Saturday, March 28
Heather (another intern friend) and I made it out of Anchorage this afternoon despite our original flight's cancellation due to ashfall. It was a quick and beautiful ride to Bethel, but upon our arrival in Bethel, we realized that Heather's main bag (indoor clothing, oudoor clothing, food, toiletries, everything) didn't make it. The flights had been so backed up prior to our flight that several items didn't make it onto the plane, including Heather's bag. We had no choice but to leave it behind, however, and move on to Toskook Bay and wait for its arrival there.
The flight to Toksook was much better than last time, not windy at all but just very white. It was hard to see any contrast in the snow-covered land and water below. We arrived at Toksook Bay's "airport" at about 5:00 and were greeted by the school's do-it-all man, Bill. we loaded our bags and Heather onto the sled, I jumped on the snowmachine with him, and then we cruised up to the school. We crossed a river at one point, though the only way we could tell was the group of boats almost completely covered in snow that we drove by.
My first impression of the village was that it is just so white! I'd seen pitures, so I knew about how many houses there would be and what the school would look like, but I was very surprised by the amount of snow and just the complete whiteness that surrounded everything and almost blinded me as I looked around.
Bill introduced us to the principal, who promptly showed us around the building and to our sleeping quarters, a long and narrow storage closet/attic adjacent to the health/weight training/Spanish classroom. We at least both have a matress and a little area to ourselves, so we're alright with it.
Heather and I took a tour of the town after we settled in a little bit, and got to see some really interesting stuff. Many houses had muskox remains of some sort sitting on their roof, and there was a recently-hunted fox hanging around outside too. There are a ton of dogs in the village, few of which are well cared for, and many of which like to rest on the snowmachines and fourwheelers that are all over the place.
We visited one of the two village stores, this one called the N.Y.O. Store, just to experience it. I'm not really sure how people afford to live out here- food and other goods are just so expensive. We passed the town's chuch, which is very pretty, and the post office, which is just tiny. The weather wasn't bad at all, probably in the 20s and just a little breezy. This village is often breezy, since it's located on an island in a bay. In order to make the most of this natural resource, Toksook Bay is partially powered by its three wind turbines. Very cool.
Back at the school, we kept ourselves busy for the night with a lot of schoolwork and chatting with the school's other current resident, an English teacher named Maria. It's been very interesting to get to know her and hear her point of view on bush life.
...and many snowmachines and four-wheelers, the only motorized mode of transportation around.
