Robbin and Chris's Alaska

Holiday Greetings from the Arctic Circle!!

This holiday season, as everyone celebrates Christmas and the beginning of a new millennium, Chris and I will be rejoicing over December 22.  That day is the Winter Solstice which is the turning point of the winter.  The Solstice marks the shortest day of the year, and this year we will not see the sun on that day.  Once the Solstice passes, we will start gaining daylight at about 8 minutes a day.  The dark of an Arctic winter allows me to truly appreciate the movement of the earth and the sun.

Winter officially begins on the 22nd, but I know that it really started in October and will last long past the Spring Solstice.  To dispel any confusion about the true start of winter,  I've compiled a top ten list of ways to know that it is winter in Alaska, because everyone has a list these days.  All of the following are true:

          -the chainsaw has a place of honor by the woodstove
          -I need a parka, hat and gloves to go into the pantry
          -the potatoes are frozen
          -it's so cold that smoke falls to the ground
          -there is a frozen tower in the outhouse, but it doesn't smell anymore
          -most electrical things refuse to work outside, including the porch light
          -there's a frozen fish on the pantry floor
          -the dog won't go outside
          -snot-sicles
          -it feels warm when the temperature gets up to -20

Well you get the idea; it's cold and dark here.  But things aren't all bad.  We do have lots of snow and when the full moon rises on the Solstice it will be as bright as day.  We are also privileged to see fantastic displays of the Northern Lights.  The faint sun light we do get creates beautiful colors on the snow and trees, which seems like a constant sunset.  It is truly beautiful here in the winter, and there are no bugs to disturb you.

Thus far our stay in Ambler has lived up to our expectations (nothing too ordinary).  Ambler's uniqueness is far different from Sleetmute's.  First of all the people, are very different, they are Inupiaq Eskimos who rely more on coastal areas than the Yup'iks did.  We've eaten a variety of fish, just as we would in any native village, but we've also had seal and whale.  The seal arrived at the school one afternoon for a school function.  It was whole except for the bullets in its head.  The frozen carcass was dragged into the shop room to thaw.  The next day the native class teachers skinned it and took off the fat.  The fat is used to make seal oil, which is an Eskimo condiment that goes on everything.  No one wanted to deal with the rest of the animal, they said that they didn't have the time.  Chris decided to tackle the project so that his science class could have the bones to make a skeleton.  He learned right away why no one wanted to deal with it: seals stink!  Besides the smell, it was still mostly frozen, even after several days of thawing.  Chris persevered though; he cut up and boiled the seal in a weekend.  Now he just has to finish cleaning the bones so that his class can put them together.  Luckily the whale came boneless in small boxes from villagers' relatives on the coast.

We'll be spending the holidays in Ambler.  The other teachers are getting together for Christmas, so we'll join them.  We may also go to the village gathering at the church.  Other than that I expect to do a lot of reading and maybe catch up on movies.  We have no official plans for next year, except that we will be moving to a new village.  I'm trying to get into graduate school for my Masters of Library Science.  If I get accepted I may be on the East Coast for awhile in August.  If not I don't know when I'll get back East.  Hopefully we'll know where we're moving to in April.

Have a good holiday!!

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