Hello again from the (for the moment) warm Arctic,
The temps have been
in the teens above zero for the last week now and everyone here is commenting on
how "warm it is" and "how beautiful it is". For the most part the sun has been
shining all week, except Saturday and Sunday of course. I recently told someone
that it's amazing the adaptability of the human mind. Just three years ago the
idea of going out in weather that was in the teens would seem like insanity.
Anyone in New Orleans who made the comment on how warm or how beautiful teen
temps are would be admitted for a psyc evaluation. But after the 20-30 below
temps we have been having, it feels wonderful out there. Gone (albeit
temporarily) is the pain that occurs when the face mask is ripped away from the
hairs in the mustache and beard it has frozen to. The freezing that is due to
condensation caused by that nasty habit called breathing.
Now rewind a week. We had a three day weekend last week as a lot of folks
in the country did. While the rest of the country celebrated Martin Luther
King's birthday Monday, the folks here celebrated Della Keats day. Della Keats
was a Tribal Healer for over 50 years in the Northwest Arctic and was a firm
believer in following the old ways. I was told that she taught all the tribal
doctors here about traditional healing. Today we employ a number of tribal
doctors here at the hospital. They do not see patients in the traditional way.
People can make appointments to see them or if they are inpatients, they can
request to see the tribal doctor. The tribal docs do manipulations with the
hands based on where the blood flows. They do muscle and extremely adjustments
and can do manipulations on the abdomen for certain complaints. They sound like
chiropractors but again their treatment is based on blood circulation. I suppose
I should mention that years ago all the tribes had Shamans. Folks went to them
for healing and other needs some good, and some not so good. It is my
understanding that the Shamans were more feared than revered and that is what
caused the locals to send a delegation south around the turn of the century to
bring missionaries to the region. The missionaries brought their own problems
for the locals. They did their best to force the locals to give up all their
old beliefs. They not only forced folks to take English names, they brought each
person into a room one by one and pulled a name out of a hat and assigned it to
each. So brothers and sisters could all have different last names. Speaking
Inupaq was forbidden and children were sent off to boarding school in Sitka for
a number of years. Good did come of it though as the Shamans are gone and today
there are quite a few churches located throughout the town and a lot of devout
people.
Last Saturday the temps were in the minus 20's so we did a bit of
housekeeping. When I went to remove the clothes from the dryer, the load we put
in the night before had evidently not dried completely and I literally had to
peel them off the inside walls of the dryer. They were frozen to the walls of
the dryer. I also worked on getting all the machines running which in extreme
cold is a never ending task. That kind of cold can also can make the simplest
chore into a major job Man it's tough on the fingers when you are doing
something as simple as changing a spark plug. Trying to get around the little
corners and grip the thing with gloves on is almost impossible so off go the
gloves and touching metal that cold hurts. It's tough to do much of
anything when dressed appropriately for 20 below weather. For that matter,
dressing for extended exposure to 20 below weather is in itself a major chore.
I played cards that evening with some of the guys from the fire hall and
Johnnie, one of the firemen, told me he had killed a caribou just behind Devils
Lake-the reservoir-about 4 miles behind town. He said there were hundreds of
caribou back there. So Sunday after light, Patty and I bundled up for the 20
below zero weather and headed out. We rode a few miles on the trail behind
Devils Lake looking for caribou and only spotted a few tracks. We turned around
when my fingers went completely numb.
Now, I have big wolf fur mittens that fit over my gloves. But, Gary and
Cathy had gone to Noorvik for the weekend for Gary's grandfathers anniversary.
Cathy flew while Gary just had to go by snowmachine. My mittens went with him.
I bet his hands were warm.
Anyway, it was so cold that I had to wear goggles to ward off the intense
facial pain and that annoying frost bite. The combination of goggles and glasses
when it's that cold always cause fogging. Here fogging is not wet condensation,
it's an instant ice coating that requires you to remove the frosted lens, be it
goggles or glasses or both, and scrape away the ice. This now exposes the
offending lens to the ambient air temp. Next, after the ice is scraped off the
lens is placed back on the face which is warmer than the air temp (although
sometimes it doesn't feel like it). This of course begins the process all over
again and sometimes brings the attitude that, "it's just not worth it". I
eventually had to banish my glasses to the backpack and travel on half blind.
Patty did wear her contacts which she has just for riding but her vision is not
the best to begin with and is worse with contacts. So, I suppose it's possible
we could have passed within a few hundred yards of caribou without seeing them.
We made our disappointed way home frustrated about not seeing any caribou,
again. Shoot, the fact is the way everyone had been talking about seeing
caribou, it seemed like everyone had caribou sitting at the dinner table waiting
to be served. Well, at least it was a beautiful sunny day out.
The routine after retuning from one of these outings is to peel out of the
multiple layers of clothing, take warm showers, and apply aloe to the spots on
the face that feel and look like they may have been burned by frostbite. (The
correct term is frostnip for a burned area. The term frostbite is reserved for
areas that have totally frozen. Frostbite just sounds so much more dramatic
don't you think?) Patty did end up with a burn on her face behind her right eye
and although I did not have a noticeable burn, my right cheek sure did itch and
peel mid week last week. That's it, frostnip is arctic sunburn!
This past Saturday the temps were "warm" as I stated at the beginning of
this letter. It was about 12 above (that's only 32 degrees warmer than last
week-hence the term, "it's warm out") when we left to make another attempt to
find the elusive caribou. (Maybe they are sitting inside at peoples
tables and that's why we're not seeing them.) We rode past the reservoir for a
couple of miles before I noticed a haze hanging on the a ridge ahead of us. We
stopped to look at it and decided it was fog rolling in and we should probably
start back. We were on a well used and marked trail but still being amateurs,
we decided to start back. While sitting there and talking I kept looking at a
ridge to the right and could swear I was looking at caribou and not bushes. We
watched for movement for a few minutes and finally the bushes did begin to
move. Well I'll be darned, they were caribou. We now debated about going after
them but with the fog closing in we decided to head back. We reached where the
trail bisected the loop road behind town and the fog lifted as rapidly as it had
come down. Since there was a heavy coat of snow on the road we decided to follow
it to the radar dome. Just before reaching the dome I cut off two large caribou
that were trying to cross the road. They were beautiful animals. I have my
hunting license, I always carry my .44 pistol and extra ammo, and they stopped
just about 30 yards from the road. Enough meat to keep us fed for a while just
waiting to be harvested. These thoughts did go through my mind, especially as
there are always elders in town who could use the meat, but I reached for my
camera instead. On the way home we cut across Swan lake passing behind the
landing strip before looping back to the apartment. We have been here almost
two years and finally had some close encounters with caribou. It's about time.
Sunday we decided to stay in as the day was foggy and kind of dreary. I was
preparing to fall asleep for a well deserved nap on the sofa when a doc that
works for the hospital called from the front entry. She, her visiting mother,
and a resident, were driving the loop road in a small Subaru wagon and got stuck
in a drift. She had walked part of the way back and was picked up by a hunter
who road her the rest of the way on his snowmachine. The head of Safety for the
hospital secured a hospital 4wheel drive pickup while I cranked up my
snowmachine and grabbed rope. I headed out first and while traveling along the
road, four caribou came over a hill and tried to cross in front of me. One cut
back while the other three turned onto the road and started running down the
road right in front of me. I backed off on speed as I could have easily run
them down and followed them for about a mile before they decided to turn off the
road. Patty had asked me if I wanted the camera before I left and I turned it
down. When I arrived at the car a member of SAR was standing by. They are
still in town looking for the man missing since Christmas. Other members of SAR
that were not actively involved in the search were out hunting caribou. I had
to chuckle when the resident waiting with the car told me one SAR member had
come by and asked which way the caribou he was chasing had gone. We were able to
get the car unstuck and all returned home safe.
A lady elder told me last week that the abundance of caribou is from wolves
driving them this way. The wolves were displaced by all the fires in the
interior last summer.
And lastly, if you are interested daybreak is now about 9:30am with dark
around 6:30pm with full light lasting from about 10:30-5:45. We are gaining 8
minutes of light a day right now.
Carlo
PS Patty is doing fine and we are leaving Thursday night for Anchorage to see a cardiologist for further testing to make sure she stays that way.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact carlo@samsicles.net
Last updated: 08/29/05