Back to School in Yukon Flats

I went out to Arctic Village and Venetie this week.  It was a little too soon for someone to be arriving but I made myself useful hauling stuff away from rooms and running off and laminating math games on the copy machine and laminator.

In Arctic Village, the locals are in the throes of late summer subsistence activities.  One woman was carrying a bread bag full of huge blueberries that only took her an hour to pick.  Apparently the rain really made for good picking.  The Chandalar River is roaring high with bushes underwater, but it crested while I was there and was slowly going down.  Adrian says that fishing stinks when its flood level.  He also says that salmon rarely come up that far from the Yukon.  Mostly grayling and pike....but occasionally a King Salmon makes it up by mistake.

Boats are floating from their mooring in the high water of the Chandalar.

Guys are going by 4-wheeler up to the lake where the caribou have moved in.  When our plane took off, a caribou ran across the end of the airstrip and the locals on board wanted the pilot to radio their families. One guy bragged that he killed 12.  Cutting it all up to smoke, dry, freeze, share is a major chore.

The new school is really nice and clean- large rooms with big windows.  Students shower at school since none of the houses have running water.  In the library, where I slept on a folding cot and blow up mattress, there was a row of fiddles and guitars. 

The teachers were just arriving.  There will be 3 this year for about 35 kids, grades K-4, 5-7 and 8-12.  Two of the teachers are new and one was there last year.  On Tuesday, one of the new teacher's dogs was shot dead.  He had only just arrived.  Someone said he should have tied it up.  Really?  I saw dozens of dogs loose.  What a dismal welcome! 

I flew into Venetie where I spent 2.5 busy days working in the school. I shopped at the store for Hawaiian Punch to augment the filtered water I brought.  Faye brought me dinner so I didn't have to eat my microwaved "puppy chow".  I walked up to the airstrip with two of the teachers on a beautiful evening...warm (65 degrees) and sun shining.  Five teachers will work there with the 55 students (K-1, 2-3, 4-5 and two teachers for grades 6-12).

Both of these villages are related.  They are also on the same contiguous ANCSA piece of land abutting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Adrian told me it was a reservation.  Others say they are in Indian Country, but the Supreme Court says no...they are on their own private land, but they don't have sovereignty.  Don't tell anyone there that.

This should be an interesting year of work in Yukon Flats and also Lower Yukon School Districts.  When I am in the schools, I feel the same sense of excitement and purpose that I did when I taught, but I also feel the overwhelming amount of work needed that helps me stay retired.

What does "fuke" spell?