Beautiful Babies

Here's something I forgot to include earlier this month. Part of the 4th of July celebration here in Kotzebue is the Beautiful Baby Contest. Here are a few of the entries....





























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I Love a Parade, Part 2

I think we left off with the girls on a firetruck. Here is another view of them.




Here is the Sisualik Float. It looks like Maija is trying to throw a handful of candy at my head.




Yay Sisualik!!



We got lots of candy from them.




This is the Kotzebue Electric Association's truck (KEA). I'm sorry KEA that my electric bill was only $48 last month. It is not my fault that there was something wrong with your meter. I am sure it will go back to the usual $225 a month now that you have changed the meter.




Here is the Kotzebue Fire Department's rescue boat. It can maneuver over ice and water. It is especially useful in poor ice conditions when other modes of transportation are unsafe.




This is the Northwest Arctic Borough School District's bus. Yep, Kotzebue has a school bus, however it is used only for children eligible for special education services. Everyone else has to walk or get rides from their parents.




Here is a truck from the Alaska Commercial Company (AC) store. You know, the place where we pay $10.49 for a gallon of milk, $11.39 for a 12 pack of Pepsi, and $8 for a bag of chips? Yeah, that place. Anyway, those are some of the Kotzebue High School's cheerleaders on the back with the Husky mascot.




And here are the Alaska State Troopers float. They are towing a boat full of kids and their furry mascot which loosely resembles a squirrel...or maybe it's a bear. You be the judge.




Here's the Park Service's truck. It was decorated to look like a tiger. Very cute. I LOVE the mammoth.




And here is the political message for the day. This is a difficult topic and it is hard to find unbiased information about it. As a matter of fact I don't think there is any unbiased info about the proposed Pebble Mine out there. It is a very touchy subject. It can be hard to balance the environment with the economic health of the state.




And here is the Native Village of Kotzebue's float.

Well that's it for the parade.

I Love a Parade...

...the tramping of feet,I love every beat I hear of a drum. La la la la I love a parade, when I hear a band...ok, so we have no band, but we have sirens! Lots and lots of sirens and a parade route a mile and a half long.




We staked out our usual spot over by the First Baptist Church. The tan building you are looking at in the distance is the "Eskimo Building". It houses the Native Village of Kotzebue offices and the Post Office. We like this spot because it has a nice view of the water and it is relatively close to the start of the parade which means the floats haven't run out of candy yet.




You can hear the parade for a long time before you can see it coming around the corner.




The parade was led by the Boy Scouts this year.




The Grand Marshal of the this year's parade was Elsie Adams. Elsie was one of the original city council members when the council was first formed in 1959.




Here is one of our lovely police cars, driven by one of our lovely law enforcement officers.




This is the State of Alaska Department of Transportation firetruck that is stationed out at the airport.




This is Maniilaq Associations's float. I swear it looks exactly the same as it did last year. Maniilaq Association provides health and social services to residents of rural Northwest Alaska.




Here's the back of the float. The girls you see in the fur parkas are contestants in the Miss Arctic Circle and Teen Arctic Circle contests. More on that later.




This is a firetruck. Yup.




I think that this is NANA Regional Corporation's float. NANA is the regional native corporation.




And another firetruck.



Ok, that's all for this installment. There is more parade pics to come but it is late and I am getting sleepy.


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