Bethel Update

My dear friend Joan, who gets periodic mention here on the blog, spent Thanksgiving week in Anchorage seeing friends and was able to make a quick trip down to Kenai for an overnight to visit with Dutch and me. We were delighted that she was able to come; Dutch hasn’t seen her since August, and I haven’t seen her since I left Bethel at the end of September. The visit gave us time to catch up on Bethel news.

For much of November I was watching my two weather feeds on Bethel and Kenai; Bethel was in the zero to 25 below range (usually closer to the colder end) while Kenai stayed in the zero to 25 above range. For nearly two weeks, Bethel did not warm up to 10 below, which is pretty harsh cold for November. Joan said that quite a few people were having problems with their houses freezing up, even the experienced folks who know how to prevent it. Two weeks of cold that severe will challenge the best of technology.

She pointed out, though, that it was great for the river. An extended hard cold early in the season thickens the surface ice on the river quickly, which makes for much safer traveling. Especially if there has not been a heavy dump of snow just before the cold hits; snow insulates the ground so that freezing takes longer. The ideal is a hard cold snap before there is any snow; the ground and the river get a good head start on freezing solid. Snow after that makes everything nice.

Every year there are several (or more) deaths by drowning on the Kuskokwim River from people traveling on snowmachines that break through thin ice. These tragedies often occur early in the season, when people anxious to travel do so before the river ice is thick enough. This year’s early cold will help to prevent such accidents.

Most people in Bethel are just grousing about the harsh cold; two weeks of 25 below zero is really tough. Everything about living your life is just harder in that kind of cold. It is so like Joan to focus on the positive aspect of it.

She also told us that the outcome of the City Council election in October has had a hugely positive effect on the general feeling of the people of Bethel. (I wrote several posts this past year on the outrageous and despicable behavior of four of the seven City Council members; the last one has links to the previous ones.) The Block of Four (a.k.a. the Four Thugs, the Four Malicious Idiots) lost two of their members and, thereby, their dominance of the City Council. Tundy Rodgers (the Blustering Bloviator) and Willy Keppel (the Newly Appointed (last December) Council Member) both ran, but barely got a handful of votes each.

Tundy’s defeat is a huge statement from the people of Bethel. They are just tired of his pomposity. He sat on Council for something like eighteen years, and all he ever did was roar with negativity. I could not find a single person in Bethel who could name one thing Tundy did in those eighteen years that was positive for the Council or the town. And Willy? Jeez, what a loser. Dutch and I heard from numerous people about him showing up rip roarin’ drunk to a Council meeting; everyone knew he was drunk, but the Mayor (Eric Middlebrook) did not ask him to leave or indicate that there was any problem with Willy participating fully in Council business despite his inebriation. Yes, Eric, this was another example of your incompetence and spinelessness.

Another happy outcome of the October election was that Middlebrook was soundly routed in his bid for Mary Sattler Nelson’s seat in the state legislature. He would have been a disaster in Juneau; he has no political savvy at all. Mary threw her support to Bob Herron, who won handily.

And the really good thing that happened in this wake-up call to Bethel is that really good people stepped up and ran for Council. There are three new Council members, as two positions were up for re-election, and one seat had been recently vacated by Yolanda Jorgenson, the Jolly Restaurateur, who moved away. The new Council members are Beverly Hoffman (mentioned in my bird watching post), Joe Klejka (physician and father of Jessica, who won the Jr. Iditarod this year), and La Mont Albertson (director of the adult learning center, and a man Dutch likes and respects individually).

These three join the four remaining from the previous Council: two sad remnants of the Block of Four (now essentially castrated), Eric Middlebrook and Raymond Williams—for whom the nickname “Thor” is ironic, since he has at times been compared to a box of hammers; and two of the three “white hats” who tried to stand for honesty and decency against the Block of Four, Dan Leinberger, who I never gave a handle to, and Tiffany Zulkowski, the Voice of Youth. And to top the good stuff off, the new Council elected Tiffany as Mayor at their very first meeting! Dutch and I did a spirited little happy dance when we heard that news! And sent her a card of congratulations on her victory. Good has triumphed over evil in this case.

The issue of the recall petitions on Middlebrook and Williams died without ever coming to the people, despite plenty of signatures, due to what I believe was the completely unethical behavior of the City Clerk, Lori Strickler. She gave out wrong instructions on how the petitions should be turned in, and then declared them all invalid because they were turned in according to her instructions. We called in the ACLU, who told her to give them back and allow the signature collectors to turn them in correctly (i.e., all at once), but she refused and then lied and said she never gave us wrong instructions. I fully believe Middlebrook "encouraged" her to find a way to make the petitions go away, and fearing for her job, she did.

The other loose end to this ragged story concerns the former City Attorney, Sharon Sigmon, whose wrongful termination by the Council last January marked the beginning of this year-long debacle of corruption. She quickly obtained another job, but there has been no news of her lawsuit against the City Council and the individual members (Williams and Middlebrook) who treated her so despicably after the meeting at which she was terminated. Separate from the Council’s action, those two should be sued for defamation of character by action for the way they called in a uniformed police officer and hustled her out of the building like she might steal the pencil erasers. She wasn’t even allowed to retrieve personal items from her office. I’m still hoping she’ll sue the britches off ‘em, and win big time.

Joan says that overall, it is like a cleansing wind has swept through Bethel. People are no longer ashamed of their elected representatives, and are hopeful once again about moving forward. Middlebrook and Williams have one more year on Council before they must stand for re-election; without their corrupt cronies they can do far less damage, and my bet is that come October next, they will be left standing when the next Council is seated.

A Beautiful Place

It really is beautiful here in Kenai, both the area in general and the spot where our house is located. I can’t imagine a more restful and healing view to gaze at while recovering from surgery than this lovely image of mountains and sky. Sometimes the clouds obscure all of it, but when they clear, Oh! They take your breath away. I can watch for hours as the light shifts on the face of the mountains while the sun moves in a low arc across the southern sky.


October and, so far, November, have proceeded as they were planned. Jody and I managed (thanks mostly to Jody) to finish up in Bethel on schedule. We even had time to squeeze in a steam bath at Henry’s on our last night there. The last bunch of packing and mailing happened, gifts were distributed to friends, utilities and services terminated, everything taken care of.


We showed up at Alaska Airlines for our one-way trip to Anchorage with a large and motley assortment of belongings which Jody had creatively packed in three 33-gallon Rubbermaid trashcans with the lids strapped and duck-taped on, and a burn barrel made from the tub of an old washing machine and packed with tools and stuff. We had regular suitcases too, but the trashcans and burn barrel were an outstanding element there in the Alaska terminal. We handed them up for weighing and checking in, and the gate agents never raised an eyebrow.

“What??” Jody said to them. “We don’t even get a smile for this? We’re packed in trashcans and a burn barrel, for goodness’ sake!”

The agent just shrugged and said “Hey, this is Bethel. We’ve pretty much seen it all around here.”

My friend Joan, who was there to see us off, took a photo to commemorate the trashcan departure.

Leaving Bethel for the last time was very bittersweet. I know I will be back, so it was not really the last time, but it was the last time I would leave as a Bethel resident. When Jody and I landed there the week before, it already felt different. For the first time ever, it did not feel like coming home. Watching the town grow small as the plane lifted off felt like a door closing, the end of an era.

Ten years. I grew and changed a lot in that time. I went from the emotional wasteland of an ill-fated, never-should-have-happened, emotionally abusive relationship to the lush garden of the soul-mated love that I share with Dutch. I was married for the first and only time in my life, right there in Bethel. I became a writer, something I’ve worked toward my whole life, but never managed to accomplish. I created this blog, which is something I am proud of. In the two-plus years of its existence, I have written essays on a wide variety of subjects concerning bush medicine and Yupik culture. Even in the last six weeks, when I have not written a single word, the blog continues to capture seven to eight hundred hits per week, just from people searching the internet for subjects related to things I’ve written about. That is truly satisfying to me.

I will go back to Bethel to work and to visit dear friends there, but it won’t be the same as living there. I won’t be a member of the club anymore. Bethelites have an esprit d’ corp that comes from surviving the isolating location and harsh winter weather. If you only come to visit, it doesn’t include you.

But I will look forward to those visits, because Bethel will always be special to me. In its own way, it is also a beautiful place. Bethel forever changed my life, in ways which were all good. I wouldn’t have it any other way.


Photos by The Tundra PA.
1. The Alaska Range at sunset, from the mouth of the Kenai River
2. Mt. Redoubt, from my deck.
3. Mt. Illiamna, from my deck.

Bethel Wrap Up

The whirlwind that I have lived in for the last month continues unabated, but I am not totally overwhelmed by it so far. For that I can thank the help and support of several dear friends. In the last month I have had moments of profound exhaustion as well as moments of exquisite joy. My life continues to amaze me.

The spirituality conference in California at the beginning of the month was remarkable in several ways, not the least of which was spending three days beneath the towering redwoods of the coastal mountains south of San Francisco. Those massive trees have such strength and antiquity that just leaning against the trunk of one leads me to a feeling of calm and peace.

I was reunited with old friends I haven’t seen since my post-college years of the 1970s, and that was wonderful. But the most remarkable and somewhat miraculous thing was being reunited with the twin girls I co-parented for five years, from the time they were four until they were nine years old, and whom I have not seen for nearly twenty years. They are now 36 years old, and they are beautiful, caring, considerate and passionate young women. They are truly the daughters of my heart, las hijas de mi corizon, and I am so incredibly proud of them.

For three days we laughed and cried together, and did all the catching up that such a long separation requires. I last saw them in 1991, when they were in their first year of college at the University of Washington, where I was also in my first year of PA training. Our paths diverged from there, and I was unable to locate them in all the years since. They found my name listed on the conference’s website as one of the presenters and showed up. I was blown away to see them again, and joyous beyond measure.

Immediately greedy to have more time with them, I told them about the Women’s Harvest Celebration in Montana, and invited them to attend. They read my post about last year’s Harvest and decided it sounded like just what they needed. A quick check with Susan Rangitsch, who leads the program, confirmed that there was—just barely—space for them to participate. I was delighted.

A quick trip back to Bethel to wash clothes and repack, in my nearly empty house, as the movers came on September 1st and removed about 96% of my belongings. A quick visit with Dad and Stepmom in Anacortes before picking up the twins in Seattle to drive to Montana with my dear and long-time friends the Drum Maker and the Stained Glass Artist. The old friends and the new-found daughters hit it off immediately and we had a great time trekking together across Washington and Idaho to Montana.

The five days of Harvest were, as always, exciting, challenging, healing, and renewing. There were 32 women attending, and the weather at Black Tail Ranch on the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains was perfect. The full moon shone at night from a clear and cloudless sky, the days were warm and sunny, the air was crisp and smelled of fall. We danced, we sang, we cried and laughed together, we opened our hearts to each other, we held each other gently and hummed the theme of our common strength and power.

I delighted in watching my beautiful daughters insert themselves into this close circle of flowing woman energy, make new friends, open and expand themselves like sunflowers greeting the sun. We had many moments of loving closeness and reconnection, and many of the women there remarked on the joy radiating from the three of us together. It was a profound experience for me.

After Harvest I had a few glorious days in Missoula with my dear friends Susan and Jody (both were part of the Arctic Expedition in April), and then Jody and I flew back to Bethel for the final packing and details of moving. Jody has been a diva of organization, sorting, list-making, and packing in this final push, and her help has been invaluable. We are so on schedule that we may even have time to take the boat out this afternoon for a spin on the river. How great is that? And we are having such beautiful weather for it. Hard frost in the mornings, about 26 degrees, and sunny clear afternoons. The fact that we can do it does mean, unfortunately, that the boat has not sold yet. I will leave it here in storage for the winter and hope to find the right person to buy it next summer.

The wrap up will be complete on Tuesday morning, when Jody and I hop aboard the morning jet to Anchorage. A bit of fun and business there, and then it is on to Kenai to rejoin Dutch and all three of the dogs, who are anxiously awaiting our arrival. On October 1st, the long Summer of Solitude will finally be over.

Photos: Redwood trees in California by The Tundra PA; portrait of Susan Rangitsch by Linda Tracy.

Cold and Miserable July

When I returned home to Bethel on July 7^th from my all-too-short visit with Dutch for the holiday weekend, people were raving about what great hot weather there had been for the 4^th and 5^th. Bright sun and temperatures in the mid-80s; and no wind, which means lots of bugs, but no one was complaining about that. It had just been fabulous, I heard over and over.

I was hearing these tales as rain lashed the buildings, blown sideways from the winds which whipped unrelentingly and pounded everything flat to the earth. The landscape had no color but gray, and the clouds were so thick there was no hint to the sun’s position in the sky. It went on for four days. The rain came and went but the wind never stopped blowing, night or day. Flags stood board-straight from bent flag poles, fringe whipping, looking like they had been painted on a dark gray canvas.

It is an amazing creature, this wind, like a live thing. It can suck the breath right out of your lungs. The sound of it gets on your nerves after a while. People get irritable when it doesn’t stop for days. It becomes an enemy you can’t see directly, but evidence of its presence is everywhere.

A few weeks ago some new friends came over for the first time; they are recent transplants to Bethel from the Midwest. They had been reading and occasionally commenting on the blog prior to coming up, and I was happy to meet them in person. I think of them as Breezy and Summer. They noted my large plastic garbage cans on the deck, leashed to the railing with bungee cords which also hold the lids on.

“Is that to keep out critters, like raccoons or fox?” Breezy wanted to know.

“Oh, no.” I responded. “That’s for the wind.” I’ve chased more garbage can lids across the tundra than I care to recall.

The windstorm finally passed, and was replaced with heavy rain. The clouds were just as thick, the sky just as gray, and rain poured down every day for a week. A different sort of misery from the constant wind. And with temperatures hovering on both sides of 50 degrees, there is just a damp coldness to everything. The roads become a pothole-filled washboard that rattles your teeth to drive over, even at 10 mph.

And people’s sore spirits sure weren’t getting any better. The memory of those two hot summer days during the holiday weekend were rapidly becoming dim. Lots of weather-grousing was going on. It was beginning to feel like we had had a two-day summer which was now over and gone.

But just when you are sure you can’t stand it any longer, a break comes. Friday afternoon, after two solid miserable weeks of cold, gray, cloudy, windy, rainy weather, the clouds parted and the sun shone in a deep blue sky. A light breeze helped the sun dry up the roads and remove the waterlogged feeling from everything and everyone. We were all praying that it would just last for a little while.

Saturday morning gave hope to our prayers. More blue sky and bright sun, and the thermometer nudging towards 70. The wind was gusty and the horizons held some thick clouds, but it looked like a great day was in store for southwest Alaska.

My priority for the day was to get my boat out on the river. It has been docked at the small boat harbor for several weeks, but my one attempt to take it out had been unsuccessful: I couldn’t get the motor started. I called one of the boat shops and talked to the guy there about the sound it made when I tried to start it; he thought I probably just didn’t have the electrical cables screwed down tight enough on the battery poles. My friend Henry and Joan’s son Michael (the new grad who just turned 18; congratulations!) went down to the harbor on Friday afternoon while I was at work and dinked around with it some. They cleaned the leads and screwed them down with a wrench and voila! The motor cranked like a champ. I was greatly relieved not to need a new starter or something.

So a shakedown cruise was in order. I had promised Breezy and Summer a trip on the river; Summer had to work, but Breezy was excited to come. Joan agreed to come too, which gave me additional peace of mind. Any trip on the Kuskokwim River, at any season, is not without risk; this IS the wilderness. It helps to have experienced people along.

The three of us had a delightful few hours on the river. The trip went without a hitch. The motor started right up at every turn of the key. The new gas tank and line worked perfectly. The tide was going out as we left the harbor, so water level was on the low side, but no sandbar problems ensued. The wind remained gusty all afternoon and was a definite influence on boating, but wasn’t too bad. My boat has fairly high sides and is easily affected by wind.

We ran upriver to the bluffs to show Breezy the sparrow colony that has drilled thousands of holes in the mud face of the cliff. Our arrival brought lots of birds winging into the sky. It is fun to pull up at the base of the bluffs to watch them, but with an ebbing tide it is easy to get seriously stuck in the mud there. In just a few minutes we were already getting into trouble; had we waited much longer—and if Joan weren’t as strong as she is, pushing us off—we’d have been waiting several hours for an incoming tide to float us off.

So we decided to get farther out in deeper water and just drift with the current. We had sandwiches and coffee, fresh fruit and trail mix to munch on, and the sun felt great beaming down on us. The wind was strong enough that it blew us across the river faster than the river carried us downstream, so before we knew it we were in danger of grounding on the other side. But the motor cranked instantly and with a quick reverse we were back in deep water.

Our trip home was uneventful until we got back to Bethel. The water level was higher than when we left, so the tide was coming back in. We were right in the middle of the narrow waterway that leads from the river to the boat harbor when with a loud THUNK we hit something very solid. It sounded and felt more like metal than a tree stump. Whatever it was didn’t kill the motor, or even break the prop, thank goodness. I’ll call the Port Director’s office tomorrow and let them know. Whatever it is needs to be hauled out of there.

With the shakedown cruise a success, I am ready to put a For Sale sign on the boat and begin actively looking for a buyer. My hope is that someone in a nearby village with lots of people and/or supplies to haul will recognize what a perfect boat this is for that application. It is a workhorse, not a beauty queen, built by my dad out of flat sheets of aluminum, completely welded. He wanted me to name it “Skookum”, meaning “a good and lucky thing” in the Salish language of the Northwest Native people; but I call it “The Chuckwagon.” At 22 feet long and 7 feet wide, it holds literally a ton of gear; and the Honda 110 four-stroke has plenty of power to push it fast without gulping the gas. I just have to find the right person to appreciate its handcrafted uniqueness.

My hope was to take the boat out again today with Breezy and Summer and perhaps a few others, but in a few short hours we are back to last week’s weather. Heavy clouds, harsh wind, blowing rain and cold. I am once again wearing fleece-lined jeans, wool socks and a heavy sweatshirt to stay warm inside the house (kills me to burn expensive heating oil during the summer). So call me a fair-weather sailor if you like, I won’t deny it. For me, boating is about having fun. Today is not the day for it. I’m just hoping it won’t be quite so long before we get another infusion of summer weather.

Photo of The Chuckwagon taken two summers ago, on our fishing trip up the Kisaralik River.

Bethel's Saturday Market

There is a long tradition in western culture of cities and large towns holding an open market on Saturdays where farmers and craftspeople gather to sell the products of their labors. Bethel has had a Saturday Market for several years now, and it is a delightful way to spend an hour or an afternoon.

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It is important to understand the context in which the Market exists. There is just not a whole lot to do for entertainment in Bethel on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve listed before on this blog all the things we don’t have that lower 48ers take so much for granted—no shopping mall, no movie theater, no bowling alley, no skating rink, no swimming pool, no highways to just go for a drive on, no amusement park, no gaming arcade, no tennis courts, no golf course (well. The die-hards go out to the sand pit and knock balls around, but it’s not what you could really call golf.).

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There are not even a lot of options for bicycling: one six-mile loop of partially paved road which is the major traffic artery around town. Not exactly a cyclist’s dream.

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So the Market fills a social need completely aside from the products available for sale: it is a place for people to gather and visit, and they do. Whole families come to spend a few hours.

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The Market is held inside the Cultural Center (which is nice when it is rainy, and it frequently is during the summer) on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month during the summer. In winter it drops to once a month, on the last Saturday, with additional Markets around the holidays. The hours are from 10 am to 3 pm. One of only three espresso stands currently operating in Bethel is also in the Cultural Center, so those with a penchant for fancy and expensive caffeine can get their fix when they go to Market as well (ummmmm, double tall skinny mocha no whip).

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One of the Saturday Market’s most important functions is that it provides one of the few local opportunities to buy hand-made Yupik crafts. Our regional craftspeople do not have many venues to sell their work; this is one of them. Dolls, baskets, carved ivory, and beaded jewelry are popular items, though on any given Saturday, not all different things are available. Many craftspeople only show up occasionally; some Markets have lots of vendors, and some are less well attended. You just never know, and if you are in search of some particular item it may take weeks to come across a vendor who has it.

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I have been in search of a particular thing for some time now. After my post on the Cama-i Dance Festival, in which I mentioned having found a small owl carved from ivory, a TMD reader wrote to me and asked if I could find him one. I’ve been searching ever since and have not yet come across another one, but I will. Hang in there Randall, I haven’t forgotten your request!

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In addition to crafts, there are usually vendors selling fresh vegetables from their gardens, live plants, tickets to various raffles, furs, leather, things made from wood, useful household items like long-handled dippers for the steambath, crocheted and knitted hats, gloves and blankets, dry fish, agutuk, fresh eggs, homemade soap, jam made from tundra berries, sometimes even collections of garage sale type items—books, records, clothes, pots and pans. Every Market is different, and even if you don’t think you need anything it is worth stopping by; you never know what you’ll come home with.

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And you’ll always run into people you know and can have a few minutes of enjoyable conversation with. Entertainment in Bethel is what we create for ourselves, and usually involves time spent with friends. It is one of the things that make Bethel such a special place.

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The photos for this post were taken by my friend Peter Ashman, who is an amazing photographer. He has a huge collection of photographs on Flickr; you can access his work and see more great photos of Alaska and other places from his travels by clicking here. Thanks, Peter!

Corruption in City Government

It has been six weeks since my last post on the political goings-on in Bethel, and in that interval the situation has continued to deteriorate. We have reached a point where the actions of the Mayor and selected council members can only be characterized as corrupt.

Until now I have not referred to the council members by their actual names, but have used labels for them. Several commenters have named them (and, on occasion, labeled them far more spearingly than I), and from this point on I will simply refer to them by name. I will also identify some of the labels.

The Mayor is Eric Middlebrook. He is the leader of the Block of Four and has been called Clipped Gerbil in an earlier comment, and Mayor Mugabe in a more recent one.

The Vice Mayor is Raymond “Thor” Williams. A member of the Block of Four, he was the maker of the motion to terminate the City Attorney. Referred to by a commenter as McCheese. Noted by another commenter always to be on the wrong side of every vote, along with Tundy Rodgers. He is an incredibly insecure individual who tries to make himself feel less inadequate by cutting others down (doesn’t work but he has no other strategies). He wastes an inordinate amount of Council’s time splitting hairs over insignificant issues, like making miniscule and unnecessary budget modifications. He thinks this makes him look smart. Uh…no. Raymond is one of the three current Council members who is also a former Mayor; he was a disaster in that position and could not get re-elected to the following year’s Council when he was one of four people running for three open seats. The codeword among the voters was “EBT”—everybody but Thor. He managed to get elected to the current Council with only 216 votes.

Stanley “Tundy” Rodgers, also a former Mayor and member of the Block of Four; referred to by me as the Blustering Bloviator. That’s all he ever does: bluster. He sees himself as the champion of the little man, the watchdog of the Natives’ interests. He is the Council member with the most seniority, having sat on Council for something like seventeen years, and in all that time he has done absolutely nothing positive for Bethel or its citizens that I have been able to discover, and I have been asking long-time residents. He is quick to trash other people’s ideas and suggestions, but he offers nothing positive himself. He just votes against everything; that way if something doesn’t work out later he can say “see? I was against it all along.” He is incapable of understanding or contributing to the city’s budget approval process; he simply does not show up to those (mandatory) meetings, or leaves early if he does show—yelling as he walks out “doesn’t matter what you decide, I’m going to vote against it anyhow!” It is totally unclear to me why the voters of Bethel have continued to reelect him so many times, but it has to stop. He has to go. He is up for reelection in October; perhaps we’ll be lucky and he simply won’t run again, but I doubt it. He has no other source of ego gratification.

Willie Keppel, the Newly Appointed Council Member. He ran for Council last fall but was defeated by Raymond Williams by 2 votes. When a now-departed Council member moved away from Bethel in January, he applied for appointment to the position along with several others, and when the vote was evenly split, received the appointment by literally drawing the right straw. He is only there for the remainder of the departed member’s term, and must run for election in October. He is the final member of the Group of Four, and along with Tundy, he simply must not be reelected.

Keppel is the Council member referred to by commenter Two Dogs as Torch, because he is widely believed to have set fire to a wooden building owned by his arch-rival Harry Faulkner, the citizen who brought the injunction against him for Conflict of Interest in participating in the termination of the City Attorney. Keppel not only voted for her termination, he seconded the motion to terminate when it was made by Raymond Williams. (No update on that injunction; it hasn’t gone away, but nothing has happened as a result of it that I know of.)

Keppel is the Council member who is and long has been in violation of the Bethel Municipal Code (BMC), and who faces $18,000 in fines for that violation. His case was being prosecuted by the City Attorney; he believed that by firing her the case would magically go away. The Conflict of Interest in this situation is neither subtle nor complicated.

And his violation is particularly disgusting. All Bethel residents are required by the BMC to have their homes signed up for sewer evacuation service, either hauled or piped, at a minimal cost of about $30 per month. For years Keppel refused to sign up; he crapped in a bucket and was seen dumping it in the tundra pond behind his house, which is right in the middle of town. The city even gave him a sewer tank for free AND delivered it to his house. All he had to do was hook it up, but no. It has sat there, a lovely eyesore, for several years now.

The BMC was created by the City Council, and during the swearing-in ceremony of each new Council member, he or she is sworn to uphold and abide by the Code. There is no gray area here; Keppel’s violation is clear-cut, obvious, provable. His hearing in court is on Monday, April 28^th. In the absence of a City Attorney, the City Manager will present the city’s case.

And here is one place where we reach a level of misbehavior that can be called corruption in this City Council. At the regular meeting of the Council which Dutch and I missed while we were in the Arctic, the Mayor actually pressured the City Manager to just dismiss Keppel’s case. Middlebrook actually seemed to think that the City Manager could be coerced into just telling the judge that the city didn’t want to prosecute after all, and it would all go away. In his view, apparently, Council members are exempt from the Code they are sworn to uphold, rather than having the responsibility to lead by example.

The second, and far more significant, situation vying for the label of corruption involves the recall petitions, which I have mentioned before. After the debacle of the firing of the City Attorney, a grass-roots movement of citizens came forward wanting Middlebrook and Williams recalled. Rodgers and Keppel were not eligible for recall, or they would have been included as well. One woman, Diane Moffitt, took the lead in asking people to sign up as petition circulators to gather the necessary 285 signatures of registered voters to place the recall question before the citizens of Bethel.

There were 12 of us who signed up to be petition circulators. We had sixty days to get the signatures, and then the petitions must be turned in to the City Clerk to have the signatures verified as registered voters.

Middlebrook and Williams have acted as if this recall movement were nothing but a joke, and have been openly scornful of it. Middlebrook instructed the City Clerk to be sure the petitions were handled according to the precise letter of the law.

When we had over 300 signatures, Diane asked the City Clerk how the 12 of us go about turning in our petitions. The Clerk said for each of us to bring them in to her office at our convenience. After about half of the petitions had been turned in, the Clerk announced that the petition had failed due to insufficient signatures; only the petitions turned in together counted, the remaining five or six would not be accepted. The Clerk refused to return them to the individuals who had submitted them to her, so that we could turn them all in at once, saying it was “against the law”; but she could not quote what law it was against. We have a week yet before the deadline of May 2^nd.

The Clerk is now denying her initial instructions on how to turn the petitions in. She is saying that she never told us to bring them in to her office at our convenience. She is refusing to do the right thing, which is to return the petitions that were submitted so that we can all turn them in together as a single instrument. Several of the circulators consulted an attorney who said there is absolutely no reason she cannot return those petitions. It was he who said that this is nothing but corruption.

Those same circulators have now contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, who feels that this is pure suppression of the voice of the people. The ACLU is writing a letter to the Clerk, telling her basically to do the right thing: give back the submitted petitions and allow all of them to be turned in together. If she refuses, litigation will follow.

So once again, Bethel’s scarce resources can be squandered by the Council to cover their heinous and illegal behaviors. The Group of Four is leading Bethel down a road which will end in bankruptcy for the city. Those of us trying to apply the brakes may not be enough.

A new comment was posted by Anonymous this past Monday evening to the last blog post I did on the City Council. It speaks to these issues, and is now likely to go completely unseen, being so deeply buried, so I have copied it here.

This evening on the news I heard Mayor Eric "Mugabe" Middlebrook at a council meeting last week pressuring the city manager to release Councilman Willie Keppel from his civil penalties by instructing the judge to dismiss the case. This was after Keppel failed to observe city ordinances and hook up to the city sewer system. Instead he dumped his sewage in the tundra. The kind of example that could lead us all to cholera. He ignored citations served him by the city that have been well documented. Mayor "Mugabe" as we have come to know him, also instructed the City Clerk to throw out citizen petitions to recall him and another city council representative. These council members swore to uphold the laws of this City and by extension the laws of our state and nation. They are so deep into this mess that they lost whatever ethical perspective they might have once possessed.

I agree completely.

For those of you who might be new to this thread—and who have enough interest to read more—I have written four posts in the last two months on the outrageousness of Bethel’s current City Council:

Political Shenanigans, February 13

More Bethel Politics, March 2

City Council Doesn’t Get It, March 15

More on City Council—An Inside Perspective, March 17

And for those of you don’t live in Southwest Alaska and could care less about our local political woes, I beg your indulgence with this diversion. It is having a huge effect in our lives, and if this venue I have created can reach a few people who need to hear of this and might not by other means, then I will use it for that purpose.

Birthday Weather

OK. I’ll admit to being a shameless hussy when it comes to my birthday. Today’s snowstorm is only a pathetic excuse to announce to all and sundry that Today Is My Birthday! Since I was a small child, I have thrilled to the approach of March the 29th; it was right up there with Christmas in terms of a child’s anticipation (thanks, Mother, for making it so special!).

So anyway, since moving to Alaska I’ve experienced a significantly different kind of birthday weather than any other place I’ve lived. Even in northern Montana, the end of March was more springish. About half of my birthdays in Bethel have had weather well below zero, sometimes as much as 20 degrees below.

It is much warmer than that today; this morning dawned quite snowy and about 14 above. It must have snowed much of the night, because we now have about three inches of fresh stuff on top of the several feet of old snow. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. As the photos show, visibility is limited and the flakes are huge.

The rapidly lengthening hours of daylight tell the tale of spring’s approach more than anything. It is light outside now from about 8 in the morning until nearly 10 at night. The willow trees are starting to show fuzzy buds at their tips. And the cold snaps, when they hit us now, don’t have the same ability to intimidate as they do in December; -20 in March won’t last more than a week, but in December it may last for a month or more. Though it will still be another six weeks or so before all the snow melts and the river breaks up, spring is coming. There are tides in the blood that can feel it.

And I’m having a wonderful birthday! I hope each of you do the same, whenever yours may fall. It is a lovely day to honor ourselves.

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Photos from our front deck by The Tundra PA. They don't really show how hard it is snowing, or how big the flakes are... And thanks to Dr. Dino for the birthday email!

Time for Cama-i

It is time once again for one of Bethel’s most cherished annual events, the Cama-i Dance Festival. For the next three days, beginning at 5 pm today, the gymnasium of the high school will reverberate with the sounds of many drums, stomping feet and audience applause as Eskimo dance groups from all over the delta and invited guests from Outside Alaska take the stage to perform. It is a celebration of Yupik culture, and the human love of dancing. It is also our landmark of spring, but at 14 below zero this morning, it doesn't feel very spring-like outside just yet.

Eskimo dancing is a unique and sometimes formalized expression of Yupik culture. It can be a way of telling stories and entertaining, as well as a form of prayer. I have written a more detailed description of Eskimo dancing here, and of Cama-i Dance Festival here. Both with lots of great photos, especially Peter Ashman’s beautiful images from last year’s Cama-i (with thanks to him, once again, for allowing me to post them).

This year’s festival includes some of my favorite performers. I am especially glad for an opportunity to hear the group Pamyua, four singers who perform “acapella harmonies blending traditional Inuit and Yup’ik songs with gospel and jazz arrangements.” (From the cover of their CD “mengluni”, which means “the beginning”) They have a website at www.pamyua.com for more info. They often come to Cama-i, but not every year. I haven’t seen them for about three years.

Also exciting to see will be the Scammon Bay Dancers with their star, octogenarian-going-on-nonagenarian Maryann Sundown, a tiny elder with a twinkle in her eye and an energy to her dance that belies her many winters and the poor condition of her stooped back. I am so hoping she will dance her famed Mosquito Dance, which I have often heard of but never seen.

For the first time in quite a few years, the dancers from the village of Pilot Station, for whom I have been the assigned health care provider for nearly nine years, will be coming. It was on a village trip to Pilot Station that I was invited to join in the dancing and taught how to do it; it was an amazing experience. I look forward to seeing the new and old dances that my teachers will perform.

Other villages from the Y-K Delta who will send their dancers include Chevak, Kasigluk, Hooper Bay, and several groups from Bethel. Eskimo dancing is taught in the elementary schools here in Bethel, and tomorrow afternoon will offer the kindergarten through sixth grade classes time on the stage to perform their dances. There will also be a Sioux hoop dancer, a group of Maori dancers, a Native storyteller and singer, modern dance groups, dancers from other parts of Alaska, and a performance by the Bethel Hand Bell Choir.

There will be a huge craft fair going on in the lobby of the high school while all the performances are being held in the gym. The best craftspeople and artisans from all over the delta come to Cama-i to sell their work; it is the very best time to shop for Native crafts. Everything from huge carved ivory (walrus) tusks to whimsical t-shirts with photos of Bethel’s uniquely painted garbage dumpsters on them will be available on table after table of merchandise. It is an amazing opportunity to see the variety of crafts that spring from the Yupik culture.

On Saturday evening there will be a Native Foods Dinner cooked up by the citizens of Bethel; dishes usually include moose, caribou, beaver, swan, goose, porcupine, muskrat, maybe even some black bear. And of course, many kinds of agutak, otherwise known as Eskimo ice cream, made from Crisco, sugar, many kinds of tundra-grown berries, and often boiled white fish or mashed potatoes for texture. Though it sounds…interesting…it can be surprisingly good. Blueberry agutak with white fish is my all-time favorite.

The dinner is served (free) first to Elders, then to Dancers, and only then to the general public—until the food runs out. Not qualifying for the first two groups, and not being willing to stand in line for an hour or more to be first in the last group, I’ve never gotten more than a few tailings from the dinner. Those who do better usually exit the cafeteria sucking their teeth and looking very satisfied.

There will be a Mr. and Miss Cama-i pageant held on Saturday afternoon, with the winners announced on Saturday evening. Entrants must be at least 18 years old, and neither married or have children (criteria which are exclusionary to a surprising degree). I believe they receive scholarships, but I’m not sure about that.

Traditionally there has been a fur fashion show on Saturday evening as well, but I don’t see it mentioned in this year’s program. In some years there has been a room set aside to honor a particular skinsewer, with as many as possible of her fur garments collected and displayed. One year the honoree was Lucy Beaver, a Bethel resident whose face became famous in the well-known photo by Myron Rosenberg, which I included in a post here. Lucy made my mukluks, my parka’s wolf-and-wolverine fur ruff, and my arctic fox molakai (hat with a tail), and I contributed them to the display that year. I hope the fur fashion show’s omission from the program is an oversight, and not an indicator that we won’t have one this year.

The Festival begins at 5 pm today and will run until midnight; Saturday will go from noon until midnight and Sunday will start at noon and finish at 9 pm. It promises to be an exciting few days in celebration of Yupik culture.

The posters were too big to scan, so I photographed them, which is why they are not perfect (perspective, edges). Both posters are for this year.

On the Ice Road

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day that Dutch and I couldn’t wait to get out and burn some gas in our snowmachines. There was nowhere we particularly needed to go; just getting out of town is the only goal, and the reward.

The Ice Road on the Kuskokwim River is the best I can remember in years. Though winter was late in coming, since December the weather has mostly remained consistently cold (except for that miserably warm week around K-300), which is good for the river’s surface. And we have had quite a lot of snow this winter compared to our norm.

In years with little snow, driving on the Ice Road can be quite a challenge. The bare ice can be quite bumpy, depending on how windy it was when the surface of the river froze. And without snow it can be very hard to see where the road is. There are no tire tracks to follow on bare ice. Just like with a boat in the summer, when there is very little snow on the river ice, you can drive pretty much wherever you have the guts to try.

The river is nearly a mile wide here at Bethel, and at times may have open leads of water despite otherwise thick ice. The best road is never in the same place two years running; placement all depends on the conditions. Picking the best path to follow is a skill that takes years to develop.

This year we have had tons of snow (literally), and except for that one week in January, we have not had regular warm-ups with rain to melt it all away. We have had so much snow that there are ten-foot-tall piles of it everywhere, and the city is running out of places to push it to. Dutch’s crews have actually had to resort to hauling it to get it out of the roads; which, at the cost of fuel here, is an expensive proposition.

All the snow this year means that the Ice Road would not be drivable in cars and trucks if it were not being plowed. A huge plow with giant wheels and snow blade goes out each week or so and runs downriver to Napakiak and upriver to Kwethluk or Akiak. The result is a smooth, flat trench of well-packed snow with two-foot tall berms on each side. There is no question of whether you are in the right place and actually on the Road. It is practically as well-groomed as an Interstate, and people are flying along at 50 mph as if it were one.

The Ice Road is just barely wide enough for two trucks to pass each other with each edging to the side as far as possible and both going slowly. But everybody seems to be in a hurry, and not everyone is polite. Earlier this year we actually had a head-on collision between two vehicles on the Ice Road right in front of Bethel in broad daylight. No one was killed, but both vehicles were pretty much totaled. It is best to keep in mind that this is not a concrete highway; respect the fact that you are driving on ice, and do so with caution.

Snowmachines tend to avoid traveling directly on the Ice Road, preferring to follow it off to one side. It is an easy landmark in a flat terrain that doesn’t have many natural ones. Yesterday Dutch and I traveled beside it for a few miles upriver, then turned off above the Bluffs to go up the Gweek River. The snowmachine trail on the Gweek sees a lot of traffic coming down from the village of Akiachuk and is easy to follow.

Once we turned off the main river the wind lessened considerably. It was about +5F degrees yesterday, but the wind made it significantly colder on any exposed skin. A few miles up the Gweek we pulled over to the edge right next to the tree line and turned the machines off. We were on a south-facing bend out of the wind with the sun beaming on us; there was nothing man-made that we could see except the machines we were sitting on, and no noise we could hear except the occasional gurgling sound of a happy raven flying over. The quiet stillness of the wilderness enfolded us, and the silence was beautiful.

Today was just as sunny and gorgeous as yesterday, and not wanting to miss another opportunity to get out, we fired up the machines again and took off up the river. This time we went up Church Slough, a short-cut to the village of Kwethluk. The trail is well-marked by many snowmachine tracks, but we only saw an occasional traveler. I was delighted to notice moose tracks crossing the slough at one point, and a pile of moose pellets a few bends farther up. The lower Kuskokwim’s moratorium on moose hunting (I believe this is year 3 of 5) is working; with hunting pressure removed, the moose are returning.

A few miles up the slough, a line of willow trees suddenly sprouts from the center of the ice, and the trail very clearly keeps to one side of it. These are not growing out of the slough; they have been erected there to mark a place with thin ice and/or open water. Most likely, someone who travels the route regularly took it upon himself to erect the markers as a warning to other travelers; there is no government-sponsored Department of Transportation crew out here maintaining the safety of the trails.

The top of Church Slough rejoins the Kuskokwim River about 8 miles upriver from Bethel. When we got there, we stopped to enjoy the view and have a cup of hot tea.

As the photo shows, the area is not completely treeless, though it is referred to as such. The stand of willow trees across the slough from our break spot is about 15 feet tall, but only as big around as a human wrist.

The shiny ice at the edge of the slough is overflow that has refrozen. The Kuskokwim and its sloughs and tributaries are affected by tides from the Bering Sea; when high tide moves up the river, water surges over the ice at the edges and stands on top of it until it freezes again. Overflow can be several feet deep, and depending on the temperature, can take a while to refreeze. If no snow covers it, it looks shiny and is easy to see and avoid. Once it has even a thin snow cover, however, it can be indistinguishable from thick and trustable ice. Breaking through it with a snowmachine or a dog team can mean disaster.

Dutch and I got back to Bethel about 5 pm. Coming around the last bend on a late afternoon, the town is a lovely sight, perched there on the banks of the Kuskokwim.

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photos by The Tundra PA.

Easter Egg Hunt, Bethel Style

An Easter egg hunt in the sub-arctic would just have to be different from those in the lower 48, and Bethel’s certainly is. For one thing, we are still pretty much in the grip of winter. Despite the lovely long hours of daylight, with sunset about 9 pm right now, the thermometer is still hovering around zero and there are feet of snow on the ground. In a land with virtually no trees, and no clumps of grass yet to be seen, where can eggs be hidden?

The answer: nowhere. The eggs are not hidden, they are simply scattered across the snow. Bethel’s Easter egg hunt does not involve hunting, simply picking them up.

It is a huge event, attended by kids of all ages. They are divided into age groups with a different “egg field” for each group. Hundreds of colorful plastic eggs dot the snow as kids wait behind the starting rope dressed in snowsuits and holding everything from baskets to plastic bags in which to gather their eggs. When the rope is dropped they surge forward in a melee of snatching hands and within seconds there is not an egg to be seen.

The Egg Hunt is held at the headquarters of Bethel’s Parks and Recreation Dept., a building known as The Log Cabin. It has playgrounds, an outdoor basketball court, a baseball field and an ice skating pond adjacent to it. Inside the Log Cabin, prizes were being given away to kids who participated—a bumper crop of hula hoops was evident—and free hot dogs were available to all who wanted them.

The whole thing was over fairly quickly, and the huge parking jam it created on the street didn’t seem to bother anyone. Kids leaving looked mostly happy and the adults were just glad we had a nice sunny day for it. Some years the event happens in a snow storm. It’s all part of Life in Bethel.

photos by Dutch and The Tundra PA.