Blizzards

The weather has been crazy! We’ve already had five blizzards, and it’s not even December yet. There are snow drifts that are ten feet tall, dispersed all through the village, and it’s quite an adventure to go anywhere. It’s like a big obstacle course, and you have no choice but to finish, because what else can you do? Even coming and going from the school is a workout - without walking a long distance to avoid snow drifts, we have to climb up a 10 foot tall drift, jump off of it to a 7 foot tall drift, walk around a series of smaller drifts, and finally jump off a 4 foot snow wall. This is how I get to and from work everyday. It sure beats driving a car! :) It’s rough, though, when you’re packing 5 gallons of water or toting a laundry bag. The weather has dropped down to -20 with wind chills of -40. That wind is deadly - it’ll get much colder, but these first few exposures are what toughens me up for the extremely deadly weather. When you’re in that kind of weather with no face mask, it’s just painful - the cold pierces you to the bone, your eyes constantly water then immediately freezes the water on your face, and you can barely open your mouth simply because your teeth ache so bad. The wind is capable of bypassing every layer you’re wearing, and the wind either pushes you to a jog when you’re walking with it, or it causes you to hunch over or crawl when walking against it, fighting with all your might just to take the next step. Yeah, it’s a crazy life out here, and I love every second of it! I love the adventure, the challenge, the agony, the uncertainty, the risks, the startling fact that we are 400 miles away from “normal” civilization.

Me and Audrey spent 2 hours in one of the blizzards, digging a tunnel through a particularly huge snow drift. It was pretty darn awesome! I crawled through it and it was great protection from the storm outside - Audrey had a snow cave as well, which was impressive! You could fit your whole body inside of it and still have room to roll around. We had our own little world there, a white out blizzard raging right in front of us, and there we were enjoying it from our snow world.

During another blizzard we decided to hike up to the airport - it started off good, but the weather got even nastier. You couldn’t see 20 feet in front of you, and there we were, away from the village, it getting dark and not having a clue where we were. I wasn’t worried because I’ve been in this situation more than a few times before - I came prepared this time, with the GPS, lights, survival necessities, etc. Mainly I was enjoying it - having to roll down hills because of deep snow, crawl up hills, and basically act like we were in boot camp. We made it home safely, completely plastered in snow, beaten by the wind, and thankful that we were finally safe. Audrey was a trooper for a first-timer! 

I’m excited to see what winter will look like - if we continue to have this same kind of weather, we will have to build steps DOWN to our front doors, like the Eskimos have had to do in the past. I can’t wait!

Beluga

About a week ago, a day after Brandi and Kevin’s family returned, an Eskimo came to our house and told me “Kevin wants you to go take pictures of him at the school!” Not having a clue what was going on or why, I recognized the urgency in his voice, so I grabbed my camera, threw on some slippers, and jogged over to the school. Before I reached it Kevin was outside shouting at me: “They got a whale! They got a whale! Go get pictures!” I understood.. Kevin had to work open gym and there’s usually a miscommunication when urgent matters arise between Eskimos and Gusuqs. So my heart started pounding and my head was going too fast for my comprehension – run home, get Audrey, get winter gear on, get knives, etc. I was planning it all out while I sprinted home, and consequently tripped over a hunk of ice and flew forward, losing my shoe in the process. I frantically got up, tried but failed to locate the lost shoe, and just abandoned the search, running home without it.

Here they come

“Someone caught a whale! They’re on the river bank somewhere!” The excitement on Audrey’s face was priceless – the Eskimos’ culture is intense stuff, but even she knew that this occurrence was pretty rare. I was so glad she got to witness it. We threw some warm clothes on, grabbed my adventure-ready backpack, and hurtled out the door and down the steps. Realizing we hadn’t a clue where the heck we were headed, we looked out at the river, only about 70 yards from the house, trying to find the commotion, but we didn’t see anything. “Lets split up – you go that way, I’ll go this way!” we started running off in separate directions, but before we get too far, I notice a man riding a 4-wheeler down toward the river, and I call out to him – “Are you going to see the whale?” He answers yes, so I call Audrey back, and ask the guy if he wouldn’t mind taking us with him. So we hop on the rear and take the bumpy ride down to the river and along its bank.

Beluga Whale = lots of food for the winter!

The whale wasn’t actually there yet, but a group of Eskimos were waiting for the little boat to get there. The scene was quite breathtaking – the huge sun was getting ready to set along the horizon, and just to the left of that, you could see the boat slowly coming up the river. I was surprised that little boat could pull a grown beluga. Thankfully the tide was low, so the men who helped pull the whale to land hopped off the eroded land down on the beach and started the process of tying rope to the whale, attaching it to 4-wheelers, and using their own strength to pull the beautifully white whale to land. As they stopped to periodically to figure out the best way of going about it, the spectators got a chance to get better acquainted with the creature. Me and Audrey ran our hands down the whale, amazed how Eskimos still live subsistence lifestyles and thankful that this whale would go to feed the whole village. We’ve tasted whale before, but what we really wanted was a few teeth from the creature. I was thinking about the shark tooth necklace I have, and how cool it would be to have a whale tooth necklace – where I actually pulled the teeth out of the whale’s head. That night the chance didn’t come up, but a few nights after that me and Audrey went out on a mission under cover of darkness to extract the teeth. It was a success! 

Seal, another popular Eskimo food

After several tries of pulling the whale up on the tundra, and after broken ropes and worn muscles, they finally were able to roll the whale up the land and begin the butchering process. The next day, the Yupik class at school went out and distributed the whale meat to all the houses in the village, pulling it in a sled they made by hand.

So what else has been going on? We had our first blizzard! It was almost a white out, with 55 mph winds and lasting all night. I took Audrey out to see if she could stand up in it, and we both could, but I love trying to get around in blizzards. She was happy about the deep snow, how you take a step and sink down to your knees. It makes me remember my giddiness 2 years ago, and now it’s all new again. She makes me smile. J I know how the crazy weather makes you feel crazy too, and all my close calls with dying returned when I saw Audrey run and dive in the snow, so when I had to go to work, my big sister protection duty sprouted up and I asked her not wander off too far. But we’ve sure had some fun in this really awesome winter wonderland!