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.