Fish Camp

The king salmon (Chinook) are running strong on the lower Kuskokwim River now, and many people have left Bethel and the villages to live in their fish camps. This is a busy, hardworking time in the subsistence lifestyle.

The king salmon run will last for a couple of weeks. During that time, people who live by subsistence must catch a year’s worth of salmon for their family, fillet it, cut it into strips, brine it, dry it, and smoke it. A family of eight or ten will dry and smoke about 60 large fish. Fish camp is the best place to do it.

The lands along the rivers are held by the various Native corporations and leased to individuals on a yearly basis. There is no power or water service, just access to the river. Families build smoke houses and drying racks for the fish, and cabins to sleep in. The same land often stays in a family for several generations and is added to over time. Some fish camps have elaborate houses and outbuildings and are very comfortable camps to live in.

With over twenty hours of daylight, work goes on almost around the clock. Boats go out with drift nets just before low tide (twice a day). The ideal is to have the net in the water when the tide turns and the salmon surge upriver on their free ride. In a thirty-minute drift, the nets can fill up quickly. Many fish camps also have a set net in the river, anchored at both ends, which is checked several times daily. If it is well placed, a set net may supply several large fish per day.

Most of the fishermen are men, and most of the fish cutters are women. When the men bring the boats in, the women come forth to begin the next step. Fish cutting tables are set up at the river’s edge. The fish are gutted right into the river, saving the egg sacs, and then brought to the table. With brisk efficiency and very little wastage, the fish are filleted and then cut into long narrow strips. Each strip is about a half inch wide and three feet long (or as long as the fish was from gills to tail). The strips are dipped into a salt water brine—for which there are many Secret Family Recipes—and hung on drying racks under a tarp for several days. Once dry, they are moved into the smokehouse for two to three weeks of smoking over a cottonwood or alder fire which is kept constantly burning.

Cutting the fillets into long, even strips can be time-consuming. Some people prefer to make “blankets”. A blanket is one entire salmon fillet (as much as one foot wide by three feet long) in which the bright red meat is sliced down to, but not through the skin, on the short dimension—from back to belly, not head to tail. The slices are made a half inch apart, and when the blanket is laid over a pole to dry, the wedges of meat between the slices fan apart, allowing for even drying.

The product of this work is “dry fish”, the staple of the Yupik diet. The strips have a jerky-like consistency, chewy and full of smoky salmon flavor and oil. Good strips are just divine. It is said that an astute elder can taste your strips and know whether you let your fire go out during smoking—for which you are a lazy slackard, though no one would say it to your face.

Life at fish camp is fun for kids, but they have chores to do too. Five-gallon buckets of water must be dipped from the river and carried to the cutting table for washing fillets, ulus (curved blade knife) and hands. Ulus must be sharpened frequently. Brine buckets full of strips must be carried to the drying rack and hung. Buckets full of dried strips must be carried to the smokehouse and hung. The finished product must be carried into the cabin and packaged for storage. When the mosquitoes are thick, smoky fires are kept burning around the edges of camp to repel them; gathering wood and feeding these fires are often the older children’s responsibility. And with the river right there, the younger children must be watched carefully.

In the old days, the Yupik Eskimo were far more nomadic than they are today. They spent early summer at fish camp, late summer at berry camp picking berries, and fall at moose camp hunting moose. Each camp had a different location, and each family had a traditional place that was their camp for each activity.

Most of the people that I talk to have wonderful memories of their time at fish camp while growing up, and still very much enjoy going there. Fish camp has become a symbol of the freedom of the subsistence lifestyle, living on “river time” and moving with the rhythms of the sun and the tide. And eating salmon fresh from the river at nearly every meal. Fish camp marks the beginning of summer, the favorite season of childhood. And it comes just when everyone is greedy for fresh salmon, and there is plenty.

Photos by The Tundra PA:

1. Fish camp on the Yukon River.

2&3 Fish camp on the Kuskokwim River.

4. Drift net ready to catch fish.

5. Average Kuskokwim king.

6. Filleting salmon with an ulu.

7. Many strips and a few blankets hanging.

Birdwatching on the Gweek River

Most of this area where I live in southwest Alaska is a huge wildlife refuge, the 19 million acre Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The headquarters for the Refuge are here in Bethel, a fairly long way from the Yukon River, leading some of us to feel that it should be named the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta NWR.

The Y-K Delta is the summer home to a huge population of migratory birds, particularly waterfowl. Birds come here from all over the world—as far away as Malaysia and South America—to mate, build nests, and raise their young. Such a long trip is worth their effort because of the tremendous untouched habitat available in this region of half land/half water, and because of the bounteous food source that our famous Alaskan mosquitoes provide them.

Those of us two-leggeds who share the habitat with them are certainly appreciative of the degree to which the birds reduce that pesky population, though they could eat five times as many mosquitoes as they do and still barely make a dent in the numbers. I read once that if Alaska’s summer mosquito population were condensed into a solid block, it would be a cubic mile of biomass.

Just as birds fly great distances to get here, so do birdwatchers. Avid birders and even ornithologists come away from a birdwatching visit here with new additions to their Life Lists (birds they may only see once in a lifetime).

But despite the huge summer avian population, Bethel is something of a well-kept secret when it comes to the development of birdwatching tourism. There are not a lot of ways for visitors to get out where the birds are and see them. One local company, Kuskokwim Wilderness Adventures, is working hard to change that.

KWA is owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Bev Hoffman and John McDonald, two of my long-time friends, and Bev's brother and SIL Mike and Jill Hoffman. Bev was born and raised here, and brought John back here with her from college more than thirty years ago. They are both excellent dog mushers, fishermen, and skilled outdoors people. For years I have planned to go on one of their spring birdwatching trips but just never got around to doing it. Yesterday I finally did.

We had an absolutely gorgeous day. The sky was brilliant blue with a few scattered shreds of cloud; the sun had some real strength to it, which gave us temperatures in the low 70s; and there was a light and steady breeze on the rivers which mostly kept the mosquitoes away. It just doesn’t get much better than that!

A group of seven of us, with John and Bev as our guides, left the small boat harbor at 6 AM in two boats with comfortable enclosed interiors. Our destination was the upper reaches of the Gweek River, a tributary of the Kuskokwim whose mouth is about ten miles upriver from Bethel. The Gweek is a tundra river some forty miles long which drains a huge area to the west of the Kuskokwim; as such it is not a salmon-spawning river as it does not come from the mountains and therefore contains no gravel, which the salmon require for their redds. The water of the Gweek contains so much tannin from the thick tundra plant carpet that it looks like tea. It could aptly be named the Lipton River.

At that early hour on a Saturday morning there was no one up and about either around town or out on the river. We did not see a single other boat until we got back to the Kuskokwim in mid afternoon. To me, true wilderness is not just the lack of human-made structures; it is also the absence of other humans. Even a wild location, such as many of our national forests, doesn’t feel like wilderness when there are people around other than whatever group I am with. I feel incredibly fortunate to live in a place where such true wilderness is not just available, it is everywhere around me, and as easy to access as a quick boat or snowmachine ride.

With thermoses of hot coffee and binoculars in hand, we left Bethel behind and were soon cruising up the Gweek River. This was the last of John and Bev’s four Saturday trips, and they had locations of particular interest plotted on their GPS units. We pulled off into several small sloughs, cut the motors and just drifted with the slight current, listening to a myriad of bird calls. John’s ability to identify birds from their call is phenomenal. He quickly named a half dozen birds we were hearing, which to me just sounded like a conglomerate chatter of bird noise.

At several places on the river we pulled over to the bank and all climbed out of the boats to hike through birch groves and up on to the tundra in search of several specific species with known nesting spots. John and Bev have been doing these trips for over fifteen years and are intimately familiar with the area and the birds’ patterns and locations of nesting. We walked right up to a small tree which had a Great Horned Owl nest with two half-grown chicks in it. They were so fuzzy they looked like little ewoks from Star Wars. They never moved the whole time we watched them, but just sat in the nest about twenty feet off the ground looking down at us. The previous two Saturdays, John said, the adult owls have been close by, watching us watch them protectively. Yesterday we did not see them near the nest, but saw one of them later one slough away.

Great Horned Owls are big birds with strong wings and are amazingly efficient predators of small animals. Here in the Delta, they mainly eat rabbits, but they are omnivores who will eat just about anything. My dad told me an interesting story this morning which I have to divert briefly to relay. A couple who are good friends of his, the Rocket Scientist and the Birdwatcher, visited a wildlife refuge in California where the park rangers told them of a Great Horned Owl within the refuge who was closely monitored for twelve years. When the bird died, they took ladders to get to its large nest, and in the nest they found 120 cat collars. Owls are not only efficient hunters, they are opportunists. They will make dinner out of whatever is easiest to catch.

In addition to seeing and hearing lots of birds, we also hiked over some beautiful land that I had not seen before—huge lakes, wildflowers, thick stands of cottonwood and birch trees. And it was such a gorgeous day to be out. When we were on land the mosquitoes found us pretty quickly and would have been crazy-making if not for the bug shirts which John and Bev provided.

They are called The Original Bug Shirt—Elite Edition, and they are the ultimate garment to have when bugs are out. They are very light weight, have elastic drawstrings at cuffs and hem and a hood with zip-up fine-mesh face screen roomy enough to fit over a bill cap which holds the mesh away from your face. Side and underarm panels are mesh as well, allowing the breeze to keep you cool when the weather is hot. They can be worn over a tee-shirt or under a jacket. The shirt folds up into its own front pocket for easy storage. It comes in tan and dark green and costs about $70 from the Bug Shirt people. For those readers in the Bethel area, the K-300 Feed Store (which John and Bev operate) sell them for $60. There is also a camouflage version which is slightly more. In my opinion it is the best thing out there and well worth the money. Dutch and I both have one of each color.

When we finally stopped for lunch, it was just past noon and we were about thirty miles up the Gweek. We anchored in the middle of the river, tied the two boats together, and feasted on a lunch of deli sandwiches, home-made killer potato salad, chips, cookies and beverages. John brought out copies of the wildlife refuge’s list of known bird species within our area so we could count the ones we had seen that day. Of the 102 birds on the list, we spotted 39:

Tundra Swan

Green-wing Teal

Mallard

Pintail

Shoveler

American Wigeon

Lesser Scaup

Black Scoter

Osprey

Bald Eagle

Rough-legged Hawk

Sandhill Crane

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Common Snipe

Long-tailed Jaeger

Glaucous Gull

Arctic Tern

Great Horned Owl

Alder Flycatcher

Tree Swallow

Bank Swallow

Raven

Gray-cheek Thrush

Swainson’s Thrush

Robin

Orange-crown Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Myrtle Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Waterthrush

Wilson’s Warbler

American Tree Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Slate-colored Junco

Rusty Blackbird

Redpoll

Birds from the list that are frequently seen here but just not around yesterday are Pine Grosbeak, Phalarope, Willow Ptarmigan, Canada Goose, Common Loon, Harrier, Peregrine Falcon, Black-cap Chickadee, Shrike. And then there is my pair of Pacific Golden Plover near the house which I saw yesterday but the rest of the people on the trip did not.

One bird that we had great hopes of seeing was the Hudsonian Godwit. There is a nesting area for these shy birds around a small tundra pond a short hike from the Gweek. John and Bev saw them two weeks ago, but they did not choose to show themselves to us yesterday. In the previous two trips, John said they also saw moose and black bear, but we had no such luck; the only mammals we saw were beaver.

With lunch done and equipment stowed we made a straight shot back to Bethel in about an hour and half. Once we got back to the Kuskokwim there were quite a few (maybe a dozen) boats out drift-netting for salmon. The king (Chinook) run is starting to get strong and the reds (sockeye) are just beginning to come up the river. Several friends were out fishing yesterday and this morning and I was delighted to be gifted some fresh salmon—my first of the season, and I am so hungry for it.

So for any of you birdwatchers out there who are interested in the avian populations here, you couldn’t do better than to contact Kuskokwim Wilderness Adventures. John and Bev are excellent guides who will take great care of you.

Photos by The Tundra PA. I was feeling too lazy to make 39 links for your easy clicking pleasure to Wiki all the birds we saw, but they are there if you are interested. The last photo is a Tundra Swan in flight, and yes, the sky was that incredible color all day long. The only photoshopping I did was to reduce the pixel size, no color enhancing was done.

Fast Break Up

Break up is the big spring event here in Alaska that says that winter is finally, truly, honest-to-goodness, no-turning-back, absolutely over. Some say jokingly that it is the start of summer, but we are actually quite a way from that just yet. The temperature this morning was about 36 degrees; it did get up to 55 by mid-afternoon, and with the sun shining brightly it felt really warm to sit outside if you could get out of the wind.

Break up is when the cubic miles of ice move out of all the rivers. Lots of variables play into when it will happen, and there are several lotteries around the state where the closest guess, by day, hour and minute, wins the pot. Those are specific to a certain river at a certain location, and are usually named “Ice Classic”.

The Kuskokwim Ice Classic terminated yesterday morning, sometime around 10 AM. I haven’t heard the official time yet.

Dutch and I were in Anchorage this past weekend (to buy our wedding rings, among other things) and on the flight home, it was easy to see from the plane that break up was getting close. All the sloughs and small shallow lakes were free of ice; the main river, however, was still solid. But the ice had dark spots where it was thinning and the overflow stains at the edges were large. I knew it wasn’t going to be long.

Tuesday morning the buzz was going around the hospital that break up was happening. I wasn’t able to get away for lunch, and after work had to race home to feed the dogs and then race to get to the City Council meeting by 6:30, so had no time to check the river. It was mid-morning today before I was able to get there, and holy cow! It was all over! A few chunks of ice are still floating down, but the river is pretty much all water now. It usually takes a couple of days for all the ice to move out; this was a really fast break up. And it looks like we’ll have no flooding this year at all.

I’m kinda bummed that I missed it. Break up is an amazing thing to watch. I’ve written about it before, here and here and here and here. The physicality of the event is what is so awesome. Conceptualize a serpiginous block of ice, four feet thick, a mile wide, and 800 miles long. That's a lot of ice. Really. A lot. As winter retreats and the weather warms up, that block doesn’t just melt; it would take too long. It breaks into huge pieces and floats out to sea, like a huge crowd of people surging towards a subway, everyone wanting to get on. Bumping, grinding, bobbing ice, in chunks as small as cars and as large as houses, racing for the ocean. Dead trees, dead animals, and all kind of debris riding on top. It truly is an amazing thing to see. People gather at the river's edge and sit for hours, just watching it all go by.

So break up for 2008 occurred on May 13^th. The most frequently occurring date for break up at Bethel has been May 18^th; it can occur as early as late April, and as late as early June. It can occur at 4:00 in the morning or at 2:00 in the afternoon. The Kuskokwim is a tidal river, and the tides have as much effect on when the river breaks as the sun does. A rainy spring can make a difference; we didn’t have one this year. This was a lucky year; it was a fast and easy transition.

What Is a Kuspuk?

Dad and Stepmom called this morning and one of their questions suggested to me that I should post a bit more info right about here, as a follow up to my previous post. “What exactly is a kuspuk?” they wanted to know. Buried somewhere deep in the archives of this blog I have mentioned it before, but not lately. So, for those who may be asking the same question, here is more about it.

A kuspuk is the traditional Yupik overshirt type garment worn by both men and women. Men tend to wear them primarily for ceremonial occasions, but for women they are everyday wear. Loose-fitting, they are extremely comfortable.

Basically, a kuspuk is a long-sleeved hooded slip-over shirt with a large pocket in the front, like a hooded sweatshirt without a banded bottom. The cuffs, pocket and hood are edged with rick-rack or a similar decorative trim. The size of the pocket and the way the trim is applied vary widely among kuspuk makers. Men’s kuspuks are solid colors, usually blue, green, black or white, and have a square bottom that ends at the hips. Women’s kuspuks are usually made from a patterned fabric, often a small floral print, and may have a short gathered skirt at the bottom. They may also be longer, essentially a dress, mid-thigh or knee length. Many women, myself included, prefer the shorter skirtless version, often known as “Yukon style.” “Kuskokwim style” generally has the skirt.

Summer kuspuks are made from light-weight cotton, and are often worn over a tee shirt. Winter kuspuks are made of heavier fabric, and may even be lined with flannel or fur. Parkas are the supreme winter kuspuks, made of heavy fur on the outside, such as beaver, and lined on the inside with flannel or sometimes a lighter fur such as rabbit, and usually include a handsome fur ruff on the hood made of wolf, wolverine or beaver.

Kuspuks are the appropriate garment to wear for any occasion, from cutting fish to picking berries to Eskimo dancing to getting married. I was delighted to have a fancy new one with lovely pearl trim for my wedding; along with my ivory ulu earrings, it was the perfect thing to wear in Bethel.

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Photos by The Tundra PA:

1. Wedding kuspuk

2. Berry Picking kuspuk

3. Everyday kuspuk

4. Pearl trim on wedding kuspuk

5. Elder in her kuspuk

Photos from Cama-i

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Another Cama-i Dance Festival is done, and it is a good thing I was not the official photographer for it. I did a lousy job. I so wish my friend Peter Ashman had been here to take the kind of photos he took last year; he did a beautiful job documenting that festival.

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Dutch and I had great seats for viewing, but not so much so for taking pictures. At least not with my camera, which has only limited telephoto. Most of what we got was either out of focus--sometimes kind of artsy, but disappointing; or way too dark. With some embarrassment I'll show you here the best of the bad. The Camai-i website has some much better ones, with more to come!

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From the performance aspect, this was a great festival. The Dancers were mostly excellent and fun to watch. The guest performers provided good variety and a taste of other cultures. And the craft fair offered lots of beautiful stuff for sale.

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I was particularly in search of a fur ruff, to be sewn around the hood of a parka, for one of our recurring locum tenens physicians at the hospital. She does a lot of walking when she is here, and needs a fur ruff to keep her face warmer when it is really cold. Lots of craftspeople were selling fur items of every description, but only one had ruffs, and fortunately, just what I was looking for.

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There were beautiful carved ivory items of every description, using both fresh and petrified ivory. For my birthday, Dutch bought me a lovely pair of ivory ulu earrings; the traditional curved-bladed knife used for filleting salmon is a popular cultural symbol for earring-makers. And I bought myself a birthday token too; I was enchanted by a small standing owl carved in ivory. Sometimes at craft fairs, something jumps into my hand and just won't leave, and I know I have to buy it. The owl did that.

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Something else that did that was a gorgeous pair of black leather gloves that had fox fur trim and intricate beadwork covering the backs of the hands. Oooohhh, did I want them. But the price deterred me; they were $170 and I just wasn't ready to commit to that much for them. I debated with myself, but in the end told the craftswoman I would think about it and come back. She just smiled. By the time I talked myself into it and went back, the gloves were gone.

There were all kinds of fur hats for sale, but one of the most beautiful was the one that Dutch got for me as my major birthday present. It is made of seal and fox and beaver, and it fits my head perfectly. I absolutely love it! It is exactly what I need for our upcoming trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...more to come on that.

Photos by Dutch and The Tundra PA.

1. Bethel Traditional Dancers

2. Same...fans in motion

3. Scammon Bay Dancers

4. Same...Maryann Sundown seated in the center chair in both photos. At 89 years old, she was honored as the oldest Dancer at the Festival, and a Living Treasure.

5. Birthday craft gifts

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.

Disappointment

It was with the greatest of good hopes that Claire and I arrived at the airport yesterday morning. I just knew that after four days of delay, we were going to get the weather break we needed to get to Pilot Station. We were even 15 minutes early for check in.

The terminal was full of many of the same faces now familiar to us from our days of sitting there waiting. We nodded to a few folks and they raised their eyebrows back at us, a universal Yupik acknowledgement. The same kids were running around in their stocking feet, or playing cards, or sleeping on the floor on top of parkas and hats. The same air of resignation from the day before permeated the place.

People were pretty much even sitting in the same locations, though they had gone somewhere for the night, as the air charter company locks up the building at 10 pm. Claire and I found our same seats as well on a long wooden bench. We only had one bag each to check in, as most of our stuff had just stayed there since Monday morning. No point in schlepping it back and forth for nothing. We had just over an hour to wait if all went well.

As you can probably guess, it didn’t. At 11:00 the plane for St. Mary’s and Mountain Village left, and I was thrilled. Pilot Station is only about ten miles from St. Mary’s, so we should be the next ones out the door. But no. At 11:30 we went up and spoke to our pilot, who told us we were still on weather hold because the landing strip at Pilot Station was enshrouded in fog. It is on a high bluff overlooking the Yukon River, and is more easily affected by a low ceiling than St. Mary’s, whose landing strip is right next to the river.

So we sat down again with our books to continue waiting. I was beginning to have that sense that this trip was just not meant to be. This was certainly the longest delay I had ever experienced in bush travel.

At 12:30 we checked again, and the pilot said the visibility was improving at Pilot Station, but things were starting to get worse here in Bethel. Sure enough, through the windows we could see the fog thickening over the runway.

“When that last plane that left returns,” he told us, “we’ll see how badly iced up it is. That will determine whether we go or not.”

With that, my last hope for this trip crashed. I looked at Claire with a sigh and said “you know, I think it is time to give it up.” She agreed.

We told the agent of our decision and were escorted out to the luggage sorting area to claim our ten duffles, boxes and coolers. I called Dutch in the hope that he could break away from the city’s business for an hour to come out and get us and deliver us back to the hospital. Fortunately he could, and did. When we got there, I called the health aides to let them know we had finally bagged it and would not be coming; they were every bit as disappointed as we were. The trip will be rescheduled for March.

Weather Permitting is a very real force around here. Just because you want to go somewhere doesn’t mean you’ll get to.

Photo by Claire of framed poem on the wall at the air charter company.

Weather Permitting

It has been over 18 months since my last hospital-sponsored village visit to Pilot Station, the Yupik village on the Yukon River for which I have been the primary care provider for nearly ten years. My last trip was in June of 2006 (check the archives for posts about that trip). In the interim I have made a few short social visits on my own, which usually involved seeing a few patients just because I was there, but an official visit has long been needed. The ideal is for each village to receive a week-long visit from its designated provider two to three times per year. When we are understaffed at the hospital though, village visits are a much lower priority.

So when the January schedule came out last month, I was delighted to see that I had at last been cleared for a trip to Pilot Station, and that my PA colleague Claire, who joined me for the trip to Napaskiak, would be going with me. This is still considered a training run for her, as the Napaskiak trip was a somewhat abbreviated experience. This time she is getting the full deal. We began the preliminary preparations about two weeks ago.

Lots of information and supplies need to be gathered, ordered, and shipped prior to a well-coordinated village visit. We notified various departments of our planned trip; from the Women’s Health Program we received a list of all pregnant patients in the village, and all the women with Pap smears and/or mammograms due. From Pediatrics we received a list of all children under one year of age. From the Diabetes program we received a list of all patients with diabetes and a summary of their needs—foot exam, eye exam, hemoglobin A1c. From Health Information Services we received copies of the health summaries of all patients on chronic medications—about two reams of paper there! We sent our list of supplies to be taken with us to Materials Management and they shipped stuff out ahead of time for us. One of our goals for this trip it to get as many Pap smears done as possible.

With all this arranged, along with the personal gear which includes sleeping bags, pillow, towels and every bite of food we will eat while we are there, Claire and I were ready to leave Bethel on Sunday afternoon, and planned to return on Thursday afternoon.

However, as often happens in winter here, the law of “weather permitting” came into play. On Saturday night we got hit with a blizzard which raged for more than a day. All day Sunday and into Monday, it snowed heavily and there was just about zero visibility. By the time it stopped we had about three feet of new snow—which we definitely needed, but I wasn’t thrilled about the timing. Of course our flight was on weather hold, and we weren’t going anywhere Sunday evening.

Monday morning we showed up at the small commuter airline company and checked in all our gear. Even with some of the supplies being mailed out ahead of time, there is still a ton of stuff that we take with us. Our departure was scheduled for 11 am. The snow had stopped falling by then, but the planes were on hold because the villages were having a hard time clearing their runways. This much snow all at once is pretty unusual for us.

So we sat at the terminal in Bethel for a couple of hours, waiting and hoping, but by noon our flight was canceled. We went back to the hospital for the afternoon and found ways to help out there, though neither of us were on the schedule. We had to be back at the air charter company by 4 pm, hoping to leave on the 5:00 flight. We were, but it, too, was canceled.

Tuesday morning the sky was clear and black with bright stars, so I figured all was good and we would make it out with no more problems. By 9:30 when it was getting light, a thick heavy fog had rolled in. Claire and I went back to the airport, as fog often lifts after a few hours. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Every hour we got an update: this may lift, planes will fly if it does, don’t go anywhere. We sat for six hours. Finally, at 4 pm, the company said no, no flights today. Try again tomorrow.

But they weren’t all that hopeful for Wednesday either, as the fog was predicted to hang around for several more days. It was beginning to look like the trip would have to be rescheduled for sometime later, probably March or April.

This morning at 7 am the sky was clear and black with many stars, and the temperature has dropped considerably, from +30F to +5F, which is a very good sign for it to remain clear. Fog is a problem when it is warmer. Dutch got a call from his foreman who is the best weather predictor we know, and he said we’ll be good to go today, it should be clear and gorgeous and cold for the next four or five days.

So finally, we’ll be off to Pilot Station in a few hours! My plan now is to stay until Saturday, to make up some of the time we lost. More posts to follow…

Photos by The Tundra PA:

1. Our snowmachines, almost buried in snow.

2. Fog-bound plane, waiting to go.

3. Waiting mom and babe at the air terminal.

January Warm Up

After weeks of severely cold weather, we have done a typically Bethel turn around. From 30 below on Sunday night we jumped to 30 above by Tuesday morning. The change came with dire predictions of a serious blizzard, complete with 50 mph winds and blowing snow causing white-out conditions.

The wind has picked up, blowing frost and snow from the trees, but no blizzard has arrived. (Photos of the same tree, at -30 and +30.) The sky has been blue for most of the day and the warmer weather has everyone smiling. I fully expected to see teenagers out in shorts and t-shirts today. I ran into a friend at the post office who said “Can you believe we’ve warmed up 60 degrees and it’s still below freezing?” Yeah, that’s Bethel for you. In a week—or three—we’ll be back to 20 below and this brief respite will be a fond memory. Most of us are hoping this weather change will stop short of going to 40 above and raining, which is always possible.

Our big sled dog race, the Kuskokwim 300, is scheduled for this coming weekend. There are 21 mushers and their teams lined up to compete, and Bethel will soon be full of visiting dogs. A hand full of teams are local; the rest will be flown in with all their gear. Dutch and I are not hosting a musher this year; our friend Aliy Zirkle is not coming for K-300, to our great disappointment. She and her husband Allen Moore competed well in the Copper Basin 300 last weekend. Allen won the race (for the third time!) and Aliy placed sixth. Their sights are now set on Iditarod (with a couple of mid-distance races beforehand to warm up) which will start the first weekend in March. I’d so love to see Aliy win the big one!

Yupik Eskimo Crafts

Handmade items by Yupik artisans and craftspeople are much sought-after by both visitors to southwest Alaska and residents alike. Many of the things now sold as crafts, such as baskets and fur clothing, were originally useful, functional items that were part of everyday life. Before Western culture invaded this area, bringing things like Tupperware and plastic bags, baskets were what people used to store everything from clothing to food. And clothing made of fur is still warmer than anything modern technology has produced; in the severe winter temperatures we have here, it can be life saving.

Baskets are made in all sizes and shapes, from very tiny to huge. The traditional Yupik basket is very tightly woven, round in shape with a flat bottom, and has a snugly fitting lid. Open baskets are also made, either flat and tray-like or deep-sided and bucket-like. Designs are woven into the sides using dyed grasses; moose, caribou and birds are common motifs.

In addition to baskets, the long reed-like grasses that grow along rivers and streams were traditionally also woven into socks and hats and used to make toys and dolls for children. Grasses were stuffed into mukluks—knee-high fur boots—to insulate the feet from the frozen ground and used to fill fur mattresses for sleeping on. The elders still teach that if you break through ice and get wet when traveling, you should immediately begin collecting the grass growing at the water’s edge and stuff it inside your clothes to hold them away from your skin; the wet clothing will freeze hard and the insulating grass will allow your body heat to warm the inside. It must feel pretty scratchy, but it can help to prevent death from hypothermia.

Fur is used to make every type of clothing needed: hats, gloves, parkas, pants, and boots. It is also used to make dolls, yo-yos, pillows, rugs, and the small trinket type items favored by collectors such as keyrings and Christmas tree ornaments.Beaver, seal, otter, wolf, wolverine, and fox are the furs most often used for clothing. The fur of small animals such as muskrats is sometimes used for decorative effect on parkas and boots. Parkas, the long hooded outer coats, are especially treasured garments. Quite a lot of work goes into making one, and may take up to a year to complete. Fur is very durable if it is well cared for, and parkas are often handed down from one generation to the next. They are decorated on both front and back, and may include beadwork, as well as piecing together tiny bits of contrasting fur to create designs. A well-made parka sells for about $2,000. The parka shown on the left (front and back views) was made by the wearer's mother, and she treasures it, and only wears it for special occasions. Today is the first day of Slaavik, the Russian Orthodox Christmas, and she wore it for the celebration she is attending tonight.

Small fur scraps left from sewing people’s clothing are used to make Eskimo doll clothes. Dolls are a very popular craft item with collectors. Each doll maker has a unique style, so much so that the appearance of the doll is a signature of the maker. My favorite dolls are made by a woman from Chevak named Dorothy Nayamin. Her dolls are beautiful. The faces are made of leather, which she chews to soften and mold. People from Chevak say that her faces are so true-to-life that they can tell who she modeled each doll after.

Dolls are made in all sizes, but most commonly are about a foot tall. They are usually dressed in traditional clothing, either cotton kuspuks (a hooded overshirt with a large front pocket) or fur. They are usually performing an activity of daily living, such as hunting, fishing, sewing, berry picking, or collecting grass. Once I even saw one the maker called the anuk-ing doll; it had a small shovel in one hand, a wad of grass in the other, its pants were down and a small black bead was sewn on its bare behind. Anuk is the Yupik word for poop. The doll maker couldn’t stop giggling as she showed it to people; she loved feeling a little bit naughty by making it.

Doll making and basket weaving are traditionally considered women’s crafts. Skin sewing—making garments of fur or leather—is usually a woman’s craft, though some men may do it too. Ivory carving is a man’s craft.

The ivory comes from the tusk of the walrus, which is also a meat source. In the old days, whole tusks were used to form arched entrances to the semi-subterranean homes the Yupik people lived in (igloos, which were never more than temporary dwellings, were not part of this culture; this area does not have the right kind or amount of snow to build them with). Sometimes the tusks were etched with images of animals, birds and fish to bring good luck with hunting. Ivory is such a durable and workable material that one old-time dog musher used it to make runners for his dog sled.

These days ivory is carved into small figurines, which are often placed into tableaux made of wood and grass to create scenes of hunting or other daily activities. It is also used in making masks, which are sometimes worn in Eskimo dancing, and in making jewelry such as earrings and bracelets.

Another older use for ivory which is not often seen today was to make story knives. A traditional entertainment for girls and young women was to recite for each other the myths, legends, and stories that make up the oral tradition of Yupik culture. The story knife was used to scrape a smooth surface in dirt or mud or sand and then to draw lines, figures, and symbols in the surface to illustrate the story being told. A particularly fine story knife, such as one made of ivory, would be passed down from mother to daughter for many generations.

In modern times, beading has become a popular craft among Yupik women. It does not have the ancient roots of basket weaving and ivory carving, as beads did not become available to the craftswomen until the Russians came to Alaska to trade for furs in the 1700s. Barettes, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings are popular items, and some are quite intricate. The work is hand-held, not loomed.

Knitting is not a craft one would think to associate with the Yupik people, as sheep to provide the wool are not native to this area. However, musk oxen were brought here many years ago, and there are thriving herds on Nelson Island and on Nunivak Island. The downy undercoat of the musk ox is as soft as cashmere, and is called qiviut (KIV-ee-ute). It is light brown, the color of hot chocolate. As the oxen migrate through their territories, the qiviut is plucked from their fur by snagging on the brambles of tundra bushes. The women in these areas follow the herds and collect the qiviut, spinning it into yarn and weaving the yarn into the softest and most beautiful hats, mittens, scarves and mufflers. The most traditional piece is a neck gaiter known as a Smoke Ring; it is loose-fitting and can be worn only on the neck or pulled up to partially cover the head. Garments made of qiviut are never dyed, they are always that beautiful, rich chocolate brown. The one shown at the left here is modeled by the delightful and charming ward clerk of my clinic. Different patterns in the weaving are associated with specific villages, thus the garment tells where the weaver is from. There is a Guild of Qiviut Weavers which maintains a store in Anchorage where their work is sold. They have a website where you can order garments made of qiviut here.

Most of the artists and craftspeople from this area have much less opportunity to make their work available for purchase. When they travel in from the villages to Bethel, they often bring crafts with them to sell. The hospital keeps a table set up in the lobby known simply as “the craft table” where people can place items for sale, usually with a slip of paper with their name on it and how much they are asking for their creations. Sometimes the slip will also state which clinic they are being seen in, so if they get called to their appointment, you know where to go look for them if you want to purchase something. The honor system is very much in force, and people generally trust that you won’t steal from them.

The Cultural Center in Bethel is the home to a small museum of Yupik history and culture, and it has a gift shop attached where a small selection of Yupik crafts is available, but it seems rarely to be open. The museum’s long-time curator (and gift shop manager) moved away from Bethel recently, and her replacement has apparently not been found. The only stores in Bethel selling locally made crafts and maintaining regular business hours that I know of is Lucy’s Cache, out at the airport, and the clothing section of Swanson’s Grocery.

Every Saturday during the summer, and one Saturday per month during the winter, there is a craft fair known as Saturday Market held at the Cultural Center. This is generally a lively gathering of craftspeople and gardeners selling vegetables. The sellers must rent table space to sell their goods. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the Christmas Bazaar, the biggest Market of the year, and usually has a huge showing of craftspeople. They bring all their best work to sell, and the variety is mind-boggling. I missed it this year, so I have no photo to share.

The other big craft-buying opportunity each year is the craft fair held during the Camai’i (chu-MY) Dance Festival in April. Camai’i is a Yupik word meaning “a warm and genuine welcome.” While Eskimo Dancing goes on in the high school auditorium, a huge craft fair goes on in the school lobby and adjacent classrooms. Every imaginable craft is there, from sealskin pants to an entire carved walrus tusk. It is truly a feast for the eyes, and can be a hit to the pocketbook. I set aside a few hundred dollars for this event, to do my craft shopping for the year.

A few years ago, the hospital built a separate building to house the Dental and Eye clinics and most of the administrative offices. One of the most gracious elements of this lovely building—which contains the only elevator in Bethel—is the large display cases found in the hallways on each floor. These are filled with historic photographs and beautiful examples of Yupik Eskimo crafts. The photographs here which show objects behind glass are from these display cases. Likewise, the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage has a many-times larger collection which is displayed throughout their facility. Every hallway, every staircase has lighted display cases filled with beautiful examples of Native crafts.

For most of the craftspeople, the money they make selling their work constitutes their only cash income for the year. Many contribute significantly to their families’ income through their work. I love being able to purchase crafts directly from the people who made them, and to hear the stories of how they were made. It is all part of the beautiful and vibrant Yupik culture.

All photos by The Tundra PA:

1. Large traditional Yupik basket, about 2' tall.

2. Smaller traditional baskets, about 8" and 6" tall.

3. Baskets of varied shapes.

4. Mukluks made of beaver, otter, and cowhide, with muskrat tassels .

5. Fancy parka.

6. Another fancy parka, front.

7. Beaver hat.

8. Back view of #6.

9. Dolls by Dorothy Nayamin.

10. More dolls, doll maker unknown.

11. Same doll maker as #10.

12. Ivory carvings; left is a billikin, a happy spirit that brings good luck, carved from the tooth of a sperm whale. Right is a walrus.

13. Halibut mask.

14. Ivory bracelet.

15. Ivory earrings.

16. Ivory story knife.

17. Beaded necklace.

18. Qiviut smoke ring.

19. Masks.

20. Wolf fur thigh warmers, tucked into mukluks with beaded tops.

21. Eskimo yo-yo.

22. Seal mask.

23. Beaded hair barettes.

24. Mukluks made of wolf, wolverine, cowhide and muskrat, by Lucy Beaver.