Alaskan Bush Adventure-Noorvik Style: September 2011

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Caribou Season

What can I say so far? Things have been going a BIT better! The weather has been AMAZING! Today I was hot walking back to my apartment. Last night, Darren and Chuck took me out Caribou hunting. We left around 5:45 and headed up river towards Kiana (weather was also beautiful). The wind, however, was cold...more so by the end of the night. We got back just before 11:00 p.m.

While out there, we saw three caribou, but they were too far away and would be a living nightmare to pack out of there. So we moved on. We trolled further down river to see if we could sneak up on a bear that had been seen roaming a beach and sand bar. We were not so luck as to see it. Chuck DID spot a grizzly way up on a ridge, and Darren saw it as well. I was not able to see it. I was using my monocular and they were using binoculars. We then went a ways up from there and pulled up to a beach to sit and see if any caribou come to the water....none did. So we decided to head back down river. About 5 minutes into it, Darren's dad came up behind us so we just killed our engines and floated and chatted. When there was a lull in the conversation, there was beautiful silence. By that, I do not mean that you're out in the Kettle Moraine and you faintly hear cars on the high way. This was middle of nowhere silence with loons, gulls, and other birds making noises now and then. The sunset was spectacular, and the moon rise (which was way high by the time the sun set) was beautiful. It was a wonderful experience going out there.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Views from out on the Tundra


There are some Sandhill Cranes in there somewhere...


Sandhills...


There was a salmon swimming right by the shore...I believe it is a dog salmon...

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Labor Day Weekend...

Another week has ended here. It was an up and down type of week, though Friday was a "fun" day all on its own. The kids were hyped up for the weekend due to it being a holiday one. Many were going up river to go camping and hunting. The caribou (tuttu) are crossing and this is a big time to go do some shooting. Last Sunday I was able to spectate Darren and Chuck with their skinning of a Grizzly that Chuck had caught. It was fun to see. Darren had shot a moose on that adventure and I got some of the meat from him, for which I am thankful...and it is so delicious. I am hoping to get some caribou

from someone soon so I can try it as well.

That dissection, if you want to call it that, did happen yesterday. However, it had to be done after school. Chaylen, the student that brought in the fish, brought in one that was frozen so we had to thaw it out in the sink. Some of the other girls in the class were running warm water over it to speed up the process. This ended up find a plumbing issue within the classroom. The floor drain started backing up and it was a raunchy smell, to say the least. So the room as a Fish/Sewer smell to it for a while (gone now though). That started the day off on a good note, actually. After school, we tried using the scalpels that I found...but they were way too dull. But we used them anyways and the shears and we made pretty good work of it...however, it was not a clean affair.

This afternoon, I FINALLY went out berry picking. Phyllis and Cliff took me out there on their Honda and we picked some blueberries on the Tundra. I also threw some crowberries and cranberries into my Tupperware as well...Walking on the tundra is harder than it may seem. It has tufts, or mounds, everywhere out there and it is liking walking a bog/fen/marsh area...not walker friendly. On our way back we stopped at the airstrip to pick up Rod and his friend. They were in town to get his boat and take it back to Kotzebue. While waiting there, we saw a flock of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead trying to find a place to land. That was fun, especially because I had never seen more than three flying together, and here were about 15 flying.