Rural Alaska's Uncertain Future

When I ask you what you see in this picture you would most like say "I see a gas pump". When you ask me what I see in this picture I would say "I see the slow death of rural Alaska."




The first gas barge of the shipping season has arrived and the price of fuel for the first shipment has been set. The price at the pump is now $7.25 a gallon.

Crowley Monopoly Maritime Services is the only supplier of petroleum products to Kotzebue and therefore to most of the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska. We get our gas barged up once at the beginning of the summer and once at the end of the summer.




The gas is stored at Crowley's tank farm that you can see in the lower right hand side of this picture. That means that even though the price of fuel was already raised with this first barge shipment, the chances are when the second fuel barge arrives the price will be raised again.

The price at the pump is always more than the price at which you can buy fuel in bulk directly from Crowley. Prior to this first shipment gas was $4.20 a gallon and heating oil was $4.33 a gallon for a minimum of 53 gallons purchased. Before the barge came the price at the pump was around $5.50 to $5.70 a gallon depending on which store you went to. After the barge arrived Crowley increased their bulk fuel price to $5.80 a gallon for gas and $6.09 for heating oil. So basically it's $305 for 53 gallon drum of gas BEFORE taxes. That same drum filled at the pumps at the store pictured would be $384.25.

In addition to the increased price of gas and the more devastating increase in price of heating fuel locally here in Kotzebue is the increase of fuel prices that is affecting all of the United States and particularly Alaska. That increase is being reflected in the cost of food here at the stores. As I stated in an earlier post milk is $10.49 a gallon. A "cheap" loaf of bread is almost $3, 5lbs of potatoes is $7.99. We eat a lot of subsistence foods around here but that all takes gas to go out and get, and no one eats only caribou, fish, and seal anymore.

When I really sit down and think about it, I fear for the future of rural Alaska. If the price of fuel keeps increasing people are not going to be able to afford to buy food and heat their houses. I don't know about anyone else, but I my pay scale is not increasing to match the increased cost of living. The poor are going to be the hardest hit first. If things continue the way they are there is going to be a mass exodus of low income people out of rural Alaska and into the more metro areas such as Fairbanks and Anchorage.....and those areas just aren't going to have the infrastructure to handle such an influx of people. A crisis is looming around the corner waiting for the first cold snap of winter to rear it's ugly head.

Open Water

The Noatak River is open all the way to town. Here is a picture of the mouth of the river. People are already boating up to hunt ducks and geese and gather seagull eggs.





Every year spring feels like a miracle to me. When it is January it sometimes feel like it will take forever for it to warm up and melt the snow and ice. I think the opening of the river was earlier this year than last year. I would have to go back an look through my old pictures to be sure.





Noah and I decided to go up on the hill and have a picnic. I still wasn't feeling well but I was tired of being cooped up in the house.





It was pretty windy. About 15-20mph from the south. At least there were no mosquitoes.





Kaija was having fun chasing all the little birdies...





...but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't catch any.





On the way home we saw a flock of swans (or are they geese?) flying over town.

Cold Weather Nikon

I have had a few visits to this blog from people googling about cameras and cold weather. While I can't speak much about other cameras I can say lots about the Nikon D40. I purchased my D40 last fall and have had ZERO problems with it in the cold weather. I am very pleased with it's cold weather performance.

I use it in ALL weather, and when I say cold I don't mean 20F cold, I mean
-20F and colder cold. I only have one battery for this camera, and so far that is all I have needed. There are times when I go out in the country for several hours in temps well below zero and shoot at least 200 photos. I have never had any problems with the cold affecting the battery. As a matter of fact I have found that the Nikon D40 has exceptional battery life in all conditions. Using the built in flash does use the battery up faster, but it still has the best battery life of any camera I have ever owned (although I admit I have only ever owned 4 other digital cameras).

The Nikon 18-200mm VR lens also holds up well in the cold. At first it made me nervous to try and use it at -25F with blowing snow conditions but it has performed flawlessly.....even after dropping the thing on the floor in Juneau. I nearly had a heart attack. The fall broke the lens cap, step up ring and uv filter but the lens itself was unscathed.

A received a couple very useful cold weather photography tips from Seth Kantner. When shooting photos when it is snowing, you should allow your camera to become as cold as the air outside before you take it out of the case. That way the camera is cold and the snow will bounce right off the camera and the lens. If your camera is warm the snow will hit the camera and melt and cause water droplets on your lens that show up in your photos and can also get the camera wet and cause problems when it refreezes. The second piece of advice was, after returning home and going inside, allow the camera to return to room temp before removing it from the case. this avoids the camera becoming covered with condensation and possibly causing water damage. If I need the pics off the camera in a hurry I will quickly open the case and plug in the camera and turn it on and then zip the case back up before the condensation has a chance to form.

Arctic Circle Championship Day 2

Today was day 2 of the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association Arctic Circle Championship. I missed yesterday because I hadn't yet returned from Anchorage. This is a three day race, one 25 mile heat each day. The winner is determined by overall time over all three days. There is no dog limit.



It was a nice sunny day. The temp was 13 degrees and the wind was southeast at 23 mph. It was cooler than yesterday so the trail was harder and the cool air better for the dogs which reflected in the faster times today.



These are Bill Kornmuller's dogs.



There were a lot of people out to watch the start of the race. The dogs were excited and they were hollering...



...and leaping...



...and bouncing. The standings so far are......



Terry Streeper is 1st place over all. Day 1 time 1:14:18, Day 2 time 1:08:16.



Bill Kornmuller 2nd place overall. Day 1 time 1:16:49, Day 2 time 1:14:51



Buddoo Gallahorn 3rd place overall. Day 1 time 1:18:42, Day 2 time 1:15:01.



Luke Sampson 4th place overall. Day 1 time 1:17:28, Day 2 time 1:17:14.



Cyrus Harris 5th place overall. Day 1 time 1:21:43. Day 2 time 1:14:38



Paul Hansen 6th place overall. Day 1 time 1:22:14, Day 2 time 1:16:22.


Jay Cadzow is in 7th place overall. Day 1 time 1:58:12, Day 2 time 1:41:57. I don't have a picture of his team because he was 13 minutes behind the 6th place finisher and I gave up to go watch the finish of the snowmachine race. I will be taking pictures of Day three tomorrow and will try to catch the finish of some of the Kobuk 440 mushers. KDMA mushers banquet will be on Monday.

Photo Friday- Far From Home

I was born and raised in New England and Boston was an hour drive. Now I'm an Alaskan and Boston is Far From Home.

Wordless (almost) Wednesday

Wordless (almost) Wednesday- Akulaaq

8 Dog Championship Day 1

Okie dokie...back to mushing. Today was the first day of the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association 8 Dog Championship. This is a 2 day, one heat each day, 12 mile race, winner determined by overall time. I forgot to bring a paper and pencil so I don't have any times yet. I will get those tomorrow, but the results without time are (I think I have this right).......



1st Paul Hansen



2nd Levi Harris



3rd John "Buddoo" Gallahorn



4th John Goodwin



5th Joanne Harris

Check This Out

Behold this weeks Arctic Sounder . Those are my pictures. That is my article. I'm not much of an article writer, but that's ok. My stuff is 2 half page spreads....granted the editor is really good about printing stuff people send in, BUT STILL that's MY stuff. I'm a little peeved at a couple things she screwed up changed but they are minor. One of the captions states that this was the first race of the season in Kotzebue...it wasn't. But really, Tamar, it's no big deal, the photos look great and you used all of them and that's really cool. It is always nice to see your stuff published somewhere.

Photo Friday- The Good Life

The Noatak River is God's country. It is the good life.

Photos From Juneau

And now for something completely different for those of you who are all mushed out. Here are some pics from my rip to Juneau the last week in February.



Here is the Alaska State Capitol building. Going here was the main reason for visiting Juneau. I was there to take part in the Key Campaign. The Key Campaign, sponsored by the Key Coalition is a statewide group of supporters, friends, and advocates of individuals who experience developmental disabilities, and their families. The focus of the Key Campaign, held each spring for the last 21 years, is to lobby the state Legislature and administration to create a state that has no wait list for services and to develop a rural and urban system of community programs that are fiscally healthy and consumer driven.



After all the meetings and all the walking up and down that hill there was plenty of time for sight seeing. Here is the marina at Auke Bay.



It was nice to see some ducks. We won't be seeing ducks here in Kotzebue til around mid May.



The weather was downright tropical to me....around 35-40 degrees, so of course that meant it rained much of the time. Even still the scenery was beautiful.



The sun even popped out a few (short) times which was nice. I have some more photos to share but I will save them for later.

Dan Snyder Sr. Memorial Race Day 3

Today was day 3 of the Kotzebue Dog Musher's Association Dan snyder Sr. Memorial Sled Dog races. The day dawned rather overcast and dull, with the kind of white light where you can't tell the ground from the sky. By 11:30 a modest crowd of mushers, handlers and spectators were gathering down on the ice. Even with the sun hiding out it was a comfortable 7 degrees causing Fred Jackson to exclaim "Great weather for racing!"



One of Paul's dogs waiting while the rest get hitched.



This is one of Buddoo's leaders. He's a handsome dog. I have posted several pictures of him in the past.



Here's another one of Buddoo's dogs waiting to get hitched up.



Buddoo was the first across the finish (remember winners are determined by time).



Here is Paul and Cyrus coming towards the finish line. Paul had some trouble at the start of the race. The neck line on one of his dogs kept coming off and he lost about 1 minute and 20 seconds trying to get the problem fixed. This allowed Cyrus to gain some time on him.



Oh no! Paul's dogs have veered off the trail. Maybe they were trying to take a short cut to the finish line.



He had to throw his snow hook and stop his team, run to the front, grab his leaders....



....and haul everybody back on the trail.



Meanwhile, Cyrus and his team are bearing down on him as Paul runs back to his sled.



From where I was standing it looked like they were going to end up in a big mess of balled up dogs and tangled lines, but Cyrus was able to go on by as Paul picked up his snow hook and took off.



They shared the trail side by side for the next 100 yards.....



...and crossed the finish together. Even with all the trouble that he had, Paul was still able to hang on to second place in overall time.



Last into the chute is Uncle Bung.

The race trail starts of on the ice in front of Fred's house and over towards Lockard Point. From there it heads towards the Little Noatak and about 7 miles out loops around to the left and heads back towards town on the Noatak trail. The racers took off, one at a time, promptly at noon, with Virgil Naylor Sr. keeping the time and setting off one musher every two minutes. "The trail had a pretty good base", said musher Cyrus Harris, "But anywhere off the trail is soft. We had to be careful to stay on the narrow trail we had in this open terrain". Other mushers had similar reports of trail conditions, "It was pretty good", replied Bung Nelson, "Better than yesterday".

The KDMA's next race will be the 8 Dog Championship (12 mile) held March 15th and 16th. The races start at noon both days with a total purse of $5,000.

Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association Dan Snyder Sr. Memorial Sled Dog Race Results
Day 1
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 57 min 49 sec
2. Paul Hansen 59 min 40 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 60 min 47 sec
4. Arvid "Bung" Nelson 68 min 49 sec
Day 2
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 52 min 15 sec
2. Paul Hansen 61 min 18 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 62 min 28 sec
4 Arvid "Bung" Nelson 71 min 15 sec
Day 3
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 60 min 50 sec
2. Cyrus Harris 64 min 47 sec
3. Paul Hansen 66 min 48 sec
4. Arvid "Bung" Nelson 68 min 05 sec
Overall
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 179 min 54 sec
2. Paul Hansen 187 min 46 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 188 min 02 sec
4. Arvid "Bun" Nelson 208 min 09 sec