GO WOLVERINES! Travel to Chefornak!

On Friday after school the high school boy's basketball team traveled to Chefornak for a tournament. Gideon (their coach and a classified 2nd grade teacher in Kong) asked me to be the certified chaperone. I was SO EXCITED to accept- why turn down a travel opportunity?! Newtok and Kipnuk were the other two schools that were supposed to play. Kipnuk is really close to Chefornak but it was too cold for them to travel by snow machine so they didn't end up coming. Newtok and we were supposed to stay over night and leave at 1 on Saturday. To make a long story short... we got weathered in. District policy is we aren't allowed to fly with students if the windchill is below -35 degrees. I think on Saturday we were at about -43 degrees. Gideon and I worked together to make dinner for the 2 teams (burgers and corndogs.... YUM). It's not like we could just go out to eat somewhere. The boys played another basketball game on Saturday night- if we were going to be there why not? We ended up beating Newtok two times and losing to Chefornak two times. This is a picture of one of the refs... I thought it was great that he reffed the game in snow boots! ...ONLY in Alaska...

SINCE we were stuck in Chefornak... some of the boys and I decided to go out and 'tour' on Saturday afternoon. They have 2 stores. One is HUGE compared to Kong's. It had 2 levels. The other one was itty bitty and farther away. Alexie, one of the students, told me it wasn't far. In reality it wasn't. But I didn't dress appropriately. I had on my gloves, a scarf and a head band covering my ears... but what I DIDN'T have on was a face mask, goggles and a hat! We got about 3 minutes into the walk and I started to freak out. I had just looked at the windchill chart which showed how long it takes to get frostbite. For the temperature we were at it only took 5-10 minutes. I didn't know how far the store was. My face was HURTING! About the time I got really close to panicking, we saw the store! WHEW! What and idiot I can be... when we returned from the walk I took a picture just to show how red my face got. I had probably been in the building for about 2 minutes when I took this picture... I am relieved to let you know that I do NOT have frostbite :)

On our tour we saw some little village kids out sled riding (as the OHIOans say and sledding as my Indiana friends say). The cold didn't stop them!

I also took a picture of some steam houses. They had their steam houses lined up across the boardwalk (sorta like across the street) from their actual houses. This picture doesn't show it perfect but I thought it was cool how they were all lined up.

Here is a picture of Chefornak's school....

On Sunday we were supposed to be on the first flight in the morning... aka noon. I called Grant Airline probably 5 times (drove them nuts) checking on the status of the weather. For so long we were at -37. Seriously, that close?! By 3:30 I was worried we would be weathered in again because the last plane goes out at 4:00. At the last minute they agreed to fly us! Whew!! I was ready to get back and relax at my own house. The boys were great- not too rowdy or anything. They were actually ready to go home too. They didn't even play around in the gym Sunday- they just cleaned their room and sat waiting. (I had to include pictures of what happens when HS boys get bored and clean...)


2 little 207s came to pick up our team. This is a picture of them landing in Chefornak. To the right you should be able to see an incline... that is called Tern Mountain.

This is a view of about half of Chefornak from the plane. There is more housing that you can't see...

Here is one half of the Kong boys team on the plane ride home. They were HOMESICK believe it or not! When the plane landed I heard "YEA we're home" and they all gave each other high fives ;)

Below is Tern Mountain from above... you can hopefully see the crater. While I was in Chefornak, Gideon taught me all kinds of things. Tern Mountain is a dormant volcano. The Yup'ik eskimos like to use the rock from Chefornak because it is GREAT for steams due to being volcanic rock with many holes. He told me there are many huge boulders in Chefornak that blew out of the volcanoe. Although he didn't know the facts such as how old it was, he did know stories which were passed down generation to generation. Apparently people believed the 'mountain' had something against people who tried to cross it. Anytime someone would cross to get to water on the other side or just for the sake of climbing, it would fog up really bad and show terrible weather. They believed it was trying to keep people away. He also told me that because of this 4 Shaman went to the base of the volcano and turned it so the crater was facing north. (Sorry I don't TOTALLY understand quiet everything he was saying but this is the story I got and I thought it was interesting to hear... who knows HOW many generations it has really been passed down). I found this site which you can look at to learn a little more about facts of the volcano itself: http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=63934


Here is yet another AMAZING Alaskan Tundra picture. The tundra is frozen but we barely have any snow. It is VERY unusual according to all of the locals. We typically have drifts as high as the roof of a house by this time of the year (from what I have been told by my aides). When I went to the store last week some of the locals also told me that it is however colder than usual. The snow helps insulate and the clouds keep us warmer. Unfortunately we have been having clear blue skies which= COLD! They asked me how I was fairing with the cold weather (really not terrible) and told me that it is even too cold for the Eskimos! The lack of snow makes it difficult to travel by snow machine because it is so bumpy. It is also difficult to travel far with a 4-wheeler because it could easily get stuck in what snow there actually is on the ground.

The picture below is a part of Kong's surrounding area. To the right is frozen tundra and to the left is the frozen Bering Sea. You should also be able to see part of the river that runs by Kong and leads into the Bering Sea.

Back in Kong for another beautiful sunset. EVERY sunset here is AMAZING.... and sunrise... and clouds... and any average day sky. The sky is one thing I make a comment on every day- I really can't get over or truly help you understand how pretty it is here.


I know this blog is super long... and hopefully you haven't fallen asleep reading it yet... but I wanted to include some more things and stories Gideon told me over the weekend. SOME of you WILL be interested... I just KNOW it :O)

1. Kongiganak is a newer village. It separated from Kwigillingok in the early 1960's because there was a lot of flooding.
2. Kwigillingok means 'place with no river'... even though it DOES have a river today. Apparently way back in the day the story goes that a girl lost her earring in the tundra and was really upset about it. Her dad dug deep trying to find the earring and a river ended up forming which is why there is one there today.
3. People used to be buried without a coffin. They were placed in the ground sitting up with their knees bent and arms wrapped around their knees.
4. It was also ok for people to take things from a grave as long as an exchange was made. For example, you could take a necklace from a grave if you put in its place a fish... or a pair of earrings...
5. If a skull is found (which happened often I suppose since people weren't buried in coffins) a person is supposed to gather a pile of grass and place the skull on the grass facing the sun.
6. Eskimos practiced their own sort of conservation as Gideon explained it. In the spring they would only hunt one type of goose but not that type in the fall. In the fall they would hunt a different type.
7. The Yup'ik only took what they needed from the land. They didn't pick extra berries that they wouldn't need or catch extra fish that weren't necessary. They respected the land and valued what they had. (This sorta goes to show how much society has changed... we are all so greedy now...)
8. Gideon's dad always told him a story growing up... which goes along with #7... It was about a lady berry picking one day and a LARGE bird (he called it a dinosaur) swooped down and picked her up. The husband watched it happen and tried to follow. The bird took the woman to the top of the mountain (I think he was referring to Tern Mountain). By the time the husband got there he saw her bones in a nest where 2 dinosaur babies had already eaten her. He was next. His dad always told him lots of stories and there were many lessons to be learned from the stories. I'm sorry I can't tell the stories better (Gideon used his hands to explain a lot) but it was really neat to hear some of these things first hand!
9. I don't think I told this yet... but at the beginning of the year Gideon and a couple of the boys found a MAMMOTH TOOTH!!! NOT KIDDING (at least it looks convincing and that's what he said it was- I'll choose to believe). I'll ask him to bring it back to school to take a picture.

Ok- that's all for tonight... only spent 2 hours writing this. Any questions from anyone?! (I didn't edit this so I hope it all makes sense...)
Thought you may like to know... it's currently -12 and feels like -39 degrees outside. Jealous?!