Goodnews Bay
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Broke again. Home remodeling does drain the bank account. Oh, well. Time to go back to work. This time I have 3-month gig teaching in Goodnews Bay a remote Yup’ik Eskimo village in Western Alaska. I’m filling in for a teacher who has some medical issues and needs to be near a hospital.
So far, so good. The village is in a gorgeous setting between two rivers with mountain chains to the north and the south. Of course, there are no roads here – access only by small plane. I have a class of six fourth-graders and each one of them is happy, eager to learn and well-behaved.
My timing has been good. After a week of classes, it’s spring break for a week. Of course, it’s not quite spring and since it has been below 0F with tremendous winds, it is really just a late-winter break. But no matter, I’ve got free time and there are mountains and valleys to explore. A couple of the teachers have sled dogs, so I hope to get some mushing in. Maybe I’ll go ice fishing, and if I’m lucky, I’ll go caribou hunting.
In the meanwhile, there are some tremendous hikes. Today I did a U-shaped route up a ridge behind the school and followed it up and around, down a valley, and then back up to another ridge top, down again through the village and home again.
While break-up season is definitely underway, there is still a bit of ice and snow about. The frozen-solid Johnson River had been covered with a few inches of water for a few days before the solid ice layer was able to float to the surface. That floating ice then became a snowgo trail and has been good for about a week now – although traveling on it is becoming more and more risky each day. But Thursday after school I took the school snowgo and with another teacher on back, cruised down the river and met up with some of the locals to go jigging for pike. Sonya, the other teacher caught 3 within 5 minutes.
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jpb