The other day one of our staff asked about the pace of her work day, "Can this day go any slower?". Well, that was an easy one for me so I stepped in with some smart alecky comments about the precise rotation of the earth...blah, blah, blah. But to be perfectly honest, time up here in Alaska in a remote village does seem to be a little off kilter. Let me explain.
First, there is native time. If it is said that church starts at 10:30 in the morning...that just means that coffee is started at that time and the actual service may get started somewhere close to 11:00. If one of our employees is slated to begin work at noon, perhaps they just thought of that as a suggestion and 12:30 might be a better time. Less predictable would be the arrival and departures at the local airport. "The plane should leave in about 15 minutes or so" is a common comment. I mean, all the passengers are there, so we may as well leave sooner rather than later...right? The only predictable time schedule is flight arrival since we all know that it is only a 22 minute flight from Kalskag to Aniak and the plane just left two minutes ago so I suppose the plane should be here in about twenty minutes. You got all that?
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Airstrip on the other side of the fence
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Speaking of flying...that brings me (Mark) to the next time element. Supplies for the store arrival time. Sometimes we order things (GM, grocery, etc) and they arrive in a week,,,sometimes three weeks! or longer! And we do not know that the freight is arriving until we get a phone call from the airport telling us that they are "on the way with five pallets: two freeze, one chill and two dry". Of course we did have some inkling that freight might be arriving since we are ALL right next to the airport and you can definitely tell the difference between a small passenger puddle jumper plane and a quite large cargo plane that causes the whole village to rumble to the point that you wondered if we were having an earthquake! On a brief side note...many customers phone in what is referred to as a "bush order" for groceries that we box up and take to the airport for transport to their village. Neat, huh? A little expensive too but that is how it works out here.
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10:30 pm view over the Kuskokwim River
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Finally, as you all are aware, daylight, or lack of it, is often an issue up here at 61 degrees north latitude. I have lived as far south as
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Whittier, ALASKA
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Whittier, CA (34 degrees north) and as far north as Menahga, MN (46 degrees north) and until now have not fully appreciated "time". Here in Aniak I am learning about daylight. For starters, we ALL understand Actual Time: Today, May 4th 2012, our sun rise was at 6:16 AM and sunset is scheduled for 10:54 PM. 16 hours and 38 minutes of "actual' daylight. Then there is Civil Twilight. You know, when the sun is no more than 6 degrees below the horizon at either sunrise or sunset. For that, we have "civil" daylight from 5:15 AM to 11:56 PM. That is right, 18 hours and 41 minutes of light in the sky where one should be able to carry on normal outside activities. Finally, there is Nautical Twilight. This is when the sun is 6 to 12 degrees below the horizon. Today, we will have "nautical" daylight for 23 hours and 20 minutes...from 3:08 AM to 2:28 AM. I happened to wake up at 4:30 this morning...and you guessed it, I was curious and sure enough it was a little light outside. Needless to say, we DO have room darkening shades on the windows.
Thank you for hanging in there with me today. I actually have more to write but this has been lengthy already so I will tune in again another day...soon. Seeing how today is a Star Wars Day, I have some information about Chewey that you might find interesting.
Mark
Another sign of spring here in Aniak is our grocery delivery system. In the winter, many customers phone the store with their grocery order. We box it all up and then drive it over to the airport where bush pilots then fly these groceries out to the these "more remote" villages. NOW, however, since the river is open, people simply hop in their boats and come up or down river to Aniak to shop at our store. Some customers who make frequent trips to the bustling metropolis of Aniak leave a four-wheeler near the river for when they come to town. But for others, they must walk to the store (the store is only the equivalent of one city block from the river). So, when they are finished shopping we drive them back to their boat on the river. Incredible. But that is life out here...in THIS spring.
