The trip to Shaktoolik

0Josh • 16th Aug 2005 • blog entries, moving, nome., station life, travel

The 87-million acre wild fire in Alaska is causing quite a bit of smoke all around the state. Its pretty unbelievable how smoky it is here.

There’s no cloud cover today, that’s ALL smoke in the air.

Ok, so its been a million years since I posted last on what is going on up here in Nome land…but I’ve got some pretty good excuses. First off, Lydia’s Dad & Grandpa were here for 4 or 5 days and we were out of town and fishing and having lots of fun. Just when that ended and I was getting ready to record all of our adventures I leave the next day on a last minute trip to Shaktoolik to help a group from church with a 4 day VBS. I got home Sunday evening and have been recovering and collecting my thoughts ever since. I think I’ll work with Lydia on a back blog about her family’s trip up and we’ll post that in a few days…

Well I heard about a week in advance that there was a group going to Shaktoolik from church and that they really needed an extra male to go on the trip, as of then there was a couple going, along with 8 girls that are involved in a leadership class. I inquired about going because I thought it would be fun to spend some more time in a village, especially with the day we are moving from Alaska coming up in under a month. The only problem was that Lon was still going to be out of town and at that time Dennis was gone. It was just Irene & I running the station and I wouldn’t be able to find out about getting the time off until Dennis got back, just a few days before the trip…and if he said yes, it would be leaving him and Irene by themselves. I ended up (obviously) getting to go and was planning on a Wednesday Night/Thursday morning departure.

Tuesday morning I get a call saying “we’re going to have to leave tonight, weather might not allow us to leave any later”. I still was committed to hosting the morning show on Wednesday so I opted to take the chance and go after everyone else left. I flew out Wednesday afternoon on Bering air, on trade with KICY.

When I arrived in Shaktoolik (after landing at Golovin & Moses Point on the way) the airline agent gave me a ride in her fourwheel trailer from the airstrip to the church. There was a funeral and burial going on at the time and the kids from Nome were able help out with childcare. After getting settled and walking around town, then having dinner it was decided that we were going to put on a mini-VBS that evening.

The next day after I got up (slept in until 10:00!) I was having breakfast and Ernie Sagoonick came by to check on the group. Ernie is a church leader and a longtime covenanter. Ernie and I were talking about fishing and he offered to take me out on his boat. Nate figured out that he would be able to join me as long as we were back by 1:30 or so, because VBS was going to start at 2. We left town an hour or so later and after going up river for about 30 minutes we eventually found a good fishing hole. In 15 minutes I had hooked 3 huge silver salmon, and was able to bring in the first two…I would have gotten the third, but the fish wrapped itself around a stick underwater and that broke the line.

We headed back into town just in time for VBS to start. Here is how each program looked throughout the week. They started off with some singing, followed by a skit that starred yours truly. From there it was on to Games, then snack and a bible story. Then Angela Hansen had some wonderful crafts for the kids, and things wrapped up with an object lesson and some more songs. Pretty much every afternoon Nate & I would remember that we hadn’t picked out a game, but we were usally able to pull something off at the *last&* minute, however because of all my jr & sr high youth group experience it took a few rounds of whatever game we were playing for us to adapt it to an small aged audience.

In the evenings the kids watched “The Way of the Master” videos and a Nate & I tried fishing two other times. We were unable to head out with Ernie again on the river but tried going up out of town to “Bend 1” and “Bend 2” of the river. The first attempt didn’t go so well, and we ended up turning around after figuring out that it was going to take us quite a while on foot (it was the laughter of a local that taught us that lesson). The next night we decided to brave the 2+ mile walk anyway, but then ended up getting picked up by a guy on a fourwheeler. After catching 3 fish, we walked back most of the way. A similar thing happened the third night, we were given a ride out, only to realize they weren’t able to stay and so after an hour of no bites, we started walking back only to get picked up by a 11 year old that we knew from VBS on his fourwheeler.

It was a pretty great week and I’m glad I went. I’ve got some more writing to do over the next few days about what all is going on here. We’re down to just two weeks or so left in Alaska and while it will be sad to leave, we’re looking forward to getting home and starting our new life at camp. As we start packing and getting ready to go, I’d like to make sure that I’m capturing all of our final experiences.