A Weekend in Koyuk

I should apologize to anyone who saw me on Thursday. I was pretty mega bugged about being weathered in. It's the Unalakleet winds, I tell ya - they'll get you every time. I think since I've been home from Christmas break, we've had at least four days of no planes - which means on those days we have no mail, no food coming in, no shipments, no passenger flights, nothing. Except for Doug. God bless Doug. He flies in anything, and although it was the smallest plane I've ever been in, I felt completely and totally safe.

Thursday morning we had our usual 40 mph winds, 56 mph gusts. All planes were grounded - none coming in, none going out. Even Doug wasn't flying. If Doug doesn't fly, nobody flies. After calling and waiting and teaching my morning and afternoon classes, finally the hangar called and asked if I could be ready by 2:20. YAY! We flew out of UNK, finally, at 2:30, and I saw the last 10 minutes of the day with Jenna.

Side note: Jenna is a legend among BSSD teachers as being the Writing Guru, the best of the best for teaching writing. She is the reason I went to Koyuk, so I could observe her classes and learn as much as I could in two days - well, one day, since I missed a day. (Boo. Still bugged about that.) She is also a really great person to be around, and I enjoyed every minute of my Jenna time. :) It was really refreshing, and I could pretty much listen to her talk all day long.

The other person I got to spend a lot of time with and get to know better is Erika. She is a new teacher in KKA, and since she has two bedrooms in her apartment, she welcomed me to stay with her for the weekend. Pretty much, it rocked. We hadn't spent a lot of time together before, but it was really fun getting to know her better these past few days. She is really cool, fun to be with, and a great cook. :) She also has a cute cat, who I took lots of pictures of. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Toes, named appropriately because she loves to attack, particularly toes. :)







So this is what I did:

Thursday afternoon I flew with Doug from Unalakleet to Koyuk. It's about a 45 minute flight, not bad at all. It was pretty windy coming out of UNK, which isn't really that strange, of course. Those who have been here know... It was kind of an interesting flight. As I was looking out the window at the breathtaking view, I realized that the direction the plane was pointing was not really the direction the plane was going. It must have had something to do with the wind, but I'm pretty sure that the aircraft was flying at a slant. Go Doug.



I arrived at the KKA school about 10 minutes before the day was over. I saw a few minutes of Jenna's last class, perused around, eavesdropped some learning conversations, and got a feel for how she works. It is a very, very pretty school, very clean, and filled with student worked. I loved it immediately. After school, Erika came in and invited me to ski with the team, so I gathered my things, moved to her apartment, changed, and headed out with the group. I wasn't as fast as most of them because I was on back country skis and most of them were skating, but it was still cool to interact with them and hang out with them in a different setting. Good kids. :) Lots of fun, including the fall that has left me with a sweet and colorful bruise on my left leg.

Thursday evening was one of my highlights. We had dinner at Jenna's, which is not only cool because it's with Jenna, but also because she lives in a yurt. It's basically a round, one-room structure with a wood stove in the middle for heating. She just recently got electricity, but still uses a honey bucket as a toilet. I've decided that one day I would like to live in a yurt. It's very cool. Anyway, dinner was fantastic with Erika, Jeni, Jenna, and I. We had good food, good conversation, and good laughs. :)

This is not Jenna's yurt (note the lack of snow), but this is what a yurt looks like.



Friday I woke up in my usual routine - early enough to have my wake-up hours so I'm not a total grouch when I actually have to interact with other people. This was my day of observation. I talked with students, I noted teaching strategies, I listened to instruction, I read student work, and I asked lots and lots of questions. In my time with Jenna in her classroom, I had almost five pages of notes for references, strategies, questions and answers, and daily routines. It was awesome. After school Jenna and I chatted about teaching, about books and literature, about life, and so on and so forth. It was amazing. And it only makes me want more!

The evening was a generally mellow one. It was pretty busy with a community tournament going on. Actually, a couple of other teachers from Elim snowmachined over for it, so it was cool to see them, also. But Erika and I stayed in for the night. She made pizza, we talked about random things, watched a movie (Saved!), and went to bed fairly early for a Friday night.



I slept a LOT.

Saturday was super fun. After Erika prepared a crock-pot stew for that evening's dinner, we headed out for our skiing adventure. On the way out of town we stopped by Jenna's to affirm her invitation for the night, and then we were on our way. Erika is primarily a back country skier, but only has skate skis to use at the moment. The answer? We traded skis. :) This was cool because I really enjoy skate skiing, and it's been a while since I've done it. We were skiing for about an hour and a half. I definitely fell a lot, and almost ran into Erika a few times. (Of course I fell a lot.) But KKA is built on a hill, so even though there was a lot of uphill climbing, there was also a lot of downhill fast skiing. :) By the end I pretty much had a handle on it, and then I stopped, and then I fell again. :) But it was a great workout!





That afternoon we had a surprise arrival: Erika's new roommate, a long-term sub for one of the teachers. Erika didn't know when she would be coming, and I had been sleeping in the spare room, so we rushed around to get things put more in order. Mostly I shoved all of my stuff onto one of the couches. And then we prepared for dinner. Jenna came prepared with chocolate chip cookie dough, which baked during dinner, and were promptly all eaten by Sunday afternoon. :) It was a great evening of conversation, yet again, with lots of really great people. I've decided that I love KKA. :)



I should note, however, that as much as I appreciated and loved my weekend in this little village, and although I could live there for sure if need be, it also helped me remember how much I appreciate UNK. I don't love it here more because of the opportunities like easier travel to ANC and more stores (because KKA actually has a couple of stores that are pretty good, so I've heard). I love it here because of my people. :)

On Sunday afternoon I traveled back to home sweet Unalakleet via Doug. It was a beautiful flight back, and this time I remembered to take a few photos. It's a 4-seater plane, pretty small, but really swell. I love it.







This is Unalakleet from the front window of the plane as we approached to land.



Overall it was a very good weekend. I definitely enjoyed myself, and I am thankful to all the people that helped make it so wonderful. Cheers!