Things To Do In Aniak

Happy Arrival

Our daughter, Miranda, came to visit this last weekend out here in the bush.  She discovered the joys of a one way 5,000 mile trip.  And lest she had the notion that there was nothing to do "way out here",  Beth and I showed her ALL the sights.

It all started with her arrival at the airport, ANI.  Those are the call letters for our one runway strong extravagance of an airport in Aniak.  Though actually the real eye opener took place at the ultra modern baggage claim when the fork lift pulled up outside with everyone's luggage piled into a big bucket.  How quaint.

Baggage Claim

With that excitement out of the way we proceeded to show Miranda most of the sights...on foot.  We pretty much walk wherever we go.  We had a truck at our disposal but once you have ridden our pot-holed dirt roads, and have your internal organs jumbled enough, you will agree with us that God gave us feet for a very good reason.  So, walk, we did.

Miranda and Beth above the Kuskokwim  River

Miranda in charge of fish cleaning

Yes!  $7.14/gallon!

We walked along the river a lot.  It is prettier than walking "in town".  We saw...some of the ice that still has NOT melted from the break-up one month ago;  a fish cleaning platform that is till being built (the kings should start running any day now);  a float plane on the river;  the high price of gasoline in the village;  a cow moose track along with two of her calves and finally, said mamma moose wandering through town!

Moose on the loose

The last day she was here we braved the roads and drove the truck all around.  I started our trek with 1/8th of a tank of gas and pretty much finished with the same amount (though we actually did cover quite a bit of ground).  We saw such sites as...Roger towing a boat with a four-wheeler;  the quarry (we saw a bull moose in the woods but could not get a picture);  Aniak High School (the Half Breeds);  the dump ( I am not posting any of those pictures) 

Proud papa!

 and made one final stop at the shooting range where Miranda fired off some rounds of 30-06 on my Winchester 700!

Aniak By The Numbers

I, Mark, exceeded the speed limit the other day.  And I must confess...I tried to go fast.  The store had ordered (2)  4-wheelers and when they arrived at the airport, well, someone had to volunteer to bring them over to the store.  The first trek I was a little tentative.  But by the 2nd journey I was primed and ready.  Zooming around the perimeter of the airport I actually hit 28 miles an hour!  Incredible, right?!? 

As if we need speed limit signs

So far I have only noticed 2 speed limit signs.  There is 1 right around from the store on a side residential road with access to the river.  The posted sign states a 15 mph limit.  Out on the road that circles the airport on the west end (where there is one of the 3 stop signs in Aniak...we also have 1 yield sign) the posted speed limit is 25 mph.  I drove to the dump yesterday, and because my load in the back of the truck was a little unstable, I never exceeded 15 mph.  And this is the "norm".  Due to the fact that there are not any paved roads in Aniak, the place is quite dusty.  So people try to keep their speed down in order to keep dirt in its place...on the road.

Heading home across the slough

2 days ago I drove 2 family groups down to the river to deliver them and their groceries to their boats.  I was hauling 7 large boxes of goods, 2 women and 2 children in the cab of the truck and 1 man, 1 woman and two children in the bed with the goods.  I had to drive down a steep river bank where there is a "road" that runs along the river when the level is low.  It was full of bumps and holes and in some places was quite muddy...deep mud.  But I did not lose a single package or person.

Just wait...I'll capture a pic with multiple riders

Often times customers arrive at the store by vehicle.  Some arrive by truck and if the family group is large it is not uncommon to see some of them sitting or even standing in the bed of the truck (remember..no one drives very fast...no seat belts are used and in fact, most do not even possess a drivers license...they do not issue them in the bush).  But a large majority arrive at the store on a 4-wheeler.  Sometimes it will be just 1 person but more often the case it is numerous people.  I have seen up to 6 on a 4-wheeler at one time.  This usually involves at least 1 child sitting in front of the handle bars and 2 or 3 more hanging onto the back in some sort and direction.

I took my new rifle out to the range to get comfortable with it and decided that no grizzly bear stands a chance with me.  I only fired 4 times.  I did not hit anything in particular but the back end of that range is quite fearful of me at this time.


Now that is what I am talking about!

Well, that is all I have at this time with Aniak by the Numbers.  See you soon.



Mark

It Is Spring...Again!!!

Spring has finally sprung out here in the "bush".  Fortunately for Beth and I, it is our third spring this year.  You see, before we left North Carolina for Alaska, spring had arrived.  We had the grass turning green, the trees bursting forth with leaves and all sorts of things popping up out of the ground. 



Cherry tree blossoms in North Carolina

Oh yeah, and the bugs.  And in North Carolina those bugs get real excited about spring! 

When we were in Anchorage during the middle of this month, we got to see spring arrive again.  On the day that we drove up to Denali the trees were just beginning to show some signs of life.

Since our little day trip up Parks Highway toward Fairbanks went longer than we had planned (ask me about our "day" trip to Canada from Menahga, MN sometime), we arrived back in Anchorage at about 8 pm to trees that had popped out all their leaves!




Birch with leaves outside Wasilla

Now, finally, the same thing is happening out here in Aniak.  The pine trees stay mostly green all the time but the birch trees are in full array with all their beautiful green leaves just coming out.  I am sure it will look even more beautiful later in the summer when everything gets real green but for now we are simply enjoying our third spring of this year.  Thank you very much.



Sunset, taken at midnight.

Along with spring comes the realization of one of the Alaska nicknames for the state being "Land of the Midnight Sun".  We really do not have much darkness here right now.  Sunrise is around 5 am and sunset is around midnight.  But the sun roughly rises in the extreme northeast, makes a sweeping arc to the south and then sets in the extreme northwest.  It might get a little dark between two and three in the morning but I am not up too often in order to verify that myth.  In Anchorage they actually have a Midnight Sun Softball League where games do not start until 10:30 at night.  No ball park lighting necessary.



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.

Beth ready for spring!

Mark

Breaking Up...In NOT So Hard To Do

"It was so slow...it was like watching grass grow".  "It was so boring...it was like watching paint dry".  I am sure you all have heard these sayings but believe it or not when I tell you that watching and waiting for the ice to break up on the Kuskokwim river has been more fascinating and exciting than I thought possible.  Well, maybe not REAL exciting but definitely fascinating.

The average date for break up is May 7th, so prior to that date people start driving trucks, 4-wheelers, snow machines and bicycles to the banks of the river to observe its progress.

Just watching the river

 It starts with a little bit of open water between all the ice...


little bit of open water

progresses to big chunks moving down river...




big chunks and "pans" the size of houses!

to just one big o' ice jam...

Ice chunks on the road

which is what ever fears the most.  You see when the river jams with ice and the water stops flowing, then it flows over the banks and floods the town. 

Fortunately that did not happen this year and the ice is now all gone off the river and there is only a few feet wide of ice chunks remaining on the river banks.  So, I guess we could say that we had a good break up.  Not everyone can say that...right?

Russian Mtns. with new snow in front of a mostly clear Kuskokwim River

On another note I must confess my utter fascination with children driving four-wheelers. 
It is quite common and sometimes you might see a 10-year old driving and two younger ones riding along.  Just cracks me up.  I keep trying to capture them on camera but the little buggers are just too fast sometimes.










Finally, Beth and I are taking a mini/urgent vacation/medical trip to Anchorage tomorrow through Sunday for me to have semi-emergency surgery for a hernia.  Thank you for praying for us.

Mark

Time in the Village

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?



Airstrip on the other side of the fence

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.

10:30 pm view over the Kuskokwim River

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

Whittier, ALASKA

 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

Life in the "Bush"

I (Mark) need to share a little of what is on my mind/heart:

Life here in the village of Aniak, Alaska (also referred to as being "out in the bush") is different from most other places that we have lived. 


On the Kuskokwim River

If you have a limited imagination, then you would be hard pressed to find much to do during your spare time.  Do not get me wrong, this is such a beautiful place full of opportunities for activities such as boating, fishing, four-wheeling, hiking, hunting and snow machining.


Hiking along with "big white dog"

Unfortunately, many people are not so creative.  Out here in the bush, drinking and drug abuse are wide spread.  Abuse and violence are common against both humans and critters.  Often times there seems to be very little that is valued. 


Common site

Vehicles, dwellings and even personal hygiene/care/appearance are neglected.  Much to our dismay, these things have hit close to home (work) this week with abuse and even a suicide.  It breaks our hearts.  It saddens us to see so little value placed on the richness that God provides.


Small mountains in Alaska

 We are thankful that God has brought us to so rich a place and we pray that we would be found faithful in being good stewards of His goodness.





And away we go!

Anchorage was a beautiful and nice small city with all the amenities we have become so dependent on.   We enjoyed our visit here but it was time to repack our life into six large suitcases and finish the next leg of our journey.  We arrived at the Anchorage airport nice and early only to find that our flight was delayed almost four hours due to maintenance.  We spent our time reading, watching people, walking around and waiting anxiously for our boarding call.  The plane we flew in comfortably sat thirty passengers, had the smallest lavatory I have ever seen, and offered beverage service.   Our flight would take us from Anchorage to Unalakleet then on to Aniak, about a two and a half hour trip.  We flew over amazing landscape. We saw the Alaska Mountains, Russian Mountains,  Kuskokwim Mountains, and the Yukon River.                                                                                                                                                               The further west, the more rugged the terrain, and I noticed that I did not see any villages, towns,
roads, buildings, or any sign of human life.



 Unlike flying over the midwest where you see blocks, patchwork fields, roads, lights, and constant evidence of  "us"; all I could see was vast wilderness which left me thinking if any of this beneath me has ever felt the weight of our footprints.  It truly is untamed. I felt so small. 

In Unalakleet we landed at an airport about the size of a Super America and got off the plane for twenty minutes or so.  I wandered into the parking lot and found myself standing on the edge of a frozen Norton Sound, a bay of the Bering Sea.

We reboarded the plane and shortly thereafter we landed in our temporary new village, Aniak. It was cold and snowy and it was now home.






Beth