In the Elephant Graveyard

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Keely

At the base of the bluff, where the willows get thicker as you near the river, there’s an aging collection of vehicles and heavy equipment. Covered in snow, it looks like it was just left behind, parked all higgledy piggledy, after some whopping demolition derby. How did it even get here to begin with? Was it shipped in pieces in small planes, then assembled, used for its intended purpose, and abandoned with unlocked doors? I have a long list of questions (lots about services like water, waste, power, phone, internet, television – things that people access here but in mysterious ways) that gets, somehow, a little longer with every answer I get.

The Elephant Graveyard at sunset, some days ago.

In the cab of an aging dumptruck.

I went walking in the elephant graveyard today, and explored a little on a snowmobile trail near the old airstrip and along the river. I’m pushing my comfort zone more with each walk, growing comfortable with my surroundings and making little dents in the vastness outside the village. I’m always surprised when I round a bend in the trail and find another log house, chimney puffing cozily. I haven’t grown accustomed to the idea that one can live without a driveway.

The sun hit the roof of the school full force today. The brightness of the colors took me aback. I’ve grown accustomed to the softness of the light, which hasn’t touched the ground with full strength in months. The angled light makes the world sparkle, and I think I’ll be sorry to say goodbye to the short days of winter. I like the dim-lit silence of the spruce trees and the deep, muffled silence of the snow. Sometimes, if I’m walking and I stop to look around at just the right moment, I can hear nothing at all. Usually there’s a chainsaw or a snow-go tearing into the quiet, but sometimes there’s an instant of absolute stillness. I think the light will whip the cover off the birdcage.

When I’m out hiking, I still haven’t figured out where to draw the line between too-safe and unsafe. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat when I’m walking on my own, and I don’t think that’s totally insane. I am in wolf and bear country here (yes the bears are hibernating, but I’ve heard that they sometimes aren’t, so there’s that), and I’m a small person, usually walking alone. A few years ago, a young teacher who went running in her village in southern Alaska was killed by wolves. Scientists ruled it predation, as the wolves involved were not starving, sick, defending a kill, rabid, or habituated to people. It was the first and only such predatory attack documented in Alaska, which is comforting, but only to a point. Large predators almost never attack people, and I know that, but most people aren’t hiking alone in winter in the wilderness. I don’t want to be kept close to the village by fear and miss out on everything (I’m dying to go further, but I haven’t found a walking buddy yet), but I don’t want to be foolish. The scary stuff is out there, but so is all the amazing stuff. Close to the village, you hardly see tracks in the snow – so far, I’ve only seen rabbit tracks once, and, on another occasion, marks from where a raven touched down, each feather leaving a perfect imprint. It’s no fun to be stuck between fearful and foolish with so much out there to explore. I need to find the trail between and zip through it into the open country.

Zzzip! A snowmobile trail that led me from the airstrip through a couple back yards to the post office (closed as usual – school teachers only get mail on Wednesdays in Venetie, due to inconvenient scheduling).

This picture is the closest I’ve been able to come to documenting the glowing thousand-colors-in-one-ness of the snow and sky. The world isn’t white, just crisply prismatic, dramatic it its starkness and its luscious depth. The arctic is white like dark chocolate.

We’re gaining daylight in heaping tablespoons now. I don’t have windows in my classroom, and I think it’s for the best. I don’t get to see daylight much, but I will soon. In the meantime, I’m opening the door a few times a day to suck in the sweetness of the buttery, luminous snow and to stare at the mountain, agog. I grin when the cold washes through the open firedoor and the students look up. I still get a rush when I place myself on the map, a vanishing spark of a needle in a haystack of dark wilderness.

Cookies

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Keely

I just sent four of my kids out the door, still sticky with chocolate fingers from the cookies they devoured.

This morning, my scintillating sixth grader marched up to me. “What time should I come to your house for cookies tonight?”
“This is the first I’ve heard about making cookies for you”
“So what time should I show up? 8?”
“I’m not making any promises, but if I let you in and I make cookies, you have to read to me while I make them.”
“OK. See you at 8”

She brought her sister and three friends, and they took turns reading Ella Enchanted to me while I whipped up a batch of Fannie Farmer’s chocolate chip wondercookies with oatmeal. They’re pretty cute.

Saturday Ambling

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Keely

I haven’t spoken to another human being in the flesh today. Right now, I’m digging the peace and solitude.

Around noon, I went for my first solo walk around the village. Wednesday, the staff went to get mail and I got the grand tour in the school truck, but I haven’t been able to go see what there is to see on my own two feet on account of the darkness during my off hours. The sun was low, as always, and spilling blue and pink puddles on last night’s thin coat of white snow. I followed my old footsteps toward the school, then walked down the old airport runway toward the Chandalar. Folks on fourwheelers and snowmachines zipped by, and dogs yipped and yowled from across the village. Ravens floated like improbable lead gliders in the still air, so black in a world of pale pink and blue, their voices crackling as they chatted among themselves about some loose garbage near the community hall.

Sound carries differently in the cold. Everything pops and snaps, louder, sharper and closer than it should be.

I picked my way along the thick tracks left by the fourwheelers and snowgos, wondering if there are rules I should know about where I can and cannot or should and should not walk. There are a lot of trails, but there’s no system of roads and driveways that I can identify and understand. I didn’t want to invade anyone’s space, so I smiled at everyone who rolled by, looking bemusedly at me, and stuck to the wider paths away from the houses.

The cemetery is at the end of the old runway, and I explored a little, hoping there’d be no disrespect perceived in my paying a visit to the dead. The markers are mostly wooden, carved with the names and dates of the deceased, and many of the graves are surrounded by waist-high wooden fences. Most had some sort of weatherbeaten garland of plastic flowers. I’ve always felt comfortable in cemeteries. I like the quiet, and I like wondering about the people and their stories, hinted at by the headstones. At home in Maine, graveyards are often in some of the prettiest places, overlooking the ocean or tucked away in cool clearings in the mossy pine woods.

I spent a moment standing in silent company with all those carved names, looking down the bank at the flats where the sun was peeking over the horizon. I didn’t stay long. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Instead, I strolled down the bluff, a little nervous to be leaving the village proper, but enchanted by the empty flats and the frozen river, and willing to take up my courage and have an adventure. I’m sure I’ll soon feel silly for being unsure. I never stopped hearing the village dogs and the snowmachines, and I wouldn’t have been out of sight except for the bluff. Everything is new now, though, and I don’t know what’s safe and what isn’t. How far is too far to venture alone?

The village used to be located at the base of the bluff, but there was a huge flood and the community moved up onto the plateau. I rounded a corner on a snowmobile trail and came across an old church, open at all its doors and windows, empty except for an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. I ventured a little beyond it, but felt too timid to go out onto the ice alone, even with the reassuring vehicle tracks to mark a safe path.

I turned back to walk home, this time cutting a new path closer to the buildings, more sure of my place here and of the conventions for passersby. I saw the daily plane come in to land, a noisier and stiffer hunk of improbably airborne matter than the ravens, and thought about going to meet it, but decided to save that adventure for another day. I was ready for a hot lunch, a book, and a cup of tea, my fingers were stiff from taking pictures in the cold and my eyes, the only part of me exposed, felt sticky.

When I got home, I wiped my eyes, realizing as I felt the chill dampness on my fingertips that my lashes had been frozen together. That accounted for the sticky feeling. When I went out again this afternoon, after another turn around the village and a short exploratory walk in a new direction, I took a picture. The moisture from my breath freezes on my lashes and the fluffy wool of my hat. I look pretty glamorous, don’t I? Frosted eyelashes are all the rage these days.

They say it’s fifty below

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Keely

But I don’t really have a clue. I suit up in all my layers to trek to school (I’ve walked farther in grocery store parking lots) then peel off the bibs and the parka and the neckwarmers and the gloves and hat and get down to the business of teaching school. It hasn’t felt cold yet, but I haven’t really stopped to wallow in it or to dip my bare toes in the snow or anything dumb like that. I have been warned not to touch metal with my bare hands and to always cover my mouth and nose when I’m outside so I don’t get frostbite in my lungs.

I stopped on the walk home last night to watch the northern lights. They were green and shifty, like some sort of seaweed in turbidity, swaying in and out of view. It wasn’t a great show, but it was my first, so I reveled in it until I started to feel the chill in my hands.

My kids are delightful. They’re funny and charming and smart. I have the privilege of teaching writing, so I have them journaling a few minutes a day. Yesterday, in response to the “if I were a superhero I would be…” prompt, one girl wrote about how she would have ice powers and she would battle lava girl. She would shoot lava girl in the toes with a big ball of ice power, and Lava Girl would turn into a rock. Today, one boy wrote about something he’s proud of and told me that studying Gwich’in makes him proud and helps him understand the way people used to live.

One of my favorite things about living here is my walk home (again, think of walking across a parking lot) for lunch at noontime. The dawn and dusk spill out over the whole day, and they stain everything pink with the sideways-falling dye of light.

When you can see chimney smoke at all (most of the time it is dark outside) it is pink like cotton candy.

This is what I see when I step out of the school for my lunch break. Is it the cold that makes my eyes water, or am I simply appropriately stunned by the magnificence of the arctic? I’ll try to take some better pictures, soon.

Housekeeping item: I’m poaching the school’s internet, so I don’t have facebook. If you want to get in touch with me, send me an email or write me a comment or gchat with me sometime.

Welcome Home

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Keely

I made it to Venetie today.

I’m lying on my couch right now, listening to the clock tick and the whining doppler buzz of snowmachines in the village.

I got up early and repacked my boxes of groceries for the flight, then David and I loaded them up in his car. He dropped me and my stuff off at Wright’s with a hug, and there I was. Lindsay and David were beyond kind to me, and I would have been at a loss without their help: they took me gear shopping and grocery shopping and showed me around Fairbanks a little. Their advice was like solid gold. I feel, now, like I could do it on my own next time. Looking back, it’s hard to believe I spent only 24 hours with them, just as, looking back now, I can’t believe I’ve known Shannon and Jake for only twelve! Only two days ago I was newly arrived in Anchorage, floored by my first sight of the mountains and glaciers of Alaska. These have been some busy hours, my friends.

Wright Air Service is a passenger and freight line out of Fairbanks. I checked in, stepping on a scale with all of my gear, then scampered through the snow (the sky was dark, but the moon was orange on the horizon) to the other building to arrange for my groceries to be sent through their freight service. I hope they arrive tomorrow.

Here’s the fun part: When the pilot came into the waiting room and called us up, I was nervous. I’d never (in my memory) been on a plane that small. I was told to wear all of my warmest gear (baffins, wool socks, bibs, long undies, flannel, sweater, parka, neckwarmer, gloves) in case of a crash. Let that sink in. I was nervous.

Shannon told the pilot that I was new, and he showed me to the copilot’s seat. I hoisted myself up and squeezed in, trying not to panic. He helped me figure out how the seat belt harness thing worked, I fired up the kindle and, before I had my headphones in, we were rolling down the runway. Dixie Chicks Ready to Run was pounding in my head. I grinned and kept my fear behind my teeth and just like that we were in the air, smooth and slow.

It was almost 10:00 am and the sun was beginning to think of making an appearance. The Chena river, which winds around the buildings and under the snow-white roads of Fairbanks was steaming in billows and plumes and catching the light of the pinkening horizon. The streetlights dappled the roads and parking lots of Fairbanks with bright bubbles of cast light. All pink and gray, it looked like a page ripped from the Polar Express and taped to the window – quiet and still and beautiful. I looked at the compass, then straight ahead, due north over the mountains. Gorgeous. Empty. Vast. The experience was breathtaking. For just a moment, during the flight, I had a true sense of the scale of the interior, the great uninhabited miles of it, spreading out infinitely in every direction like a mathematical plane, with our plane, my whole life, just a point upon it.

The sun came up and painted the world in starker greys. It cast long tree shadows like in the bicycling hour of Maine summer evenings. We flew over the flats, the Yukon, frozen, wide as the Mississippi, with its great tributaries and snow-white oxbow lakes. We picked up a passenger in Fort Yukon, then headed west to Venetie, toward a white mountain, flying low. We landed, smooth again, and were off, hauling gear out of the cargo area. Jake hopped on someone’s truck to catch a ride to pick up the school’s truck, and the plane left, and there we were, standing alone in the snow beside a rapidly freezing pile of boxes and totes. Some of Ben’s stuff, shipped the day before, was waiting when we got off the plane. Shannon cautioned us to handle it with care in case it shattered from the cold.

It’s bedtime. I’ll write more and post some pictures when I can.