1st Field Trip- Chaperone to the YFSD Voc Ed Gathering

Just like in the military, the new guy, or new teacher gets "volun-told" for all the extra taskings and last minute jobs that arise. This time I was asked to chaperone four students on a three day field trip to Fort Yukon for the yealy vocational education school orientation. Essentially its a day long conference with motivational speakers, sports, and introductory Voc Ed classes.
The first night kicked off with a little live music. One of my students from Arctic Village and his Grandfather on fiddle, along with two other teachers played some good old fashion fiddlin bluegrass for about 1 1/2 hours.

The students had a "call" and "jig" competition.
You would think middle and high school students would be to shy to line dance like this, but they had a good time.

Student Work: A Tri Color Piece

One of the courses I teach for middle schoolers is "Writing & Art". I decided to start my kids out creating a design with three basic colors. Using Red, Green, and Blue construction paper students had to create an abstract collage to decorate binders.
One student decided to modify his notebook cover. He also wanted to pose for the photo.



This was one of my favorites. I call it "Broccoli Man".

Stocking up for the Winter

Ever wonder what $120 worth of firewood looks like? A cord of wood in fairbanks costs $185. For perspective, a cord is approximately 4ft high, 4ft deep, and 8ft long. I paid $60 for a 4wheeler cart full of wood.

Upon delivery I noticed the wood looked freshly cut. The villager explained they usually cut down the trees during breakup, around April. The wood seasons on the ground until fall when it is cut to burn and heat our home.

Health Class - Dissecting a Heart

During health class yesterday afternoon, Linda, the special education teacher, and I dissected Caribou hearts with the kids!

It was definitely a neat experience for us as well as the kids. We had talked about the human heart and labeled the parts on a picture, but to hold a caribou heart and actually cut into it to see what an aorta looks like and what a chamber looks like is really cool!

A caribou heart is a lot larger than a human heart, but has pretty similar anatomy.

It isn’t everywhere that you could send a kid home with a homework assignment of bringing in an animal heart and he shows up for school with one in a ziplock bag. His cousin just shot that caribou the day before!

In most groups of kids there would at least be one who is squeamish or grossed out by dissection, but not here! They all were so comfortable with cutting caribou. It was only me, the city girl, that thought it was a novel thing to do!

The kids thought it was really funny to try and convince me that they would eat the raw heart. They do really eat heart, but they cook it first.

Dinner is served!

~Gretchen

The Substitute Teacher

For the past two days Sam has been in Fort Yukon chaperoning four students on field trip with the district’s vocational education program. While he is gone, I get to be his sub! Although I have worked in schools for the past few years as an OT, I have never actually subbed in a classroom. It has been an eye-opening experience to do Sam’s job for the past two days!

Have you ever done your spouse’s job for a day? Even though you can talk about your day with your spouse and feel like you know what is going on in their work life, it is a whole different experience to actually do their job for a day!

You may be wondering, how did I end up getting volunteered/asked to sub? Well, in a small village such as Arctic there aren’t many people willing, able, or qualified to substitute teach. So I said I would give it a try. I already knew most of the students, how hard could it be?

Sam left me clear directions and detailed lesson plans, but nothing could prepare me for the challenges of instructing a classroom in which you have multiple grade levels, ability levels and a wide variety of attention spans. Not to mention the fact that I had the same group of students all morning and was supposed to cover content for three different subjects! I felt like a Ring Master trying to put on the whole circus all by myself. One moment I was the lion tamer and then the next I was the lady in sequins riding on the back of the elephant, meanwhile I was also supposed to be swinging from the trapeze! How does Sam do this every day? It is not like a big school where the teacher may get a few minutes to set up materials between classes or can teach the whole class the same lesson. I recently read the book “The Kids from Nowhere” and now I really understand some of what that teacher describes from his experiences teaching in rural Alaska.

I found in the midst of it all, the most important thing was to take a breath and try to spend a few minutes connecting with each student. The biggest hurdle was not what I was teaching, but helping the kids to see themselves as capable of learning it and motivating them to do so! It was also very important to go do some laundry for the kid who went fishing last night and smelled so bad of fish guts that the other kids would not sit next to him!

After my first day of subbing I was exhausted, but I stayed after school to work on a personal project, sewing curtains for our cabin. We have been doing a little cabin makeover; personalizing our cabin and making the most of the small space. Two of the middle school girls were very interested in what I was doing and hung-out after school to watch.

When I offered to let them do the sewing they were so excited! They had never used a sewing machine before and thought it was really fun. We were there for at least three hours pinning fabric, sewing, ironing it and sewing some more.

Maybe it was actually the best class I taught all day! Later that night, I hung the curtains in my cabin and beamed with pride. Those curtains mean the world to me because of the time I shared with those girls while they helped me make them!

Fall in Arctic Village

It was another beautiful Fall evening in Arctic Village. Last night was our first heavy frost. Temperatures dropped to about 35 over night, rising to around 55 during the day. Yesterday afternoon rain storms rolled through, dropping termination dust (light snow) on some of the surrounding peaks and meadows. It generated a lot of excitement around school, unfortunately I didn't have my camera ready.

The peak on the right is Nichenthraw Mountain (6458ft) and Yasuda Mountain on the left. Due North of the Village.

Fishing boat parked along the Chandalar River.

Caribou Curry

I call this, "Caribou Curry".

Surprise Field Trip

They say teachers make 200 decisions a day, that seems about right. After 5 years in the military i'm a bit used to making instant sound decisions. You never know who is going to show up in Arctic Village. Yesterday three individuals arrived at the school requesting help for a project to monitor permafrost. One of the girls was from the US Geological Survey based out of Boulder, CO. She was actually an anthropologist working for USGS with a team of two other scientists. The scientists worked for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council based in Anchorage, AK. This agency has many facets, but were brought here to monitor permafrost throughout the Yukon River watershed. Arctic Village is on the shores of the Chandalar River which feeds into the Yukon River.

Two of my High School students wait for instruction on how to use the permafrost probe. We discovered about 1/4 mile from the school the permafrost layer started about 100cm from the surface.
Another student probes along the grid for permafrost.
The shallowest point to the surface was about 60cm, other spots were deeper than the probe at 120cm.
The anthropologist shows a student how to use a GPS. Two more watch in the background. You might ask why is an anthropologist part of the survey team. She communicates with the indigenous people their observations of climatic change and permafrost The sensors buried in the ground only provide so much data, the people that have lived on this land for generations know so much more.

There will be 20 permafrost data collecting stations located along the Yukon River watershed.

Views From the Sky

The colors and diversity of terrain when flying across the arctic is amazing!

Mountains and lakes as far as the eye can see.

The mighty Yukon River.

It was a full flight out of Arctic Village and we stopped in Venetie and Fort Yukon before landing in Fairbanks.

My view from the co-pilot's seat.

Rev. Trimble Gilbert preached this morning about the first being last and the last being first. He talked about the story in the Bible where Jesus tells the disciples to take the most humble seat at a wedding and then wait to be asked to a better seat. Never assume that you deserve a seat of honor. Trimble used the local example of when we are boarding the airplane to wait and let others get the good seats to make sure everyone has a place. I thought about this today and just stood off to the side as people were boarding. Then the pilot asked me to sit co-pilot! It was great because it was a full flight and I was not crammed in the back like a sardine!

I enjoy watching all of the equipment as we fly. I am learning how to read a lot of the dials so that I can tell how fast we are flying, what altitude we are flying at and how much longer until we reach our destination. The screen in the center is a Garmin GPS and often shows maps tracking our progress as well as other information.

Meal Time!

The other morning Sam cooked up a delicious breakfast of cheese omelets with sauteed tomatoes and caribou fry meat. We got to take home some leftover caribou meat from one of the community dinners and we have been eating caribou with everything!

Eventually your digestive track just needs a break from meat. So Sam made one of our favorites Tom Yum Khaa (Thai Soup) bush style. We didn't have lemongrass or lime kaphir leaves so he substituted some lemon and lime juices and it was still very delicious!

Tofu, shitake mushrooms, peppers, broth, veggies (we used peas) and coconut milk - this Thai soup is supposed to cure all that ails you! It is one of our favorites!

Jack wonders when he'll get his dinner!

Arctic Village Airport

Gretchen waits for her flight to Fairbanks at the beautiful Arctic Village Visitor Center.  Kind of a joke, I've never actually seen this building open.  Peeking in the window, I saw several posters with information on the Wildlife Refuge.  

This is the power generator building for the village.  Periodically a large cargo style fuel plane will land and refuel the tanks.  I don't know how much fuel they have on site, nor how often they have to refill.  Transmission lines run from the airfield generator into town, then branch from there.  The generator supplies all the power for the village, but the school has backup generators for when the main one goes down. Some people run Solar Power for tertiary components on their houses.
This is a Cessna Grand Caravan flown by Wright Air Service. These are the most commonly used passenger planes flown into Arctic Village. Sometimes you'll see a Navajo, but Grand Caravan's work better in the cold. They also carry more cargo in the underbelly.

Gretchen waits to board from the rear of the aircraft.
The usual mob swarms the airplane to load/unload baggage, cargo, and passengers.
A local student plays with pup Eva (this is the pregnant dog who came to church this morning and fell asleep under the pew!)
This kiosk was built in conjunction with the village and the refuge for travelers coming and going. The summer months bring an influx of hikers to this region either starting or finishing in Arctic Village after traveling the Brooks Range and surrounding rivers.
A local student plays on the "tail-stand" of the plane.
Gretchen got the best seat in the house!
Panoramic looking North from the airfield. Chandalar River running through the center.
Fall colors have arrived in full force, turning the trees and shrubs yellow, orange, and red.