It's snowing!

I was up early cleaning and looked out the window to see little flakes sprinkling from the sky. They have been falling off and on all day and so the ground is no longer tan and dusty; it is white and fluffy. I had chicken noodle soup for dinner and cuddled under a blanket to watch a movie. Wonderful!

Today one of the teachers, who was here last year, offered to take Ryan (one of the other new teachers) and I out on the trail with him. We explored about an 8 mile trek of the river and surrounding area. We saw bear tracks, moose droppings, rabbits, and some birds. The two of them know a lot about the wilderness and hunting but I do not. So I listened a lot to their information sharing and to their entertaining stories about their lives and adventures. The social studies teacher caught a shefish at the Porcupine River. He was able to skin and fillet it right there on the edge of the river. While he was fishing, I found some bear tracks down the river bank a little ways. The tracks look like there was a mom and her cub.

The day was one of the best I have had here. It was so good to get outside and explore the area. I did find however that I have gotten a little clutsy recently and I managed to fall (literally) on my ass three times. I mean, wiped out! It was a little embarassing.

Last night, the seniors had a fund raiser dinner for their senior trip so a few of the teachers went to the dinner and then came over for game night. We played scrabble and monopoly and had a really good time. I am really lucky to be working with such a great group of people.

Fairbanks Trip

While I can't really say that I learned much from the training sessions, I did get a lot of studying done for the Praxis, which I found out a week ago that I had to take for teacher certification in AK. I took the test Friday and did pass the reading and the math but am waiting on scores for the writing. I have my fingers crossed!

A good part of training was getting to meet other teachers in the district as well as getting to know some of the ones I don't see often in our building. We also have a new Special Education teacher who I got to meet for the first time.

In our free time, we ate good food and shopped. I got all of my winter gear for the super cold months ahead and just have a couple odds and ends to order now so I am relieved. I also got a membership at Sam's Club and bought in bulk a ton of food so that I should be set for a couple months. It is in the mail now coming to me and I am so excited for it to arrive so that I can start cooking!

I also got to run the trail around the resort a few mornings. It was about 1 mile in circle and absolutely gorgeous since all of the trees have turned to an orange, yellow coloring. Fall is a little excelerated here. It is already in the fifties during the days and we are loosing about 8 minutes of daylight every 24 hours. The first morning on the trail I saw a fox and another time, I came upon some hunters who caused my heart to skip a couple beats because I could barely make them out in the dawn light. What I saw were the outlines of two men with rifles (I think). They had full gear on and were adjusting themselves before they were going into the woods. Once I identified what they were doing it was okay and they were friendly and said hi when I greeted them, but at first it seemed more of a movie scene than a typical morning jog. The best part of the trip was definitely the trail.

We also drove to North Pole, saw some reindeer and ate some really good pizza at the local Pizza Hut.

Click here to see where we stayed: Wedgewood Resort.
Click here for the North Pole Wiki.

Teacher In Service Training

Just kidding. It wasn't that bad.

But we did get a little bored.

:)

Sunset

Sunset at Yukon River.

Joelle & me at Yukon River	Todd on beach
Porcupine River, from boat	Todd & me on boat
The Barge	My shadow, big and tall.

A couple weekends ago, we had one of the community members take us out on the Porcupine and Fort Yukon Rivers. They are an intricate set of rivers so you have to know your way around to avoid getting lost. We got to see the kids' fish camp as well as some beautiful scenery.

Todd is the vocational teacher at school.

Random Sights

District Office	My life, in boxes.
U of A- Fort Yukon

There are about eight schools in our district. The district office is just a couple blocks up the street from our school. U of A is University of Alaska. We have to take a couple tele-courses for teaching qualifications so we go to this location in Fort Yukon to call in on speaker phone. We are learning about the Native American culture this semester. Our instructor is married to a native of Fort Yukon and is incredibly knowledgable and insightful.

School

The school is K-12. There are two sections: elementary and middle/high school. The school is located next to the district office, just a minute up the road from the post office. It is less than a ten minute walk from my cabin to the school.

View from the classroom

Inside the classroom

Student projects from the first weeks of school.

Click here to see a view of the school from the outside and also there is a good picture of the airport.

Sunday, Fun-day

Today was a beautiful day! My running shoes showed up at the school yesterday so this morning I had the principal let me into the gym and I ran for an hour and a half, listening to my iPod and loving every minute. I was slow and my leg is a little sore still from my former injury but it felt good.

After running Joelle and I went to the red church for the first time. It is an Episcopal church. They have the majority of the sermon, prayer and songs in English but they also sing some of the songs in the native language. The priest addressed the weather issues in the southern part of the country, emphasizing the fact that in Fort Yukon they never see the weather produced by hurricanes. They do not see high winds, etc. and he didn't know what that would be like. He did not mention at any point the extreme temperatures of their winters which I thought showed how compassionate he was to the people now in the south.

Also, they have a section of the service where they go around the room and whomever wishes to sends a prayer to a loved one or group of people. They go around the room and say their thanks as it fits them. The priest also asked Joelle and I to introduce ourselves since we were new. The priest's humble nature inspired me this morning. Honest and pure. I think I will go back next week.

We also took a boat ride with one of the native people. We went out on the Porcupine and Yukon rivers for a few hours, stopping at a youth camp (place where the kids go to explore, camp out, and develop their skills) and at a couple other random places. The rivers are gorgeous with the trees turning colors for fall already. It was warm today but the boat was windy and it was chilly.
Todd- one of the other new teachers here, gave me an apple he had gotten since he was in town for school and it was so good! The fruit and veggies at the store isn't as fresh as I am used to, so I have been sticking to the canned and dried varieties. (He gave me one more for the road so while I am working to try to get ahead tomorrow, I will have another bright spot). Todd is into finding these agate rocks and keeps digging around in the stones. They are crystal-like and I have found one but he picked up about ten or so today.

Joelle is my cabin roomate. She teaches math and PE at school.

Here are some pictures of things. I have some more and will try to get them up soon. Peace.

Agate Hunting	The Shoes
The Yukon River	The Yukon River
Joelle in the Kitchen	Joelle at the River

Flying in to Fort Yukon

I didn’t take any pictures on the little plane because when I arrived at the airport I saw the actual size of the little plane and it was quite little! At first I was nervous and scared but I board and there was a little kid who asked to be in the front seat and I told myself how silly I was that the little kid wasn’t scared and I was. So I kept telling myself that it was fun and exciting and I actually enjoyed it. I even relaxed enough to doze off for a few minutes. We have teacher training in September when we get to fly back to Fairbanks and I am looking forward to the trip just to be able to fly on the little plane again.

Arrival in Fairbanks

I flew to Fairbanks and stayed at the Westmark hotel for a night before flying to Fort Yukon. The view is from the hotel room. It was rainy and cold when I arrived and since I am still use to the North Carolina summer weather, I was freezing cold! After a full day of traveling, I treated myself to a salad and a special dessert of ice cream for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Then I went and bought some flannel pjs at the gift shop and snuggled into a deep sleep.