Moose

 I saw a moose for the first time! It was just on the side of the road as our Uber drove by. I’ve been told they’re all over here and you have to watch out for them on the roads. 

I just finished the first training and I have a few free days in Anchorage before my next training which is a trauma conference in Houston, TX. I really love that my school district sends people to conferences and trainings! It was such a good training and I was able to meet people from all over the district and learn from them. These are definitely my people. I have learned so much since I got here 5 weeks ago. I’ve learned so much about culture and worldview and not judging and so much about myself and my strengths and who I am and things I had told myself that weren’t true. I almost didn’t come and now I couldn’t even imagine not having this amazing experience and all the growth I’ve had, and it’s only been 5 weeks!!! 

I’m supposed to get into Houston on Saturday. It looks like it will be just a little bit warmer there than St Michael 😆

Anchorage training trip

 I’m in Anchorage right now for a training and I’m eating fresh Alaskan seafood and a blueberry baked Alaska. I’m loving this!!! But the picture of the empty chair in the restaurant is yesterday when it was todd and my 22nd anniversary and I was eating alone, missing Todd. He loves good food and I would’ve loved to share that experience with him. I admit as happy as I’ve been, I did cry when I took that picture. I’ll have to come back with Todd sometime soon!!

To get to this training, the school district plane picked us each up from our villages. I was first, so I sat up front behind the copilot’s seat, even though there was no copilot. The pilot was an older guy, so I did watch what he was doing to fly the plane in case he had a heart attack and I had to land the plane myself. We went from St Michael to Elim, to Shishmaref (about 15 miles under the artic circle), Teller and then landed in Nome. The flight was SO cool!! I could see out of the front windshield and we flew over the frozen Norton Sound, over mountains, etc!! Then in Nome we got on Alaska Air and flew to Kotzebue, which is above the arctic cirlce!! I was excited bc I wanted to go above the arctic circle before I came home! Then we flew to Anchorage.

Bering Strait School District plane:

Shishmaref, a little village on an island just below the arctic circle. It’s the northern most village in our school district, and st Michael is the southern most village in our district:

The school district plane: 

More videos that are longer so I had to upload them to YouTube:

https://youtube.com/shorts/k6v4kLZEAG8?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/jQcWE3z-RhU?feature=share

https://youtu.be/musPJm3vjvY

https://youtu.be/fxZxwVLgCD4

Puppy rescue

 I’m in Anchorage right now for LSCI training. I love the training, meeting with other teachers and counselors in our district, and being in civilization again!!! Yay for restaurants, shops and internet! But last weekend until now was pretty crazy! We were told that Beano’s black puppies were getting shot right then. We were devastated. But the next day Beano said they shot one but that they ran under the house and couldn’t shoot any others. I assumed they meant shot AND KILLED one dog, not shot it in the leg and left it out in the subzero temps to suffer with a gunshot wound! So when we heard they weren’t shot, my roommate and I decided to grab the puppies and take them to a shelter in Nome called Paws of Nome. Bering Air will take a crate to Paws of Nome for free, but only if there’s room in the plane. There are usually two flights that leave St Michael, one in the morning and one at 4pm. However, we also would have to get a ride out to the airport bc we don’t have a car or a 4 wheeler (everyone here has a 4 wheeler and call them Hondas). We had quite a fun weekend with puppies all over our apartment lol! It was a little crazier than we had anticipated but it was worth it to save their lives. There was a puppy we couldn’t catch that stayed under the house, so we thought we’d get that one the next day. The next day we asked to borrow the school van, and took the dogs outside and put them in two crates. However, my crate’s door latch got bent so it only shut on the top and not the bottom. I thought it felt secure though. Later we saw the door to that crate open and they had escaped:(. We still had the other crate of dogs though. We went back over to Beano’s and saw that one puppy’s leg was injured. I thought it was from escaping the crate and I felt HORRIBLE!! I thought it was my fault I had really badly injured this poor puppy!! We captured the injured puppy and got the crate to the airport, leaving two puppies and the mama behind for the next trip (they wouldn’t have had room for two big crates at once). I was so nervous bc I thought this puppy I had injured by not latching the bottom of the crate door would for sure have to be killed if it didn’t make it out on this flight. I was a nervous wreck!! Luckily, the plane took the crate!! Kristin and I were so happy!!! They got to Paws of Nome and they immediately took the puppy to get emergency vet care. I couldn’t sleep that night hardly at all bc i just felt so awful I had hurt that puppy. The next day they  told us it was a gunshot wound! Then we realized that that was the puppy they had shot about a WEEK earlier, and it was just outside in the frigid weather with a gunshot wound!! So we grabbed the rest of the puppies and mama to keep them from getting shot and try and get them out. It took 4 tries to get them in the plane, but the fourth try they finally made it on the plane. The poor shot puppy had its leg amputated. If you want, you can adopt any of the puppies or mama. I hope they go to loving homes! Now we have another puppy that always comes over and is shivering and hungry that we need to ship out, and another litter of puppies were born about two weeks ago. Uuuugh. If you want to help, donate to Paws of Nome, or you can donate towards the shot puppy’s vet bills here: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/128oG2

Or you can donate to starving dogs in st Michael by ordering puppy food on Amazon and sending it to Kristie Carlson 100 Old Airport Rd St Michael, AK 99659

School fb page

 If you’re interested, here’s my school’s fb page:

https://www.facebook.com/SMKstorm?mibextid=LQQJ4d

February!

 I left PA one month ago! As much as I miss everyone back home, I’m so glad I did this!! This month has flown by and I want to work really hard because I only have a few more months here. 

After my kindergarten presentation, all the kids came and gave me a big group hug ❤️

A little sister’s Mukluks 

After school some kids made a snowperson. In the distant right corner, if you zoom in, you can see the cemetery and the green tarp where they dug the grave for the woman and her baby killed by a polar bear. Her funeral was yesterday but I didn’t go. It was a small church and I didn’t want to take up someone else’s space, and I need to be emotionally detached so that I can help the kids. 

When I got here the sunrise and sunset were at 11 and 4. Now it is: 

Hard village life video

https://youtu.be/QBVJgh9CpB0 

In the video I say “PFD’s”. PFD’s are funds that every Alaska resident gets every year. Last year it was $3,200 per person- even children. So if you are a household with 2 kids and 2 parents, your PFD would be $3,200 times 4. It changes every year but I think it goes up every year. Read more about PFD’s Here

Also, they don’t have a vet here, so dogs don’t get spayed/neutered. Sometimes a volunteer will come in to do it though. Right now there are two litters of puppies and this puppy (the only survivor of his litter) that needs homes so they don’t starve, freeze or get shot. My roommate feeds all the starving dogs out of the back porch. She spends a lot of her own money on dog food. I ordered some bags to help out, but orders take a while to get here. This little puppy comes out when I go to let Manzo out. I’m going to anchorage for a training soon and I could take it on the plane with me and then ship it to whoever wants to adopt him while I’m there. There are also the two other litters of puppies available. Paws of Nome is an organization in Nome that tries to adopt out these dogs, so if there’s room on the plane, we can send dogs in crates to Nome. But we have to have crates, a way to get to the airport, and there has to be room on the airplane. I want to take all the dogs and all the kids home with me!

Beautiful sunset

This sunset was so vivid and beautiful! I try (especially here) and stop to appreciate the little things. The other morning I was walking to school and the sky was clear and there were so many stars! So I stopped and just appreciated the view, and that I can have this experience. It’s getting lighter longer very quickly. There’s now sun still when I leave school! 

One of the books in the school library 

It’s so windy right now!! Luckily I have snow pants, an arctic jacket (thank you Heather and Matthew for inspiring me to get one!) ski mask and googles. I’ll be warm. All the school kids already walked home. Crazy, right?!

 

Eskimo ice cream

 Today the sixth grade class is using the scientific method with making akutaq, or Eskimo ice cream. They used to (and some still do) make it using whale blubber. Here someone is trying their different versions of akutaq and rating them. 

Akutaq recipe

It has been pretty cold the last few days (wind chill between -30 and -50) so we’ve had some pipes freeze around town. Last night we got a call that the whole town might lose water (it happened a few years ago and they spent a few months without running water and everyone had to use honey buckets, even at school). So my roommate and I quickly filled everything we could with water just in a case. Luckily, so far so good!