A day at Effie

My buddy Jenny MacDougall emailed me up and was asking about my Wales trip.  Luckily she told me to come hang out at Effie with her on Friday.  It was really nice to get a chance to spend some time at this school.  It is very different than what I have found at Hutchison.  It's much smaller, there is a high percentage of Alaska Native population, and programs and curriculum take a slightly different approach it seems.  Also, high school starts at 10 am!  After getting a few introductions to some teachers to inquire to what they are doing,  I ended up spending the morning with a freshmen class, which was beginning on an oral history project.  They would end up picking a topic and collaborating with the teacher to find a first-hand source of information for interviewing.  Some topics students considered were village schools in the "old days," and constructing the pipeline.

After lunch we I spent the afternoon in a class of about 10 students working on various individual hands on projects.  A few used sewing machines to make a shoulder bag, some planted seeds for the school garden, or others knitted or made their own clothing designs.  All of the students were very easy to talk to, polite and seemingly very happy with their school situation.  I asked quite a few students and a common reply was "it's so much better than the big schools."  

Even though Effie isn't a rural school, it has a similar feel to one.  Rural schools have more opportunity for varied curricula, placed-based learning and high collaboration between teachers.  These schools seem to have a more relaxed environment.  They can seem a bit more chaotic and disorganized than a large school.  In so many ways I appreciate more the environment of these small schools.  It is definitely more intimate and the teacher/student relationship at Effie extends beyond the school day and school year for many different programs.

Failed Attempts

Well I think I experienced what so many over the week had said, "welcome to rural, Alaskan travel," meaning "sometimes you just don't make your destination."  It certainly was a crazy week!  I got to spend a night in Anchorage and two nights and days in Nome before I decided I better head back to Fairbanks.  It wasn't all lost, however.  I learned a lot about Northwestern Alaska for those couple of days in Nome.  I met many locals, talked with Alaska Natives from the region I was trying to get to, and got to finish up my week checking out the school in Fairbanks, Howard Luke or Effie Kokrine Charter School.  So check out my pictures; I'll explain some about Nome and if you're up for reading my Sun Star piece out on Tuesday, April 22, I even quoted some of my fellow interns telling about their experiences in the villages.  Enjoy!

Nome is expensive!  Also, not terribly recommended, except for if on the tightest budget, is to stay at the Polaris hotel.  It was like a college dormitory that never slept, and had shared bathrooms.  I shared a photo (below) of my fine accommodations.  You tell me.

 

The architecture is pretty unique.  Some places it wasn't quite clear if people really lived in them, but then you would see the light on somewhere.  There was definitely a lot of salvaged materials used for building, and just about everybody had a snowmachine or 4-wheeler in the driveway. 

Dog yard

After asking a local old Nomean about the trucks driving to the camps out on the sea ice, I found many were dredging for sea gold (below).  Seems some folks catch crab out on the frozen ocean, too.  Normal conversations often revolve around such topics, and about the famous reindeer that gets carted around town in the pick-up.

Maybe just me, but the puddles look a bit sketchy.





 
























I didn't catch the name.







Much of the days were spent at Nome's local airport.  Even though air travel was totally erratic, the taxi service was the most efficient I have ever seen.  Nome has a few different companies driving a couple vans around at seemingly all hours, flat rates of six bucks to the airport or four around town, everything was less than six minutes from anywhere.  Also, I never waited for more than a minute for one to swing by or respond to my speed-dial.

This was the reason for at least a couple cancelled flights in and out bound.

We did, that afternoon, get a great flight seeing tour to Brevig Mission in one of those caravans, but once there, the pilot sad the Wales runway was too soft and the State had to close it.  Dirt runways will do that I guess in the Spring, sink and get mucky.




Brevig Mission resident was one of those that greeted the plane upon landing and helped un-pack the food supplies, bags and folks that got off. 

Back to Nome.  If it wasn't one thing it was the other.  Three chances to get out in 42 hours. 

Small planes are fun, you get to fly through the mountains, or hills as they call them.  The pilot was great, and also a fantastic multi-tasker!

With two possible flights to Wales a day, and across the parking lot two flights back to Anchorage, two nights was good enough for my Nome adventure.  Friday in Fairbanks turned out to be a good time at Effie Kokrine.  One more post to come.  Always keep some cheese in crackers in your back pack is a good lesson learned traveling rural, AK. 

Part of the Nome road system.

Not there yet

It's been 54 hours since my original flight from Fairbanks, and RAVN (Era) just cancelled all morning flights out of Nome.  Nome is nice.  Today maybe I will head to the museum before I head back to the airport at 4pm for one last try today.  Sitting in the Bering Sea restaurant, the fog has just burned off to a beautiful day!  From the window a truck drives out on to the frozen sea to a couple of tent camps about a half mile from shore.  The locals tell me they are dredging under the ice!  There may also be some crabbers out there too, but most are searching for sea gold.  I'm sure eventually I will make it to Wales, hopefully for a few days of school anyway.  Saturday's returning flights are getting closer with every cancelled flight, though.  I'll post some Nome pictures when I figure how to get them onto my computer!  Learning lots!  How to keep a blog, how the fog rolls in springtime because of the sea ice break up, that the cheapest (and tiniest) room in town is more expensive than a normal Fairbanks spot, how casual conversations in rural, Alaska often contain reference to "camp," "drying fish,"  and "caribou hunting."  Sadly, the locals here are grieving the loss of a young man that was struck and killed by an alleged intoxicated driver on Saturday.  So much to take in when traveling in a new place.  The world dances to a different beat everywhere you go.  I'm lucky to be here and hear the music. 

Week in Wales is getting shorter

My week in Wales is getting shorter.  It was certainly a "full moon travel day" yesterday having first missed my flight out of Fairbanks because my cab was extremely late!  After the rescheduling, I had to come to terms with staying in Nome for a night (of which I was pleasantly looking forward to).  My 5:20 p.m. flight out of Anchorage finally returned to Anchorage at about 11:30 p.m.  I did get to see a tiny little patch of the Nome runway amidst all the fog before the pilot decided to fly directly back to Kotzebue (see picture from airplane) for more gas.  The gas didn't clear the fog though. 

So today, here we go again!  Same flight to Nome out of Anchorage hoping to see a bit more of the runway.  We will surely keep you updated, though the weather report doesn't look too promising... Hopefully a post from Nome!