Seriously Love It

I usually don't miss Alaska. The cold. The dark. The starting the car 20 minutes before you drive because it's 40 below. Did I mention the dark?

But then sometimes I come across something like this blog post about voting in Alaska...and well I kind of miss it. The sod roofs. The mush dog trucks with a dozen puppy heads hanging out the window loving life. The northern lights.

And I'm glad I still have some family in Alaska I can come visit.

An Island In Alaska

A little while ago, I was asked to post some Alaska related stuff. I'm not from Alaska but I did live there during my four years in high school in Fairbanks and then later after college in Anchorage. So I'm going to post a huge flash-back for me...back to 1995. Scary!

Our family had just moved to Alaska and my brother and I were privileged to be asked to go to a little island community called Kaktovik on Barter Island which is in the Beufort Sea (in the Arctic Ocean) just North of the mainland of Alaska. Here's a map for reference:
The people there are native Inupiat and some of the nicest, gracious people I have met. We were just there for a couple days doing a vacation Bible school with the kids but we had quite the experience.

As we were flying up we saw the Brooks Range and a whole herd of musk ox (from the pilot that's pretty rare to see). Here's the island from the air from our little plane before we descended:
As you can tell...that far North there are no trees. The kids said that the things they liked when they went down to Fairbanks (a huge city to them) were the trees, automatic doors, large stores and Nike (I'm guessing Foot Locker?). I swear walking around, with no trees and just the big sky I could feel the curvature of the earth. It was pretty cool.

They were so friendly. When we landed tons of kids rushed out to meet us on the runway. They pulled up on bikes and everything! It was...I think August and we were freezing. They were wearing T-shirts. But they took us everywhere. We toured the town, the school, drove by a DEW site (I don't think it was an active site), and even got to dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean...it was beyond freezing. I think I saw a tiny iceberg in the distance...not kidding.
We even got to tour around the beach where they dice up the whales they catch. Believe me they use every scrap of meat and it's a big staple of their diet. I believe they are allowed to hunt three whales a year which feeds their entire village. I even remember asking one boy a common question "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And he just looked at me like I was daft and said "Be a whale hunter" like that was the most obvious answer and I should have known that.

Side note: A few months later I actually was able to try a piece of muktuk. It was a square half white half black...blubber and skin. Honestly I think it's an acquired taste.

I found this interesting article you can check out for more whaling info.

Here's my brother and I near some whale bones on the beach:
They have to keep the village pretty far from where they pull in the whale because predators will roam that area. Polar bears are a big deal there and when the kids walk to school there's usually a person on "polar bear" watch with a gun. Scary, huh?

But the trip went well, we had a lot of fun, and we didn't see any polar bears.

Things I remember:

1) No plumbing then (they do now, I believe) so their toilets were called "honey pots". Basically a trash can type of thing with a seat and you bagged it up and put it on the "curb" for pick-up like trash. Weird.

2) They have the most gorgeous school I have ever seen.

3) The kids are learning to speak Inupiaq from their grandparents. There were two girls with the same name so one went by her Inupiaq name. Very cool.

We did ask the kids to put on their winter coats because they were just too cute. What do you think?
Hope you enjoyed the Alaska story!

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Additional links:

Polar Bear in Kaktovik
Kaktovik housing
Kaktovik students

Umm..yeah

So I recently got a request from a lovely blogger named Bree at The Things We Read to post more photos, etc. from when I lived in Alaska. And I guess more of NYC. I've definitely enjoyed and am enjoying living in both these places.

So I was busy scanning some photos from back in the day when I waded in the Arctic Ocean...and then it happened. My computer got drunk. Ok. That's sort of a lie. Amanda being the lovely klutz that she is decided to pour a whole glass of wine over her computer. The computer still has a hang-over. So hopefully soon the computer will recover from this head-ache...possibly with a little help from AA (or Best Buy) and will be back on its feet in no time.

Until then, please enjoy this photo of me and The Bear (a.k.a. Anna Bear) in Chugach State Park near Anchorage, Alaska.

Blast to My Past

My brother recently found some old photos of ours family's and scanned and sent them to me. Ahhh..the good old days.

Here's one of my dad walking down the road near our house. We lived outside city limits so the streets are unpaved.



This is the cute house we lived in while in Alaska. The entire inside was all wood and I loved it. The gazebo outside caused a friend's kid to call it "Amanda's Castle". How cute!

When we moved back to Colorado my mom, brother, and I went on an old family favorite cross-country skiing trip to Mayflower Gulch in Summit County. It's so gorgeous and I recommend it during the winter or summer.

Love Living Places

I love living in different places. I'm so spoiled because it's so much better than traveling and seeing a place for a week. Although there are many many places I'd only like to see for a week but not live. Ok...rambling on...

Here's just a brief synopsis of places I've "lived":

Colorado (birth-6)
Utah (one year)
Nevada (four years)
Colorado (year and a half)
Tennessee (year and a half)
Alaska (four years)
Colorado (five years)
Wales, UK (four months)
Alaska (one year)
Nevada (two years)
New York (going on one year)

Wow...that actually adds up...

Anyway...it's still nice when places I've lived in turn up in the news. It's no Running of the Bulls, but hey...



Ok...so when WE went to the Fur Rendevous in Anchorage just a few years ago it wasn't ANYTHING like this. Arg.