Driving on Hangar Lake

A huge benefit to all this cold weather is that there is lots of nice thick ice.  You can now walk on the tundra without getting soaked, it is so much easier to get everywhere now, and you can drive over bodies of water!  This picture is from when I went driving on Hangar Lake last week.  Right now there's too much snow on it to drive on- you could get stuck!  Other bodies of water like other lakes and the river have groomed roads.

Email from the Director of VISTA

“Of all the points of light, VISTAs shine the brightest.” – President George H.W. Bush

I know that you care about VISTA, so I am sharing some of the stellar efforts of AmeriCorps VISTA members from across the country. There are so many remarkable VISTA projects that are creating avenues for individuals and families to overcome poverty.  

I am inspired by our AmeriCorps VISTA members every day. With nearly 50 million Americans – about 15% of the population – living at the poverty level, their service is important now more than ever. 

Recently, I've had a chance to see their work first hand. Like VISTAs helping communities rebuild after Hurricane Sandy, expanding afterschool programs with the Boys and Girl Club of Santa Monica, and increasing housing for veterans and their families through Habitat for Humanity International. Of course, there are too many great projects to name here!  

Here are highlights of our efforts to alleviate poverty across the country:

• Last week, I met with NeighborWorks, a sponsor of 86 AmeriCorps VISTAs and seven Leaders in 28 states. NeighborWorks provides access to homeownership and to safe and affordable rental housing for low- and moderate-income families. AmeriCorps VISTAs have generated nearly $30 million in cash and in-kind resources and enabled NeighborWorks to serve almost 87,700 new clients.
• In November and December, we welcomed 805 new AmeriCorps VISTAs and 50 new Leaders. Pre-Service Orientations for the new AmeriCorps VISTAs took place in Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, and Lombard, IL.
• Ray Magliozzi, VISTA alumnus and co-host of Car Talk, a radio show with 3.4 million weekly listeners aired on over 640 public radio stations, generously recorded two public service announcements to help us recruit new members. Listen here.

You are receiving this message because of your relationship to AmeriCorps VISTA. Our work is not done. We need your help.

Share the PSA, encourage someone in your life to join AmeriCorps VISTA, or tell someone you know about AmeriCorps. Share your VISTA story. We appreciate your support.

Warm wishes for this holiday season and the best for the New Year!

Yours in Service,

Mary StrasserDirector of AmeriCorps VISTA

North Pole Alaska

After the pipeline turn off we headed the other way on the highway to North Pole!

We saw the sun rise (11:30 am)

North Pole, as you can probably imagine, is very Christmassy themed.  We went to Santa's house, saw some of his reindeer, and then stopped by an ice sculpture park that was so much fun.

In Santa's house sitting in his chair

On our way back to Anchorage we stopped by Wendy's and took our picture at the sign for the Northern Most Denny's in the world!

Hotel and Pipeline

The next morning we took pictures by the hotel, snuck some food out of the continental breakfast, and then headed to the Steese Highway to look at the pipeline.

Alaska is big into heads on walls.

Everything was covered with frost and looked like a winter wonderland. 

There's a turnout to see the pipeline on the highway.  Pipeline meaning the really really really long pipeline that goes from Prudhoe Bay all the way down to Valdez Alaska and carries oil.

This shows the path of the pipeline through Alaska

Up the Richardson Highway...

After we left Talkeetna we drove up the Richardson Highway to Fairbanks.  There was another pull off on the highway to look at Mount McKinley, so we pulled off and took a picture quick.

That's pretty much the only picture I have on the ride up because I was driving and it was dark and we wanted to get there ASAP.  We got a hotel room, went to Walmart, and then tried to go to Chena Hot Springs but they were closing so they wouldn't let us in.  On our way there we saw an incredible aurora that was turning red at the edges.  It was spectacular.  Also, to show you just how cold it gets up there, we saw a jack-o-lantern ice sculpture at the hot springs.  As in, there had been an ice sculpture there made more than a month ago for Halloween and it was still intact.


Ryan took the picture below of me while we were at Chena.  It was around -35 degrees F when we were there (+/- 5 degrees), and starting from when it was -10 it was so cold that the condensation on the inside of the car would almost instantly turn to ice.  All the "smoke" is heat from my body and the truck.

We drove an hour back to the hotel and crashed.  I had to wake up a couple of times throughout the night to turn on the car and run it because it wasn't winterized so I couldn't plug it in.

Wilderness Woman Competition

I'm still playing catch-up on things to blog about.  Here's an explanation with pictures of the different rounds of the Wilderness Woman Competition:

1.  Running with two empty 5 gallon buckets and then walking back with two full ones.  10 seconds added on for every inch you lost.  Competition was narrowed from almost 50 women (going three at a time) to 5.

2.  Make one of the bachelors sitting in a recliner a sandwich and open a beer for him, hand it to him, cut a round of wood off of a log with a hand saw, grab five pieces of wood and put it into the sled of a snowmobile, drive the snowmobile around the track, and then unload the wood.  The top three scorers went onto the next and final round.

3.  Catch a "salmon" (a piece of wood cut into the shape of a fish), put it into your backpack, put on a pair of snowshoes, shoot a ptarmigan (actually a balloon), snowshoe around the track, climb up a ladder and ring a bell, and then shoot the moose.

Hooper Bay Take 3

Sunrise ~11:00 am over the vast tundra

On Saturday I flew out to Hooper Bay for the day for their Holiday Bazaar that I helped organize.  Part of my position as a VISTA here is to help set up public markets (e.g. craft fairs, Saturday Markets, etc) in area villages, so I accomplished one of my goals!

The whole trip was your typical Megan mess, and I've told the story too many times to write it down here, but I will say that I did not end up flipping a car, losing the dogs, missing the plane, get there late, fall out of the plane, or lose my wallet for that long. Let's just say that my day could have been a LOT worse :)

In the middle is the plane I took to get there (Cessna caravan), supplies on the right in boxes, and that little black thing on the left?  My wallet. 

After all the excitement at the airport and waiting waiting waiting for my plane to leave, we got to land the "fun" way, which is by coming from the Bering Sea side!  The runway is so close to the Bering Sea it looks like you could land on it.  Unlike when I went earlier this year, the Bering Sea now has some ice on it and the shore is covered with blocks of ice pushed up and smashed together.

I didn't take a lot of pictures at the actual market (which was pretty silly), but here is one of Mark from KYUK interviewing Sarah, one of the vendors.

A beading project that Henrietta was working on

Although the Holiday Bazaar was way smaller than Bethel and Anchorage's Saturday Markets, people seemed excited about it and vendors were looking forward to having more events like it.  I'm hoping to make it out again in March for their dance festival & craft fair that they want to hold at the same time.

Christmas Bird Count

Today I decided to help out with the Christmas Bird Count and saw a total of....(drumroll)....zero birds. 

...except for about a gazillion ravens which we couldn't count.

I partnered up with a biologist from Fish and Wildlife who just moved here from Hawaii in October.  Our area was City Sub so we mostly drove around town looking into willow forests and at people's bird feeders.  We even got out and walked through some willows (example pictured on left) and split up and stood silently and everything.  Nuthin'.  Can't complain too much though when the company is good!

This evening I went to a post-bird count potluck where I talked to a few people about the big year I'm planning on doing next year.  They seemed pretty excited about it, and most people there had "life lists" of birds they had seen in their lives.  They gave me some good tips on where and when to see birds, so we'll see what happens!

Here Comes Santa Claus...

Santa stopped by the JV's house last night, so naturally we all had to have our pictures taken with him.  He left his sled in Kalskag so he came in a red pickup truck instead.  He even picked up the phone and talked to one of their boyfriends!  What a guy.

"Bitterly cold. Partly to mostly cloudy. Dangerous wind chills may approach -30F. High -1F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph."

Brief Update

I've been pretty busy since I got back into Bethel.  I'm trying to prepare for both the Saturday Market coming up this weekend in Bethel and the Holiday Bazaar in Hooper Bay.  I'm going to try to make it out to Hooper Bay on Saturday but won't know until the day before if I'm going really.  It depends on the weather.

Today I got my Alaska license- my first horizontal license!  It took me two tries, I went on Tuesday to take the written test but I failed it by getting two too many questions wrong.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Part of the problem was that there are different laws in Alaska than there are in Connecticut, especially regarding speed limits.  Some of them made no sense for here...but such is life living in the-middle-of-nowhere Alaska.


I've been playing "catch up" in the office, and now I'm getting ready to head out to Hooper Bay again!  I'm not sure if I'll end up going, it depends on the weather!  Right now the plan is to get there in the morning around 10, start setting up for the bazaar, hang out at the bazaar and take pictures/buy Christmas presents/interview people etc, and then run back to the plane that leaves around 5:30 or so. Someone from KYUK, the local radio station, will be coming out so I'll have a travel buddy this time.

I've never flown so much in my life.

Back In Bethel

I made it back into Bethel last night.  Lot's of updating and pictures to add, both from Hooper Bay and from my weekend trip to the road system.  But for now, here's something interesting that might give you an idea of what travel is like to and from the villages:

"Village Travel Check In:  When traveling to/from remote locations that do not have a passenger terminal, you must check-in with the village agent at least two hours prior to departure.  Village flight routings are subject to change at any time and may result in earlier or later departure times than scheduled. "

You basically find out when the plane is coming when the village agent makes an announcement over the VHF radio- about 10 minutes before it lands.

Saturday: Talkeetna-Fairbanks

Saturday was the day of the Wilderness Woman Competition and Bachelor Auction in Talkeetna.  I had read about it in Peter Jenkins' book and decided that I had to go.

Before we got there, we had to make a stop in Wasilla (to fix one of the truck doors) and then another stop just outside of Wasilla to get food.

Somewhere between there and Talkeetna, we decided that going to Fairbanks would be a good idea. So our first stop in Talkeetna was to check out the free clothes place since we missed it the last time we came up.  I got another pair of snowpants.

The next stop before we got into downtown Talkeetna was the turnoff to see Denali.

We drove the rest of the way into Talkeetna where they were just starting to set up round one for the Wilderness Woman Competition.  I did not compete, but about 50 other women did.  The goal of round one is to run as fast as you can without ice cleats on (on an icy road) with two empty 5 gallon buckets for about 100 yards, and then pick up two full 5 gallon buckets and get back as fast as you can without spilling any water.  The top five fastest women proceeded to round 2.

Friday Night: Anchorage

I got into Anchorage in late afternoon last Friday.  I spent a good hour just driving around before I decided to go do a little shopping.  I drove up O'Malley road up a mountain in search of Christmas decorations on people's houses, and found this instead:

I met up with Ryan, who is the RurALCap VISTA leader and we went to watch the University of Alaska Seawolves vs. the St. Cloud Huskies hockey game.  They were tied but the Seawolves lost in overtime.

After the game we headed to Bear's Tooth to meet Sam and Natasha for pizza!

Walk to the Bering Sea

Today I decided to work on some things for a little bit and then take a walk down to the Bering Sea.  It was pretty warm and the weather really cleared up in the afternoon.  But since I'm here I figured I might as well just stay here and prepare for the Holiday Bazaar on Saturday.

The beach was frozen with drifts of snow and treasures scattered on top of it.  Lots of driftwood, starfish, and a few shells.

The sand dunes are also now covered in snow.  Lots of fun to climb over!

I sat on the edge of the frozen sea and watched all the action in the Bering Sea.  You could practically see ice starting to form on the surface, and chunks of ice floating aimlessly through the water would collide into each other and create larger chunks of ice.  I also saw a frozen jellyfish float by.

Beach-wear :)

There were starfish EVERYWHERE!