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Since it was Valentine's Day when my husband and I lugged
our suitcases out into the dawning on the way to the airport,
he was subjected to a bit of doggerel:
Instead of a valentine card, I ask ya,
Wouldn't you rather go to Alaska?
Instead of a card all full of mush,
Let's hop a plane and head for the bush.
So it's out of the icebox and into the fridge-
Come on, let's head for Anchorage!
(What were you expecting at 6 a.m.? Deathless poetry?)
We'd been taking a lot of flak from friends who were heading
for Cancun, Barbados, or at least Disney World, about our decision
to spend our February vacation in Alaska. But I hadn't been able
to resist the offer by the Left Coast Sisters in Crime Mystery Writers
Convention 2001 in Anchorage to participate in Authors2Bush, a program
funded by local grants, which sent 60-odd (and I mean odd) mystery
novelists out into the Alaskan bush to visit schools. What better
time than winter to experience the true Alaska (and no bugs)? Actually,
due to a shift in the Jet Steam, Alaska has been experiencing a
very warm winter, and the average temperature during our visit was
ten or fifteen degrees warmer than in good old Maine.
After four days crammed into the Anchorage Hilton with cheerful
hordes of mystery writers and fans, we were ready for the bush.
We hunchbacked down the aisle of a 17-seat airliner for the 320-mile
trip to Aniak, and sat with a young family headed for a visit home
in Lower Kalskag. For an hour and a half, the plane faithfully churned
westward, over mountains and trees and absolutely no sign of human
habitation. (If you want a snack, get someone to pass the basket
of goodies up the aisle.) The elegant loops and swirls of the Kuskokwim
River came into sight, and still we churned onward. Just as I was
wondering if the pilot knew where he was going, I looked up the
aisle over his shoulder and spotted a faint pencil line in the distance:
the Aniak runway.
Superintendent of Schools Bobette Bush was waiting for us, and as
soon as the front-end loader had pushed our luggage through the
hatchway, she whisked us off to the home she and her husband built
twenty years ago at the end of the road between the runway and the
river. Jump into our heavy gear, and it's back to the airport for
the trip to Chuathbaluk, ten miles or so upriver, where they're
saving us some lunch. (We were supposed to travel by snowmobile,
but the warm weather has led to overflows: didn't want to drop us
through. Sounds like a plan.) The hardest part was figuring out
how to get into the tiny plane in all that gear. (Left moon boot
on tiny step, and right leg over? Well, how about right instep on
tiny step and fling left leg in huge pants over seat, trying not
to come down on the dual pedals?) Then up away along the white sworls
of river until we saw on a distant hilltop a tiny shaved patch somewhat
smaller than your typical dining room table. (No sign of a town,
mind you. Just this brown patch of plowed dirt.) The landing strip
pivoted under us as the plane stood on its left wing, then we dove
for it. The landing strip looked bigger by the time we hit it, and
there was Leland, the principal of the Crow Village Sam School,
standing by his snow machine, flash of white teeth inside a wolf-fur
ruff. I got to ride behind Leland; my husband, and the itinerant
special education teacher who had bummed a ride for an I.E.P., rode
on the sled, using my briefcase to fend off the gravel spit up by
the snow machine's track on not enough snow.
Lunch was creamed chicken on spaghetti, with canned beans. My class
was the 7th through 12th graders, a dozen or so-the idea of attending
school every day is evidently still new-and we talked about the
writing process and character development. Well, I talked. The students
murmured shyly. Round Yup'ik faces and big brown eyes and tee shirts
emblazoned with rock band slogans-even if they are dropped off at
school on ATVs and snow machines, and they really have no concept
of city terms like "around the block", these kids have TV, and an
eclectic radio station up from Bethel.
The Kuspuk School District covers 12,300 square miles, 470 students
in eight villages along the Kuskokwim from Lower Kalskag to Stony
River 120 miles away. The area population is 1,775 people, largely
in Aniak. The other villages are 90-98% Yup'ik Eskimos, with some
Athabaskan Indians, residents of the area for five hundred generations
or so. First contact with Anglos was in the late nineteenth century,
when missions and schools were established along the river. The
missions were Russian Orthodox, and the churches remain, log cabins
with onion domes. There are still no roads. The only way to travel
from village to village, or from village to anywhere, is by plane,
or by river in the summer, or by snow machine. When there's snow.
We finished the day at Chuathbaluk with a visit to the K-3 classroom
and a Yup'ik lesson to the tune of "Frere Jacques" (we wowed the
Yup'ik instructor by singing the regular words in French and English).
Then back up to the landing strip when we heard the plane come in.
"It might be a little bumpy at takeoff," the pilot told us. Bumpy?
We blew right off the end of the runway, thrown sideways out over
the river when we got out of the wind shadow of the nearest mountain.
Hey, whatever. The pilot didn't seem ruffled. Then back to Aniak
for a gourmet Thai dinner cooked by Stephen Bush, husband of the
superintendent, former Iditarod musher, one dissertation short of
a doctorate in anthropological linguistics, and builder of airports
all over the bush. You just never know what's next in Alaska.
The four days in Anchorage had been full of threats of honeybuckets,
no plumbing, sleeping on school floors. We'd landed in luxury. Aniak
is far enough into the hills to have running water and septic tanks,
unlike the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta further downriver, where soft silt
and permafrost combine to make such things difficult. The houses
are all up on blocks, of course, since town tends to flood at "breakup"
in May, when blocks of ice jam up to dam the river. Houses are small-building
materials must be brought up the river by barge in the summer, or
flown in, priced by the pound-and there are no garages. Every yard
is adorned with articles that won't fit into the house. The irony
to us was that people lived cheek-by-jowl in this tiny pocket in
the wilderness. We have much more elbowroom at home in Maine-our
thirteen acres were purchased for a song. But only 1% of Alaska
is privately owned, and most of that must be stretched-out Anchorage.
All the rest is federal land, or belongs to the Native Councils.
You wouldn't want to be up in the hills anyway during June or July
or September bug seasons, we were told, mosquitoes so thick they'll
kill your dogs and drive the caribou nuts. You need to live along
the river where there's a breeze. There was a house for sale in
Aniak, a tilting shack on a ˝-acre lot, for $70,000. Price was up
even though the house wasn't much because it was so much land.
Next morning, in the dark, we headed for the airstrip again for
another jaunt, this time to Upper and Lower Kalskag. I'd pretty
much mastered getting into the plane (left boot on the step is the
ticket), and the ride into the dawning morning was beautiful. I
never tired of looking at the lazy swirls and oxbows of the river
below us, and the hills and mountains, scrubby trees poking thinly
up out of snow cover, that marched to the horizon on all sides.
We were met in Kalskag by a school bus (!), which took us first
to the Joseph and Olinga Gregory School in Upper Kalskag (grades
5-6, 30 students and 2 teachers), then down the road to the Zackar
Levi School in Lower, 75 students K-5 with 6 teachers. We passed
the young man we'd met on the airliner the day before, bombing down
the road on his ATV with two big boxes of Huggies strapped to the
fenders, and we waved happily, feeling like home. Lunch in Lower
was creamed chicken on rice, with canned corn. On the wall, below
the traditional row of portraits of the village elders, was a poster-paint
sign saying "Welcome Judy Green". The Kalskag kids were enthusiastic,
full of energy, and all wanted my autograph. Their teachers were
pleased that I spotted the poster on the wall, and used their terms
for my description of a Real Writer's writing process: here's my
Brain Drain (notes), then my Sloppy Copy, then whatever the cute
slogan was for typing it up, and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Yes,
I get input from others-you, classmates; me, Writer's Group. And
then the publishing process. The advantage I had over other writers
in the Authors2Bush program was that I write high-interest/low-level
novels and stories for adult new readers in literacy programs. The
kids could actually read the books I handed out. Even the 1st graders
could find "Green" on the cover.
The third stop for the day, George Morgan Sr. High School, with
70 students grades 7-12, seemed huge. They were having a Native
Heritage week, and we got to listen to a tiny dynamo of an elder
telling stories, then preaching about self-respect and Don't Take
Drugs. The stories were hilarious, and in English; the sermon was
in Yup'ik, with an interpreter, perhaps for the gravitas inherent
in the process of translation. In another classroom a grandmotherly
lady was sitting on the floor helping students make the traditional
outer garment, a kuspuk (no, the district was named after a person).
She'd eyeball a kid, then tear the brightly colored calico into
the correct pieces for sewing and addition of rickrack. No measuring.
She never missed. In other classrooms, kids were making hats and
mitts out of fur. In my five days on the Kuskokwim, I learned a
lot about what kinds of fur to use for which purposes. In fact,
life on the Kuskokwim seemed to be largely about the acquisition
of fur and protein; in Maine, it's "Got your deer yet?" in the fall
and "Got your garden in?" in the spring. Same thing.
Then off to the landing strip by snow machine, and here comes our
plane.
The third day we were off to Crooked Creek, dropping in to Chuathbulak
on the way for another dramatic landing to pick up some kids for
a basketball camp. (These kids live basketball. Every school had
a gym. In general, by Maine standards, the school facilities were
to die for, bright and airy, with a computer for every three kids.
Oil money funneled through the Native Councils. The kids must like
having a large, warm space to run around in during the day. Overheated,
actually, in this unseasonably warm winter. One teacher told me
that at the more common 40 below, it's hard to get the buildings
up over freezing. I didn't mind the warmth.)
The Johnnie John School had 40 students right from Kindergarten
to 12th grade. The little guys were bouncy, full of questions, especially
about my age. (Were they wondering if I had achieved elder status?
Or were they just wondering about the relative aging process of
white people? I was a lot older than their teachers, who were all
white, and I probably looked older to them than God. Yup'ik faces
don't seem to feel the effects of gravity as the years go by, although
they bear the signs of a harsh environment, and they are innocent
of dentistry.) The older kids were reserved, but willing to write
as urged, even the kids from Chuathbulak, subjected to me for a
second time. Lunch was chili and tacos that came out as a sort of
taco lasagne. After school the Lead Teacher's husband took me for
a long snowmobile ride on the river (moving too fast for me to worry
about those overflows), and I saw a lot of houses I didn't mind
not living in. Lord, my house in Maine seems roomy.
The plane was waiting for us-ha, ha, snuck in between two mountains
the back way so we wouldn't hear it coming in. The ever-organized
and gracious Bobette had arranged for the plane to take a School
Board member home from a meeting in Aniak and pick us up on the
way out, so that we could have the ride to Sleetmute, a hundred
miles upriver from Aniak (a third of the way back to Anchorage,
I realized later when I looked at a map). After a sudden takeoff
and a swooping, sliding, banking turn over a mountain that ended
in a dive for the river ("I don't do that to most tourists," the
pilot said. Was that some kind of compliment?), we took the river
route all the way to Sleetmute, a wide swoops and curves, like a
very tall boat. After a tour of Sleetmute, consisting of walking
down to the edge of the river and then having a look at the Board
member's new house, we went back to Aniak over the mountains, the
pilot kindly taking a dogleg off-route so that we could have a look
at the mighty Yukon, only 30 miles distant. (The Kuskokwim is actually
the fifth longest river in the United States, but it doesn't get
any respect because it's dwarfed by its neighbor, three times longer.)
Bobette was waiting for us to deliver us to the home of her head
of maintenance, an Athabaskan, who had promised to take us mushing.
Now, we have neighbors who take us mushing in Maine, but Nathan
hooked 16 dogs up to an ATV-not enough snow to allow the brakes
to work on a sled-and we rode on the fenders. He told us all about
dog training in his soft, lyrical accent, then hopped off so I could
have a go when we were coming to a loop in the trail that would
bring us back to him. Luckily I was so involved in watching to dogs
that I got a tire in the soft snow. They thought I'd put on the
brakes, so they obediently lay down and looked at me. I was still
trying to remember the word for "giddyup" when I heard Nathan running
along the trail behind us. "I forgot to tell you where the gun is,"
he puffed, "in case the dogs take off after a moose." Not wanting
to be responsible for getting $20,000 worth of dogs off a killer
moose, I urged him back onto the ATV.
Thursday and Friday were in the Aniak schools-poor us, no more commuting
to work by bush plane. Auntie Mary Nicoli School, Aniak Middle School,
Aniak High School (home, I kid you not, of the Aniak Halfbreeds-the
students refuse to give up the name). Aniak has 185 students altogether,
17 teachers, and a very busy principal. While my husband, an EMT,
spoke to the science class, I did my round of the English classes:
the writing process, character development, opening scenes, gab,
gab: I realized I was beginning to get hoarse. These were the city
kids, more sophisticated than in the outlying villages, more willing
to talk and ask questions, but still I was doing too much of the
talking. I was interviewed for a radio broadcast to be sent down
to Bethel. I whipped over to the Kindergarten and 1st grades, and
back to the high school. Lunch was creamed chicken with canned beans.
(I stuck my head into the tiny kitchen and saw cans of chicken the
size of small garbage pails stacked high. There is more creamed
chicken in those kids' future.) In the afternoon the junior high
kids, and a trip to the Curriculum Office to meet the literacy folks
there. On the way back to Steve and Bobette's house, we stopped
off at one of the grocery stores (there are two!) and were greeted
by name by kids in the aisles. Felt like home.
Friday morning, another visit to the English class, and suddenly
we were headed over to the landing strip. We knew most of the people
in the waiting room; felt like home. But then that big 17-seater
appeared out there in the blue like a mosquito and landed and let
people off and Bobette was hugging us good-bye and we were walking
up steps and the plane took off without even telling us where the
transmitter was that would locate us in case of a crash and the
Kuskokwim dropped away behind us and it was all over.
What did I teach those kids? Who knows? You never know in teaching.
Maybe someone will realize that in this electronic age it's just
as possible to be an author in Chuathbaluk as in New York City.
Maybe some kids will enjoy reading just a little bit more, knowing
that authors have hopes and dreams like theirs. Or maybe some kids
will just feel better about themselves, knowing that someone cared
enough to make the trip.
What did I learn? Oh, lots of stuff. A little bit more about elders,
perhaps. How to pronounce 'kayak' (those k's are way back in the
throat). That Maine people are sort of kin to Alaskans: we understand
about waiting until the weather clears, and we don't expect more
than so much in any given period of time. I spent a lot of time
thinking about ironies: being crowded in the wilderness, for example.
Forcing people to give up their nomadic way of life and move into
the villages for the sake of school because it's too easy to die
in a subsistence way of life, but at the same time teaching the
kids Yup'ik and hanging pictures of the elders in the hallway…when
thirty, forty, fifty years ago these same future elders were taken
from their families, sent to school in Oklahoma, and beaten for
speaking anything but English. Ironies upon ironies.
I did find some Yup'ik picture books. In a specialty bookstore in
Anchorage, on the same shelf as the linguistic mapping dictionaries.
So they aren't in homes in the villages. Most kids coming to school
haven't been read to in any language, although one Yup'ik woman
in her fifties (she thought I was far older; I thought she was far
older) told me her mother had bought some picture books in English
when she was a child and learned to read them to help her daughter
be ready for the white school. For five hundred generations, Yup'ik
was a spoken language, with a rich spoken literature. The children
haven't learned it. Yup'ik does now have a written form, but little
is written in it. Will the Yup'ik language live? I hope so. But
English is a pretty fierce competition.
Mostly, along with seeing some great scenery, I met some wonderful
people. I was really impressed with the ability and the commitment
of the teachers. Many of them move a lot-back to civilization, or
on to another village, after a year or two or three-but they really
care about those kids. I fell in love with the kids, of course.
Bobette and Steve were great, and I hope they follow through on
their promise to come to New England some year for the fall color.
Folks in general made us feel really welcome and didn't laugh at
us for being overdressed, although all those handsome young pilots
made me feel old as they fretted about my slipping on icy landing
strips. (I wanted to wear a sign: From Maine. Know about ice.)
Would I go back? In a heartbeat.
Would I buy that house for $70,000? Well-
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Judy Green