Here it is Christmas Eve already. It
is still full dark outside at 11AM with the temp negative 8. However, as the
winter solstice passed on the 21st, we are gaining light each day
again-approximately 11 minutes a day. The snow has been falling lightly for the
last few days and everything has a soft look to it. The snow is powdery and it
has a beautiful sparkle to it which almost makes you forget the cold. The
barometer is rising so it is supposed to clear for Christmas with a prediction
of sunny skies with the temps going from a high of negative 13 to a low of
negative 17. After that the wind is supposed to pick up which is a bad thing.
Kotzebue does not get a lot of snow as far as a measurable scale goes but since
it does not melt what comes down stays for a winter long visit. Since it is a
dry cold the ice never gets wet so it does not stick. Then when the wind blows,
we can have whiteout conditions and it can bury machines or anything else that
stands still.
The town has its Christmas decorations up. Lights are strung across the
road on Main Street and lighted Christmas figures grace some of the light
poles. Many of the local people have gone across the sound on their
snowmachines and cut their own Christmas trees. The Inupiat are a very
Christian people and there are numerous churches in town. This stems from the
turn of the century when tribal councils got together and sent a delegation
south to bring up missionaries because the people feared the local shamans. Most
of the locals I have talked to will have the usual fare, turkey, dressing, and
the like, while some who have relatives at the villages that hunt the whale will
have muktuk, (whale blubber from the bowhead whale or the beluga), and whale
meat saved from the summer hunts just for the holidays.
It is interesting just traveling around
town which we do on either 4 wheeler or snowmachine. There are many conveyances
people use to get themselves, their families, and their goods around town and
out to the bush. There are the usual cars and trucks, snowmachines (some
pulling sleds of various types and sizes), 4 wheelers which sometimes are
pulling sleds, dogs either pulling a sled or sometimes just and individual on
skis, and of course on foot. Those on foot may be pulling one child on a small
handmade basket sled or multiple children in a larger sled. The store sells
plastic sleds which are used by people on foot to haul their goods or groceries
just by dragging it along behind them on the ice.
My oldest daughter Christy is scheduled to fly up here from Anchorage on
December 30th. This will be her first time visiting the place her parents have
chosen to call home. She will also join an elite club of individuals who can
say they have been to the arctic. We are looking forward to the visit and being
able to show her around this bit of winter real estate. On New Years eve there
is a snow machine race scheduled for 9pm, (that's right, in the dark, but you
have to figure there is only about two hours of daylight right now and life here
does not stop) a dance scheduled at 11pm, and fireworks scheduled for the stroke
of midnight. Our plans are to sleep late New Years day and the have a
traditional New Orleans feast of cabbage and black eye peas (yes we can get
dried beans here but the cabbage is over a dollar a pound). God help the
folks we work with the two days after that.
I haven't been writing about anything exciting lately but we haven't been
getting out of town due to it being early winter, trying to get used to the
cold, and our unfamiliarity with snowmachining. Some of the folks we know have
been going out and "having fun", but when you talk to them about how they got
lost in the dark, how rough the trail was, how much they hurt, how cold it
was etc etc. it just does not sound like fun to me. Patty and I were doing our
Christmas grocery shopping Sunday and it was overcast during the two hour or so
of daylight we had that day. Under certain conditions the light just seems to
go flat and it is difficult to see the road or a trail. Coming home from the
store we both had trouble discerning the sides of the road. Everything else is
easily seen but we lost definition when looking down. We will get out more as we
become accustomed to the machines and as it gets light for longer. Some of the
guys are planning a caribou hunt the day after Christmas and as the caribou are
supposedly just about five miles south of town it should not be too rough a
trip. I of course am sentenced to work that day and had to bow out (although I
am not sure I am too disappointed). I will say we have been seeing more
evidence of frostbite. We have had a 16 year old at work with frostbite to his
fingers that occurred on Thanksgiving Day when he and his friends decided to go
joy riding in a blizzard, then got stuck. There is also an older gentleman who
was cutting wood out at camp and did not realize what was happening. This man
will loose about 1/2 of at least two fingers and possibly more. Also at work
this week I saw a woman walking in the hallway with what my ER nurses eyes took
to be extensive black eyes from physical abuse. On closer examination I
realized the discoloration did not begin right under the eyes, it began on the
cheeks. I then realized it was frostbite not bruising, and after speaking with
her I learned she and her spouse had ridden to a village Sunday on snowmachines
and covered the over 100 mile trip in about two hours each way. She did not
realize it was happening until she got home and felt hardness on her cheeks.
Since then I have seen a couple of others with the same marks.
Again we wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous, safe New Year.
Carlo, Patty, Christy, and Cathy
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Last updated:
08/29/05