diomede
Little island big sea
Color
Anouvuk
Well, I never managed to catch any birds, but at least I got my anouvuk made semi-properly. Apparently hand tying each not is not the best way to make a net; there is a slick way to do it with a needle.
Bird net
I love to make things. I love it more when I can use them to do something practical, like hunt for food! Unfortunately I have yet to master the art of birding. The little seabirds taste great though, so I’ll keep trying.
The north trails
So there are a few trails on the island. Two head north out of the village, a low one that stays a few hundred feet off the water, and a high one that heads up to the top of the island. The low one, I found the other day, only goes to the north cliffs…where it stops gradually. Well, sort of. The trail starts out incredibly nice, wide and easy, fades to a narrow and sort of tricky little route, and eventually you turn a corner and, wham, cliffs. Big cliffs. Up to that point, it is a gradual fade, though. From the best I could tell, the north cliffs are just shy of the northernmost point of the island.
Show me the way in the fog
After a walk–in the beautiful long arctic summer sunset–which got dicey near some cliffs, after a long climb that seemed to never end and get harder and harder, there finally came a corner and around it was the plateau of the top of the island. From there all I needed to do was cross the plateau and find the nice and safe trail back to the island; I had had my fill of brave trailblazing for the day. I breathed a great sigh of relief and started the long walk over boulders as the thick sea fog rolled in. I walked and walked and walked, and finally the sight of a cairn and a well worn footpath brought a smile to my soul.
It’s good to be back
The sun sets behind big diomede
A case of the willies
I had this conversation with one of the other teachers here at 9 o’clock last night:
“Dave, did you hear about the chopper?”
“no, what about it?”
“they didn’t make it back to Nome.”
…
Spine chilling. Simply put, in these parts, “they didn’t make it” means that they are dead.
Thankfully that wasn’t the case this time. Much later last night the local who does seat booking for the chopper heard from Captain Mike–him and Simon are o.k., they set the bird down outside Nome for weather reasons. But holy cow, that was a case of the willies like I haven’t felt in a while. Mike (pilot) and Simon (flight mechanic) are two of the greatest flying guys I’ve met. They bust their asses to get passengers and mail out here to dio, and they’re just nice people. They’ve picked us up on their way into the airport (“hey, why take a taxi? we’re headed there too, we’ll just pick you up!”), hauled silly amounts of cargo jammed tetris-style into the tiny helicopter for a bunch of teachers all traveling at once, given us hot tea and coffee while waiting in a freezing cold shipping container.
There is an important moral here: it is an unfortunate fact that sometimes it takes a god-awful thought wrenching your gut around for a while to realize just how much you appreciate people.
So this one’s for you, Mike and Simon. Best damn chopper crew in the 907. Keep it up.
Big diomede and other unrelated stuff
Ice fog, snow and the fierce winter wind is beautiful in it’s unique way, but it’s nice to see the deep blue sky and our russian neighbor island once in a while. It’s been at least a week, maybe two, since I’ve seen something aside of white when I look out my classroom windows…
And in unrelated news, a box with tea in it and another with a nerf gun in it came in the mail this week :-). Money can’t buy happiness, I’m a firm believer, but it can buy nerf guns. money can buy big nerf guns. and big nerf guns are up there with homemade cookies, good cigars, coffee and good tea for being close to happiness.
12/21/12 12:01am (in Chukotka)
IT IS 3:01AM HERE AND 12:01AM 12/21/12 IN CHUKOTKA, RUSSIA, AND I JUST TOOK A PICTURE FACING EAST, HERE IT IS!!!!
just kidding. lol.
For real, here is a 30s exposure of the view east from the front porch of my duplex apartment, taken a few minutes ago at 3:03am. Too much weather to see big dio, but the dateline is definitely within visibility. The verdict is in, folks, the world is not ending, unless the end of the world is taking the form of complete coverage by sea ice. In which case, for us on diomede the end of the world would be hard to notice :-).
Goin’ to top
Big diomede island
