Stuck in Anchorage

Well the title says it all! The Era Alaska turbo prop we were on blew a caution light, so we're stuck in Anchorage for an undisclosed period of time. But it's better than crashing!!!

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Explosive Fun

We had a lot of fun yesterday launching rockets with Group 1. Originally I'd planned to let each launch there own rocket, but quickly changed that plan; and besides none of the students wanted a vinegar shower after seeing my demo explode!

Now I have to say "Sup?! Hope you're all doing great!" to my Fairbanks students, who've apparently been following the blog! And I also wanted to answer a few of your questions!

For Katie and all the other students in my 6th period class... Hello! Andy is another student teacher in the program this year, he works at Tanana Middle (booo!). We got sent out here together for this rural practicum thingie. He has a blog, too, you should check it out by clicking HERE!

7th period... Hi! So many questions! Good job! Hahaha. Ok: no wildlife really, the bottle rockets only go about 10-15 feet high, I've been ice fishing but haven't caught anything, the temperature is about the same as in Fairbanks except it doesn't get as cold at night. The snowmachine I was riding is an old, red Polaris Indy GT which is a 2-stroke machine. Andy's been riding the cushier Polaris Trail 550, which I believe is also a 2-stroke but don't quote me on that. And finally, it's called "second tundra" because when you cross the Yukon River and head down that trail you go through some trees, over some creeks, through more trees, and then there's a large patch of tundra. Keep going and you have more trees, a small river, and then you come to "second tundra," which is much larger than the first.

Rockets and Snowmachines and Planes. Or: The Day I Lost Andy

Wow what a day... and it's only 7pm!

As aforementioned, I didn't get enough sleep last night... but I'm wide awake now!

The day started with little omelets, sausage links, and fruit cocktail. Andy and I then caught a lesson from the school's science and math teacher, and then moved on to building some prototype bottle rockets. I made a launch pad out of a 2x6 and a coat hanger, and made a rocket out of a 20oz. G2 bottle. Andy helped me make a cone out of some thick paper, and we added a straw to slide down the coat hanger of the launch pad. I took 3 different bottle caps, and drilled 3 different size holes in them: big, medium, and small. This was to experiment to see which one size worked the best. Before launch, the holes were to be plugged with modeling clay.

Andy and I took the rocket, caps, and launch pad outside for test launches. Video will come later. We lost the first coat hanger as it shot off with the first launch! Modified that design a bit. As it turned out, the larger opening worked the best at flying, and the small one worked the best at showering me with reagents.

You're still wondering how I lost Andy, aren't you? I'll get to that later. After lunch we showed the students our rocket and got them started building there. Most of them got everything done except the rocket fins (not shown in above photo), and the last couple of minutes of class I showed them the video from one my rocket tests that shot off in hand. Things were going pretty well.

School got out about 1.25hrs early for a teacher's meeting. There's a group of studentsgoing on exchange to Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks in a few weeks, and a group of Ryan students will be coming here. After school Andy and I took the group from here over to the native corporation store to shoot some video of the store (showing what they have and prices), and to interview the manager.

Around 2:45 Andy and I suited up for a bit of a snowmachine tour. The plan was for Andy to follow, as he hadn't ridden in about 10 years (oh yeah he didn't know where to go either!), and we were basically going to go on the same ride that Jason and I took the night before. The destination was what's locally known as "second tundra." The trail eventually runs to the villages of Kalskag, and then to Aniak.

We got about 2.5-3 miles from Russian Mission and I thought it was probably time to turn around. The red machine I was riding didn't have very much gas, and I wasn't sure how far I could get. Andy was riding a good bit slower than me, so the whole way out I'd been stopping to wait up for him. The turnaround was near the end of a long stretch of tundra, so I got some speed in, gained some ground on Andy, turned my machine around and waited. When he pulled up I told him to turn around and we'd head back.

Such unfortunate timing. When Andy was about to turn around, a guy on his way to Aniak passed Andy and sped off. Most regrettably, so I found out later, Andy thought that was me and began pursuing the other guy! Meanwhile I was waiting for Andy to turn around, but he just kept going and going and going.

In hindsight I should have sped after him at this point, but I just thought he was looking looking for a "better" place to turn around. I pulled out my camera and took some photographs. Still no Andy, I was getting worried. I jumped on my machine and rode as fast as I could up the trail looking for him, hoping to catch him. I rode for about five minutes, but saw or heard nothing.

Like I said earlier, I didn't have that much gas. Since I hadn't managed to catch him (and he'd been riding so slow), I thought maybe he'd tried to make some giant loop to turn around in the tundra, so I head back to my original turnaround, got out my binoculars and had a look around. Nothing. I yelled. I waited. I worried.

I waited for what seemed to be a very long time, although from checking the time stamps on my photos it was probably only about 10min. The adrenaline was pumping, and I was really starting to get worried. I wasn't even sure if I had enough gas to make it back to the village at this point.

I yelled some more, waited some more. Felt I had to do something. I thought that maybe he'd gotten on the other side of me when I rode up the trail, so maybe he was waiting back towards the village somewhere. I rode up some, looked with the binoculars, and waited.

Repeat x5 = 1 worried Mike. I have a tendency to worry.

I decided I should ride back to the village, get some gas, alert Jason, and head back out. On the way back I found a blue track wheel in the snow, so now I was really worried Andy had gotten a ways up trail and broke down. When I got back and told Jason, he said I should ride back out to the turnaround and wait for 1hr, then come back if I didn't find Andy. If he wasn't found, a small search party would be sent out.

I rode back out as fast as I could. I got almost to the turnaround, maybe about halfway across second tundra when I saw a machine coming. I was confident it was Andy, and it was! Whew! After we both figured out what had happened (Andy thinking the Aniak-bound guy was me), we stood on the tundra laughing for a few minutes!

Andy went a long, long ways past the turnaround. Mind you I'd been waiting, looking, searching, and had even been back to the village to alert the troops. Then I made it almost all the way back to the meeting spot (about a minute or two's ride) before he pulled up! He'd ridden probably about 45min before he turned around! He said the view on the way back was spectacular!

We headed back, but Andy wanted to stop on the Yukon for some fishing. Of course I had to head back up to the school and let Jason know I'd found him. Jason had already alerted a hand full of people to get ready for a search, so he had to call them off before I could even tell him what happened. Jason was just about to get on the radio to alert any pilots in the area!

Jason and I had a good laugh, he shared some lost people stories, and I headed back down to the Yukon to fish. No one caught anything, but it was a good day!

This village won't soon forget the adventures of Mike & Andy!

Russian Mission

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I could really use a bit more sleep :-)

Chemistry, Rockets, and Snow Machining

Until this morning I wasn't at all sure if I'd be teaching today, much less what I'd teach.

Andy worked on some basic geometry and pre-algebra with the group 3 kids during 1st period, and they had a great time; so I was motivated to come up with something for the afternoon! All of the students have been learning some basic chemistry, so I came up with a little review of matter, atoms, subatomic particles (mmmm), and elements to do today.

I ended up lecturing to the Group 3 students, constantly asking them questions, most of which they were able to answer. I made little "Basic Chemistry" notebooks for them from copier paper, and I required that they copy down several key definitions and sketches. At the end of the class I held up one dish of baking soda and one of vinegar; then challenged students to figure out what the mystery chemicals were. Many of them guessed correctly, so I asked them to come up with a way to test it. Everyone agreed we should mix them together. I took a student volunteer to mix, and presto: chemical reaction. I then explained the reaction, what the bubble were, and told them what we'd be doing for the rest of the week - making baking soda and vinegar powered bottle rockets!

For Group One I presented most of the same material, although a little simplified, except instead of only lecturing I had them take turns reading aloud from the text book. They were still required to write key term definitions and sketches in their newly acquired chemistry notebooks. At the end of class I conducted the same inquiry demonstration and told the class about the bottle rockets.

The classes went pretty well, although some of the kids were a little bored. But they needed to know the root chemistry before we moved on to the bottle rockets!

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After school Andy and I walked to the other village store store we hadn't been to yet, got some soda and peanuts, then returned to the school for a while. I'll admit here I took a short nap!

Jason, the school principal brought us homemade pizza for dinner again. After dinner Jason, his 5yr old son, his dog, and I went for a 1hr snow machine ride. Working with the students here is great, but the ride was certainly the best part of my day! We rode across the Yukon from the village then several miles down a trail to some tundra in the middle of nowhere about 10 miles from the village. It was dead quiet, and the view of the hills to the north was astounding! I got to ride very fast up another river for a few miles, too, so much fun!

Sorry, no new photos today. But who knows what tomorrow will bring :-)

First Day in School

My cell phone doesn't work here and I think I may be having txt'ing withdrawals!

I got up at 6am to shower, which I have to say was way too early. Could have, should have slept in another 45min, oh well. I made coffee in the school office, then enjoyed some left over principal-made pizza for breakfast.

Today's Sunrise from the Secondary Building

Both Andy and I had found it odd that we hadn't met any of the teachers yet, but as they started to show up this morning we found out they were all out adventuring all weekend! The Jr./Sr. high school only has 3 teachers: a math & science teacher, a reading & writing teacher, and a social studies & shop teacher! As the morning progressed, teachers and staff came in, and it was a rather social affair. School begins at 8:50am, but more on that later.

The K-12 school here is currently spread over 5 buildings: kindergarten, 2 buildings for 1-6, a Yup'ik Room, and the secondary building that is also home to the kitchen and the rather tiny gym (as well as Andy and I for the week!). The secondary building is over 40 years old, has terrible lighting, heat, and plumbing; roof leaks, and most of the doors have to be opened with a full-force shoulder ram! The village, however, is getting a new school! It's currently under construction, and they expect to move in before then end of this school year. All parts of the school will finally be under one roof and they'll have a properly sized gym! With the new gym, the principal, Jason, will get a longer break from schoolwork with his daily gym floor cleaning ritual.

The secondary kids are split into 3 groups, based on some combination of ability and age. Group 1 contains the younger and lowest level students, while group 3 has the oldest and highest. In the math & science room, the day is basically split between math in the morning (3 periods) and science in the afternoons (3 periods). Today Andy and I spent the first 2 periods in math with groups 3 then 1 receptively, then spent the 3rd period observing the social studies then the reading & writing class. We then spent a period with the special education teacher and her secondary group, followed by all afternoon in science classes. Teaching the math classes seems particularly difficult, as the ability levels of the students requires a highly differentiated approach.

We ate lunch at the school today, a meal of mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, mixed green veggies, and pineapple chunks. After school we stopped by one of the 3 village stores for some cookies, soda, and ground meat. We plan on having left over pike for dinner, but that's only after we join some locals for Yup'ik dance lessons!

Packing, Arrival, Basketball, Exploring, & Ice Fishing

We have a lot to cover today, so have a seat and when all eyes and ears are on me we'll begin.

I was up most of the night packing (why do yesterday what I can wait until the last minute to do) and cleaning the cabin. Very little sleep makes a long day of travel even more exhausting. The flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage, departing at 8:10am, was smooth and quite enjoyable. I didn't manage to get any sleep, as it was crystal clear and I can never resist the urge to nerd out over the mountains, glaciers, and rivers. Lucky I did, as Denali was also clear so I had an excellent view of North America's tallest mountain, as well as the many glaciers flowing from it's peaks.

In Anchorage, Andy and I were split from the group of interns, as we'd all been on the same flight to ANC. We left for Bethel about an hour later - the longest and most excruciating leg of our journey: the flight was longest and we were scheduled for a 4.5hr layover before moving on to Russian Mission. On this flight, I slept almost the entire way, waking up only for the last 20 minutes or so as we flew across the delta. I had a great aerial view of many frozen meandering channels and oxbow lakes.

We landed in Bethel on schedule, and decided to take a cab into town for some lunch. A roughly 5 minute (and $7 each) Kusko Cab ride later, we went into Alba's Pizza for an excellent burger & fries.

After the burger we headed back to the airport for what we thought would be a 3.5hr wait for our flight to Russian Mission. Unfortunately our flight didn't leave until about 45min after our scheduled departure, and due to a state-basketball-championships-induced shortage of pilots and airplanes we had a few extra passengers and stops on our flight. Instead of flying direct to Russian Mission, stops were made in Mountain Village and Marshall, both of which are also Yukon River Yup'ik villages. This was, however, a scenic flight once we got a bit inland from the delta, and a very nice young woman from Marshall pointed out many of the interesting sights along the way.

We were the only ones on the flight going to Russian Mission, and when we arrived we were greeted by the school's counselor. The principal was still in Anchorage with the high school boy's and girl's basketball teams, as both had made it to the state championships. From the airport (if you've ever seen where planes land in a rural Alaska village, my use of "airport" here will surely make you lol) we went to the school where we were given the tour, and began making dinner. As the village stores were already closed for the night (it was after 7pm), all we had for dinner was Spam sandwiches and potato salad - which was fine by me! Although we wanted to go walking around, by the time we finished dinner it was dark and we were both exhausted, so we simply went to bed.

Both Andy and I woke up around 8:30 this morning, had some breakfast, and sometime around 9:30 we met the principal, freshly back from the basketball journey. We talked for a short while, then he unlocked the PE closet and returned home. Andy and I shot some hoops for an hour or so, then went out to explore the village on foot.

The village seemed totally deserted around this time (about noon), and we made it around a lot of the village before we even saw anyone else awake. We walked by the church, the post office, the clinic... and before we knew it we were on the outskirts of the village by the garbage dump. We then ventured down to the Yukon where I noticed a bluff with some rock outcrops... you can imagine my excitement! Upon closer inspection I realized there were at least 4 successive basalt flows (images and details to come soon).

After returning to the school we had lunch, then hopped on a snow machine and rode across the river to meet some locals who were ice fishing. Neither Andy or I had ever been ice fishing, and I have to say it was a lot fun! Andy caught a ~18" pike almost immediately; the only thing I caught was a 7th grader tugging my line when I was looking the other way. I had a great time, though, listening to some great stories, learning a little about ice fishing, and the history the village growing over the past 50yrs or so.

We've now returned to the school where Chef Andy is preparing fresh pike for dinner!

2.5 Days to go...

Ok, so really it's more like 2.55 days until I'm on a plane leaving Fairbanks, and arriving later that day (Saturday) in Russian Mission on the mighty Yukon. My travel partner, Andy, and I will be flying from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Anchorage to Bethel, and finally from Bethel to Russian Mission after a roughly 4 hour layover. I'm hoping to get out to see a bit of Bethel while we're there, but who knows.

We'll be sleeping on the floor somewhere in the school, and eating breakfast and lunch there. For dinner we'll be on our own or eating with local families. The school's instructional leader says that Andy and I will have access to the school snow machines for our time there, and I'm also hoping to get out for some ice fishing.

Looking forward to fun, but doubtful I'll be getting anymore sleep.

That's it for now, maybe I'll get one more in before I leave!

Ten Days to Go...

In ten days I'll be hoping on a plane, flying for hours, and eventually arriving in Russian Mission, Alaska. I'm excited beyond words, both for the visit and the flight itself!

Although I haven't received an itinerary yet, my research tells me that 3 flights are required to reach Russian Mission for Fairbanks: Fairbanks to Anchorage (snore, unless Denali is visible), Anchorage to Bethel (or other YK Delta village with a large population), then from said village to Russian Mission.

Hopefully with my next post will come more details.

Cheers!