in the military I know a little about how professional development should be executed. I saw the most productive and least productive "OPD's" during my Army career. This week I learned a lot about teaching Reading Mastery to my students, but learned even more just from conversation with other Language Arts & English teachers. This week has totally inspired me to try a couple new things in my classroom, particularly with my Writing Program.

The other great thing about our visit to Fairbanks was the opportunity to shop. Of course I spent way to much money on books, but that goes without saying... Actually, I bought so many books I will be sending another box to Arctic Village of "Media Mail"!

We also purchased our winter clothes. Despite living in Anchorage, AK the past 4 years, neither of us are prepared for the arctic temperatures we will face in our village. Winter temp's can shoot as low as -60 or -70 in Arctic Village. There are extended periods of -40 and -50 for weeks on end. Gretchen will be traveling to the North Slope, where wind chills get even colder than Arctic Village. I will be traveling to Fort Yukon periodically where temps can hit -75. Needless to say, it is necessary to travel in these temps, or at least be prepared to survive them. Typically schools close when the temps drop below -50. SO, we swung by Big Rays, the premiere outdoor clothing store in Fairbanks. The timing couldn't have been better, we hit the Fall 25% off Carhartt sale!

I purchased the Carhartt Extreme Arctic bib style coveralls. The are constructed with very durable cordura material on the outside with thick insulation on the inside. I will probably layer then with Patagonia capiliene longer underwear and Mountain Hardwear compressor pants when it gets really cold. The key to surviving up here is not buy the coldest jacket possible, but strategically layer with synthetic materials to survive harsh temperatures and wind chills.

My parka/jacket I have not ordered yet, but will be getting the Mountain Hardware absolute zero mountaineering jacket. This is the parka high elevation mountaineers carry up Denali and Everest. It also comes in a full one piece suit version. I tried on an XL at Beaver Sports in Fairbanks and loved it!

Gretchen found a mens Carhartt Extreme Arctic full one piece suit at the Big Ray's Outlet and Annex last time she was in Fairbanks. She's still shopping for her parka, but looking at either Canadian Goose or a Siberian Parka, both full hooded goose down jackets rated for very cold temps. Canadian Goose is the brand you see many Antarctica scientists wearing at the South Pole.

For footware Gretchen and I both have Sorel boots rated to -50. We purchased these a couple winters ago but only really used them for shoveling the driveway in Eagle River. I wore them on a couple cold days riding snowmachines in Willow and was very impressed. We're still in the market for another pair of cold weather boots, I'll probably get two sets of military surplus "bunny boots", as seen in the photo below. These are a favorite of dog sled mushers and hard working Alaskans in the winter. You can essentially get the boot soaking wet, take off your boot, pour out the water, put on dry socks, wipe the boot out, and you're good to go. Its completely rubberized and insulated. I used them for a couple winter airborne jumps while stationed at Fort Richardson. My coldest jump was -10 and they were great!

We also got to do a little school shopping. Wednesday night Gretchen, Arin, and I bought $800 worth of school supplies from Fred Myers. We drug four shopping carts worth across the store for three hours stocking up on materials to ship back to Arctic Village School.