Fall Festival, Halloween, Groceries and Cooler Temperatures

I have been very busy the last two weeks. Fall has arrived in full force. We have had Halloween and a fall festival and a gathering of elders with a feast. Wanda has decided to come for an extended visit. Plus there has been some excitement in other villages in our district.

I don’t remember if I covered this before but our district is large by land mass. It’s over 22,000 square miles and is about the size of the state of West Virginia. There are 29 schools in the district. We don’t always know what is going on in the other villages unless it’s something major. Last weekend we had a gathering of elders and a feast at the school. At home you would think of this as a potluck. The village elders came and told stories and talked to the principal and me about their hopes for the school and kids. One of the elders is also a school district board member. He informed us that a school in the district had to be evacuated due to safety concerns. You read about it all in the Anchorage Daily News. And no, contrary to some wagers, I had nothing to do with it. The feast and meeting went well and we are trying to do this monthly. The village has felt separated from the school due to Covid the last three years. We’re attempting to change that mindset. Some of the foods included moose burger spaghetti, seal soup, and homemade breads with salmon berry and honey jelly. It was all very good.

Halloween is a big deal here. On Monday all of the elementary kids and many of the secondary students dressed in their costumes for school. There was parade of sorts through the school near the end of the day where all of the students showed off their costumes. That night we had at least 60-70 trick or treaters. They started coming about 4:30 and were still coming after we went to bed at 9:30.

We spent a good portion of this week getting ready for our fall festival. We had it Friday afternoon. There was a large turnout. That was most people I have seen at the school at one time since I’ve been here. We raised well over $9,000 dollars. There was a raffle and games for the kids. We had bowling, fishing for prizes, face painting, pick the pumpkin, guess your number, a cake walk and pin the antlers on the moose. Our concession stand sold out as well. We also sold school sweat shirts. I got to listen to the second half of the Baldwyn playoff game near the end of the festival. Shoutout to David Jenkins, the voice of the Bearcats, for doing a great job on the play by play.

I was with a couple of people who were in Bethel giving the district some training a couple of weeks ago. I’m not the person most familiar with Bethel but I knew more than they did about the town and showed them a few things I was familiar with. One of those things is the Alaska Company Store. It’s like Walmart for Bethel. The man I was with is from North Carolina and he wanted to take some pictures of the groceries and their prices. He made an excellent point. He said when you tell people things here are more expensive it’s hard to really comprehend it but when you say a small loaf of bread is $11 everyone can understand the difference. I had not thought of it that way but he’s right. For example, in addition to the bread price I paid $13 for a 1 pound pack of bacon. I went to buy a pack of hotdogs yesterday at the sports store. $11 for a pack of 10 hotdogs. I told Wanda I’m not doing it. I walked an extra mile plus through the snow and cold to pay $6 for a pack of hotdogs at the native store. I just flat refused to do it when I knew I could do better. When we were walking up to the store Wanda gave me a good laugh. She said don’t forget we need bread. I said yeah we do and so does everyone else around here. They haven’t had bread in the stores in over two weeks. Thankfully, we still have part of a loaf left and our friends have a bread maker and brought us a loaf of fresh bread in the afternoon. We bought one but it’s at home and will make the return trip after Christmas. We bought 2 packs of hotdogs, a dozen eggs at $10.69 per dozen, 2 green oranges and a box of tea and paid $30. In case you were wondering, no the eggs are not grade A or made of gold.

The weather has gotten cooler in the last two weeks. On November the first as I walked to school the temperature was -2 with a wind chill of -15 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn’t to wear my snow goggles because I didn’t think it was cold enough to bother. When my eyelids started freezing together due my breath coming through my balaclava (ski mask) I decided that next time I would just wear the goggles. It’s actually not been that cold but a couple of days. Most days it stays around 20 degrees and feels nice out. I get hot walking to and from school. This week the temps are supposed to go above 30. The river will still not be frozen enough to travel on.  It’s only snowed about a foot so far but more is in the forecast after this coming week of spring like temperatures.

Wanda now wants share some of her musings:

My experiences with cold is on our once per year snow day, you go out to play in the snow for an hour or two. You then come back in with very cold hands, feet, and face. As you warm, your skin becomes uncomfortable and even hurts sometimes. So I thought that Alaska weather would be repeats of this off and on all day as you walk somewhere. I am finding out this is not the case. It turns out that our clothes and gloves have been inadequate and have caused me to believe a misconception. When you wear the correct gear, you will stay warm inside your boots, coat, and gloves. And yes even sweat when walking a mile to the school.