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| The picture I stole from Sam....they were awesome last night... |
Well I have been back in Noorvik for about 2 months now. It has been great. The majority of the time, however, has been rainy. Much more rain than the average for this time of year. The river flooded quite a bit (not like the spring during break-up, but still high). People have said it has made for bad fishing this year. The school year has been going well. We have 4 new teachers here this year with us and we all sync well and are having a wonderful time (in general). We had two extra teachers here for a few weeks from Kivalina. The village was without water for a few weeks so the district sent the teachers of Kivalina to other villages to work until the water was back working. I believe the JUST started school last week. Such is life in the Bush.
Lately, the northern lights have been spectacular and I have been enjoying walking around and watching them. Last night was the first time I have seen any other color than green. It was only red, but still it was awesome. I just wish I had a camera to take pictures of them....therefore I am "stealing" them from a friend.
My classes are going well. I am getting more and more used to this 6 separate subject thing. My last class is Outdoor P.E. I love it. I have the 7th graders and I co-teach it with our CTE teacher, John Dennis. We can take them outside to just play games, or use the GPS' and set up an orienteering course. Once the snow falls, we plan on taking them out cross country skiing/snow shoeing. When it is too horrible outside, we will take them into the shop or over to Angie's class (she's the Inupiaq teacher). We will hopefully enlist some locals and go down and check net under the ice or set up snares, build snow caves, etc... Last Thursday, John and I split the class to set up two "geocaching" courses that we will trade and have the other half try and find everything we hid. While out, my group came upon a spruce hen. Leonard tried to throw rocks at it to kill it, but he kept just missing it.
I bought a gun and brought it up, but I have only had a chance to sight it in, not hunt. Not having a boat hinders the hunting until it freezes and snows. Thankfully others have shared with me and I have caribou and moose meat to use. Last year I had only seen cows and calves, but this year I saw my first bull moose and it was just huge! I had to do a double take when I saw it. I was on my way out to the airport with Paul to pick up the truck and on our way back, it had started swimming across the river. Sadly I didn't have my camera on me at all. Oh well...
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| Barge heading up river |
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| Rummy enjoying the view off the cliff there...Looking NW...He has taken it upon himself to go down this cliff into the muddy mess below |
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| He stopped fetching things in the rive in the beginning of September...too cold for him. |
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| 7th Graders |
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| I have adopted 2 ferrets...this one and an albino one |
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| This hawk (goshawk, maybe?) was seen in town and showed no fear of humans...no aggression, but no fear and that worried many adults, but the kids found it great...it was finally killed |
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| The Youth Leaders of Noorvik |
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| Paul (facing us) and John Dennis (left) are skinning a Caribou that one of the Elders gave the teachers |
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| Eloise (Paul's daughter) and Donny (a student) playing with Rummy |
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| Julie's house (John Friend) in Anchorage. We stopped here on our way to lunch in Anchorage during our mental health vacation. It is a quaint house. |
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| The spruce hen we saw on our course set up walk. |
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| Darren and Nikki's dog, Coco |
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| Jenna (left) and Heidi (right) posing by the ferrets that are hiding in the cage behind paper |
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| Ice Flows on the river....needs to freeze! |
