Esther went Manuqing!

Now she's done things that her mom has never even done! For some reason, I have never gotten out ice fishing. I think it's just that this time of year is always so busy with the end of school that I just never get out there. But Tuluk took Esther out while I was in school and Iris was with a family friend -- and she caught over 20 smelt (which, those of you who smelt-fished on Lake Michigan when we were kids, those smelt have nothing on these! These smelt are nice-sized fish). And they taste so rich! Iris loved her first smelt, opening her mouth wide for more. :)

Here are some pictures of my lil' Yup'ik girl on the ice:

Wild Spring Snow

The snow this year is pretty wild. Although I am a bit bummed that, by April 12, it hasn't really started to melt yet (meaning it will be here at least as long as it was last spring, end of May), it is pretty cool to walk around and see how deep the snow is. So here it is... aka How deep is the snow? Let me count the ways:

#1: It is deep enough that this house, on the old side of town, is completely buried. The residents have dug a stairwell down into the snow, then a tunnel, to reach the doorway.And from the inside out:

#2: It is possible to stand on a roof next to a chimney without ever walking UP a drift -- just walking ground(ha)-level:

#3: Esther can even dunk!

#4: Esther can climb to the top of the monkey bars without help:

#5: We had to revise the fire escape plan for the classrooms that are supposed to go out the school's back steps:

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of my Easter Belles:("Mom, do I really have to wear the hat?")

And also of the girls finding their baskets and eggs that the Easter Bunny hid in our living room:Crawling to find eggs:Yeeppp -- Straight into the mouth! Eeesh.

Upside-Down Cleaner Funny Bones

Well, I was voting for "Hector", but I have to admit that it is the cutest kid name ever for:
A miraculous caterpillar who dropped out of the ONLY bunch of incredibly random bok choy (I think...?) I have ever seen in our local store, the AC. Living in rural Alaska means that previously mundane occurances turn into miracles, yes...If I had tried to get a caterpillar out here by mail or even carrying it when I flew out here, it would never have worked. But the universe dropped it in our laps -- awesome.

I was estatic seeing the choy in the store, thinking it might have been chard or leeks (in fact I'm still not completely positive what green it is) during this season when, although we have vegetables and fruit in frozen and in dehydrated form, we always crave, I mean salivatingly crave, fresh things that crunch when we chew them.

I have this bad habit of hoarding when I have something really good -- I'm not "being stingy of it"(as Hooper Bayers would say), but I'm saving it for something REALLY GOOD. I don't want to waste them on frivilous ideas or a bad recipe. I also don't want to cook them on a busy night, if I don't have enough time to savor them. SO the chard sat in my fridge for nearly a week before I remembered the sauteed greens with garlic, raisins, and pine nuts recipe that I REALLY wanted.

When I took the choy out of the produce bag, the caterpillar plopped out -- I thought for sure it was dead. I mean, who knows where that bok choy came from, and how many planes it was on before it got to Anchorage, then a plane to Bethel, then a plane to Hooper -- and then how long in the store, and nearly a week in my fridge? But Esther said, after I'd put it in the sink: "Mom, look, it's drinking!" And it was kind of sucking up water, or whatever caterpillars do. I had moment when I thought we should get rid of it, like why would we want a bug in the house? But then I stopped short -- What on Earth was I thinking? We had a great opportunity to watch a bug! A rarity!
And Esther has been wild about the thing. She gave it the cutest name ever, and she keeps checking on it, making statements about how it must think or feel, decorating its jar, etc. We have talked about how it has had a rough life, so we have to be prepared that it might not make it, but that maybe it will, and maybe it will spin a cocoon and turn into something entirely different. I am actually very trepidatious about what it will turn into -- will I introduce a whole new interloping bug species to Hooper Bay that will become invasive and ruin the ecosystem? Any ideas on what I should do if it survives its metamorphasis?

And searches on caterpillar websites come up fruitless -- I can't figure out what kind of caterpillar it is, so I can't figure out what it will turn into -- moth? beetle? butterfly? Anybody recognize it? It seems happy eating romaine lettuce as well.

But, in general, these kinds of things are too few and far between up here. Fitting that it should happen around Easter. And it was just plain sweet to hear Esther's good night to the bug when I put her to bed last night: "You are our friend, and we used teamwork to keep you, and good night." Awwww.

Mt Redoubt, Hear ME Roar...

So Mount Redoubt has been on high alert for eruption for a few months now. It is located on the top of the Alaskan Penninsula (not the panhandle where Juneau is, the one that goes down into the Pacific and turns into the Alaskan chain -- that bunch of islands that stretch nearly into tommorrow), across a strait from Anchorage, Kenai, Homer, etc. Actually I have been worried about my friend Jill who lives just north of Kenai, because her town is at high risk for ash fall, and what would she do about all the dogs she's got in her sled dog lot? But it seemed like another "hurry up and wait" kind of situation, with the eruption imminent for months.

However, it did erupt -- a few hours after my mom arrived in Hooper Bay to visit during her spring break. We all breathed a sigh of relief because she had gotten here -- all flights to and from Anchorage were cancelled after the eruption because of the danger ash poses to airplane engines (yes, no "Lost" situations while my mom is on the plane, please). The bush flights were unaffected -- the ash was blowing east from the volcano, towards Anchorage, and not northwest, towards us. Even if it did blow northeast towards us, I'm not sure if we would have been affected -- it's pretty far away.

So we relaxed and enjoyed our week -- though I caught one of the only stomach flus I've gotten in the past few years, and while I worshipped the porcelain deity, my mom got major quality time with both girls.... :) Here are some cute pictures of our visit:

So on the day she was to leave Hooper Bay, it was gorgeous weather -- cold, clear, calm. The volcano also erupted again that morning. With such crazy storminess we've had this spring, it's impossible to say "wait and see" if you're flying out. You have to jump on the first plane that comes because you never know how it's going to be in 15 minutes. So we did all the research we could do, checking on the Alaska Airlines website and calling them by phone -- by the time my mom's plane came to bring her to Bethel, they had not cancelled any flights from Bethel to Anchorage, so in good conscience, even though I wanted to keep her here indefinitely, I sent her off to the plane.

And then got her call a couple hours later that her flight was cancelled -- the volcano erupted several times that afternoon. It just kept spurting up ash, like brimstone belches or something. And here is the source of my ire: Redoubt, just get it overwith already! I mean, a volcano should just erupt, right? Erupt and get it over and done. Not all these puny eruptions here and there. They are messing up our lives! (And everyone else's lives: check out all the cancellations on this flight arrival/departure board at the Anchorage airport:)

Mom did make it to Anchorage the next day, on the ONLY flight to make it out of Bethel that whole week (after a nice layover in Bethel during which she at least got to experience the Camai festival, Bethel's big dance event), but was then totally and completely stuck in Anchorage. At first they wouldn't even rebook her flights, because everything was so up in the air, and the volcano kept shooting up ash every couple hours. So she found a cheap hotel and settled in for the duration. (And at home, I was freaking out that she was neither here nor there, not with us, not at home, all that wasted time she could have been with us; I should've just kept her, I should have let her go a day early, to the point I was annoying myself with could'ves and should'ves).

She was down about it at first, because she knew she'd be missing work on Monday at least, but then she started to look around herself at the wierd situation she was in, and she started to enjoy the adventure of it all. The airport was an eerie place, she said, with the kiosks covered with garbage bags to protect them from the ash:

And the piles of baggage that were lost from their people due to flights being all messed up and all over the place:

The wierdest part of the story is what happened when she called to book a night at a hotel. She asked for the airport shuttle from the hotel to pick her up. They replied that they weren't allowed to drive due to the ash -- and she looked out to see that there were no cabs lined up, either! She finally found a hotel that would send a shuttle for her, and the driver was wearing a mask. She was entirely creeped out, telling me on the phone, "Cate, it's crazy here!" She took this picture of the notice in her hotel room:

So after several tries and false starts of going to the airport and booking flights, only to have them cancelled and rearranged due to the most recent eruptions, she got on a flight out of Anchorage Tuesday morning (after leaving me on Friday afternoon!) to Chicago. Redoubt erupted a few minutes before they took off, and I guess the pilot said that they just had to get out of there before they were grounded again -- so she made it in the nick of time.

My mom is so awesome, to go through all this to come see us. She is an amazing mom and so wonderfully supportive-- I'm so lucky to have her. But, that volcano on the other hand -- look out, Mt Redoubt, Grrrr.

Oh, yes -- In other news, Iris pulled herself up to stand the night my mom arrived here -- a full week before she was 7 months old. Eeek! I'm scared out of my wits that she may be walking soon, and that she'll be accident-prone (aka hell on wheels). But on the other hand, she is so cute; amazed and proud of herself, it's hard not to just enjoy. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment as well, of the girl standing up:

Yuraq makes March happy

Yuraq is traditional Yup'ik dancing, and every March Hooper Bay has The Louie Bunyan Festival in which the dance groups in town dance for the community, as well as groups from visiting communities, such as Chevak, Scammon Bay, Stebbins, etc. Every year different groups come, though the villages close by almost always come (and Hooper Bay goes to their festivals as well). I wrote more about the history of the festival in the spring of 2007 here and here.

It was my goal to bring Esther to practice with the school dance group every Sunday night and perform with them this year. We did it! I am beginning to feel more and more tied in to the dancing each year; I am beginning to remember the dances (instead of just having to watch and follow one of the leaders), which frees me up to be more creative with the movements. The crowd loves expressive dancers and funny endings to songs; they love to laugh at silly and vehement dancers, which encourages the dancers to be sillier and more vehement. The songs and lyrics are all very old, but they are free to be interpreted in new ways. It feels like this is one tradition that is not dying out because it is adapting to the new world; of course it is not the same as it once was, but nothing is. What will survive are the things that can change and yet stay the same in substance... I think this is one tradition that is just that. Here is a picture of the girls in their matching qaspeks that I made for them:

Snow Sailing!

We have been having the stormiest spring I have experienced since I've lived here, with a storm every other day or so for the last couple weeks. But out of a crazy windy storm today was borne an exciting and perfect day for a fun arctic activity: sailing across the snow in a sled. A couple things have to come together to make this happen: hard snow (which was a given with these warm to freezing temps we've been having, which makes the snow melt and then freeze into a hard icy layer on top when the temp goes back down), good visibility, since it's dangerous to play out far from home in bad visibility (the storm we had today had a LOT of snow and just about zero visibility at some points, but it all cleared out by 4:pm), and a huge wind -- yeah, I'd say 53 knots is a strong wind!

Inez, Jasmine, Esther & I experimented with this yesterday, and while the kids just zoomed along like magic -- especially when they decided to use another plastic sled instead of the tarp -- it wasn't as dream-like for the adults, who were kinda heavy... but, hey, we still got to slide along, albeit slowly. But, man, holding up that tarp sure makes the arms tired! I realized I am getting old today when I got out of bed and between my arms being sore from holding the tarp & sleds (&Esther, at points!) against the wind, and being sore from slipping and falling on the snow-covered ice at lunchtime yesterday (after which the wind blew me several feet along the ground -- crazy!), my body is rejecting me, which is what my dad used to say. All in all, though, a fabulous fun activity. I loved hearing Esther and Jasmine's giggles!

In other news, Iris crawled her first crawl steps yesterday. *sigh*

The Light is coming back....

We've gotten SO much snow the past week or so, and it's pretty cool. It's still not as high as it gets over on the other side of town, where the old school was, but it's the first year that it's gotten close since we've lived over here: It was fun to bring Esther and Iris out, as it was fairly warm (30 degrees), and while Esther sledded by herself and with other kids, I let Iris ride in the sled down little teeny drifts, me holding on to her sled. She really liked the feeling. She liked it so much that then she fell asleep! Here's Iris all decked out in her winter garb:Where's the baby in this picture?:Ah, there she is, and unhappy with me that I've stopped rocking her snow-cradle!:

We had an amazing morning of ice fog, also, which I've rarely experienced, and got some cool pictures of how it laid down frost in interesting textured patterns on stuff, like the antlers from the moose Tuluk caught last September (the moose whom we thank profusely everytime we eat him for dinner):

Many people, when remarking on aspects of my life in Alaska, say that I must get tired of the dark, since we have fewer hours of daylight in winter than people do in the lower 48. However, I always beg to differ. Even though we officially DO have fewer hours of daylight in the winter, it rarely seems like it.

Think about it, Midwesterners, East-coasters, Pacific Northwesters -- how much sunlight do you actually enjoy in the winter? When you get up, when you go to work, it's dark, right? When you commute home, or shortly thereafter, it's dark, right? It's the same here -- BUT only in the very darkest times, I would say about the month of December, give or take a few days on either side (I think at winter solstice we have a 4-hour daylight day).

Even if we officially may still have less actual daylight than other places at this time of year (Today the sun actually rises at 9:08 am and sets at 7:23 pm, with dawn/dusk giving us light an hour on either side), it FEELS like we have a LOT more light: since we are surrounded and covered with bright white shiny snow, and no trees or big buildings to cast many shadows, and the mountains are far to the north, walking outside on a sunny day is like walking around on a mirrored floor-- it's wildly bright! I'm willing to bet that we get our RDA of Vitamin D in a few seconds. And sunglasses are really a must for us in the springtime sun. It feels fabulous, way better than anywhere/anytime in the Midwest at this time of year.

Then, into February, we start gaining light by leaps and bounds, nearly 6 minutes a day -- that doesn't sound like a lot, but in a week that's another half hour of light, and in a month, that's two hours more light. By this time next month, it will feel like the evenings last forever, and let me tell you, my energy grows along with the light. Although sometimes I regret it in the morning, I can get SO much done with the light inspiring me and egging me on. It helps that spring is my favorite season, and that the excitement and anticipation for spring activities coming soon, soon pretty much infests everything I do.

By summer, it's just light all the time, and I love it. I love it that I have a job that lets me have a summer schedule, staying up and sleeping whenever, not knowing what time it is (especially out at camp), and just enjoying all the light. So, although folks think that the extremities of dark/light are a negative thing about living here, I think it's a positive, all the way around, because it's better than most places and never worse than anywhere else. :)

But, hey, in Iris news: She's sitting up by herself! It's kind of amazing, as it developed over just a few days this week. She's been rolling and kind of propping herself up for a while:
And then this week (she was 6 months on the 26th of February), she suddenly was able to pop herself upright, by herself:
AND she's figuring out how to push herself up into a crawling position, and rocks herself back and forth, sometimes creeping the slightest bit backwards. What a rock star baby! It's all very exciting, but I know it's near the end of us being able to be relaxed while we watch her... she'll soon be into EVERYTHING....:)