Trick or Treat

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Halloween Parade

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Every Year the elementary school here in Kotzebue has a costume parade. All the kids can dress up in their costumes and parade around the gym for everyone to see.


















Even some of the teachers join in.
















Uyaana didn't want to wear his costume at school.









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Snow Witch

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Taken outside the Alaska Airlines building in Kotzebue.

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Seal Hunter

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Sunset This Evening

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High Honor Roll

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This photo looks like a mug shot...YIKES!

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Shore Ave

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My new camera has a video function and I wanted to give it a try. Here is a video of part of Shore Ave (AKA Front Street)before the snow. The video was taken 10/24/09. Shore Ave won't be looking like this much longer. Next summer a erosion control project will begin, and the look of Shore Ave will be completely changed.

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Foggy Snowy Morning

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We had our first real snowfall of the season last night. It was nice to wake up to a layer of fresh clean snow outside.



The snow was heavy and sticky...what we call "snowman snow". Kids around town were excited because we only get "snowman snow" a few times a year. It's not usually warm enough.




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Yesterday Evening

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Doggy Play Date

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This evening Kaija and Rush got to play out with my friend Kathy's dog, Daisy.



































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Stink Dogs

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Last Monday I had an algebra exam on Monday. Today in class we got our test back and I got a 92%. I should have done better because one of them I had right I just accidentally dropped a digit when I copied it to the answer line. Good enough. We went on to the next chapter today and for once it wasn't so bad. I actually made it through the class without wanting to tear my hair out.




Today we had our first really cold day of the season. Sure, in a couple of months this kind of weather won't seem that cold, but right now it does. That north wind just blows right through you.




Kotzebue Sound is trying to freeze up but it has been to windy. The rivers are mostly frozen over as are the lagoon. People are already fishing for tomcod on the lagoon behind town. The channel in front of town hasn't frozen over yet because it is too windy. As soon as the wind dies down it should close up. Only 7 more months til breakup. :)




I had algebra right after work today and that lasted until 6:40pm. I got home around 6:50. I put the dogs in the back of the truck and took them out to the road behind town. I usually let them run about 4 or 5 miles. When we started to head home I told Uyaana to let the dogs jump into the cab of the truck for the rest of the ride and when they did the overwhelming stench of something terrible came in with them. The boogers had rolled in something during their run. The smell was so putrid and nasty that I couldn't even identify what it had came from...rotten meat, rotten seal...stink fish? It was too terrible to tell. I told those stink dogs they were spending the night in their dog house.

Of course about an hour later I started feeling sorry for them and gave them both baths and let them come in the house. Now they kinda smell like a Pantene Stink Fish Formula. Mmmm, good stuff. Maybe I should take out a patent.

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Denial...

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...it ain't just a river in Egypt.

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Mammoth Tooth

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This is a mammoth tooth found by a friend in a gravel bar on the Noatak River.




It is roughly the size and weight of a 5lb bag of sugar.

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Cloudy Sunset

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OTZ+WLK+Spud+WLK+Spud+OTZ= Cranky Pilot

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Here are some more photos of my weekend at Spud.




This is the sign at the end of the runway out at Spud. This is where me and one of the staff, we'll call him "Bob", were waiting to catch our plane. He was headed home to Selawik and I was heading back to Kotzbue. The routing of the plane was Kotz-Selawik-Spud-Selawik and back to Kotz so staff could rotate. While we were at the runway waiting for the plane, camp security called to say that Bob's relief never got on the plane in Selawik. So when the pilot landed Bob told him of the problem and explained that when we went to Selawik that lady needed to be picked up and brought back to Spud.




So the pilot grumbled about starting and stopping the engine and the price of fuel while he threw our bags into the belly of the Cessna Caravan and off we went for our 5 minute flight to Selawik.




So the plane lands and the village agent for the airline drives up and the pilot, while climbing out of the cockpit says to him, "Nothing like another *ucking cycle for nothing!" Charming, ah?.

So relief lady gets on and Bob gets off and me and relief lady have to spend 20 minutes sitting in the plane while the pilot stands on the ground passive aggressively smoking cigarettes and chatting with some dude. Haha, whatever. So then we take off, head back to Spud to drop off relief lady and then head to Kotzebue.




The path of the flight took us over the village of Noorvik.




Noorvik has about 642 residents.




It is located on the right bank of the Nazuruk Channel of the Kobuk River, 33 miles northwest of Selawik and 45 miles east of Kotzebue.




One of the many tundra lakes on our way back to Kotzebue.




Kotzebue.









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