Friday, January 28, 2011

Rock Wall/Flying Wild Alaska















This is a photo from right outside my house, the rock wall prevents flooding in the spring season, which there have been many floods in the past at this point where the river meets the sea. I cannot comment enough on the new Discovery show "Flying Wild Alaska"...it's so weird to watch the events that have been happening the last 6 months where I live on a national tv show. In the last episode (episode 2) they show a large moose that was shot by man who lives right next to my house. I remember walking home from work last fall and seeing the meat hung up on the meat racks and the hide laying right next to my pathway leading to my front door. I used to stop a few times walking to my house because the hide was so big that I thought it was a dog, and it startled me because there's a few rough and mean dogs in the village that wouldn't want to run into.

Episode 2 also talks about the suicide in the village of Shaktoolik, which was a extremely sad moment last fall, unfortunately it is something that happens quite a bit up here. Beyond outdoor activities (like hunting and fishing) there isn't really much going on, and a lot of young people become depressed and fail to find a purpose in life. So there are a lot of "Youth Leader/Job Corp" type of opportunities offered up here to help people along, just like the program offered by "Era" to help young people get on the path to become pilots. I'd say that if I was someone who grew up in Bush Alaska, I'd definitely become a bush pilot. There aren't many things in life that are more exciting or give you more of an adrenaline rush than what some of these bush pilots do.

The temperatures have been up and down the past couple of weeks. One day it's -20, with a high of -10, then the next day it's 15 degrees but the wind is blowing like crazy. Some nights are hard to sleep because of the howling of the wind blowing so hard against my house. It's supposed to be in the mid-to-upper 20s the next couple of days, so that will be nice. But then again, if the wind is blowing hard it doesn't really matter what temperature it is because it makes things completely miserable. The daylight is getting a lot better, the sun is pretty much up by 11:30 now, and it's completely setting around 6:30, so that's nice. I've noticed that the only real darkness you suffer from up here is in the morning, besides the sun not rising very high, the rest of the time it's not a lot different from anywhere in the lower 48.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Shopping in the Bush

I'm hoping to get a video up soon, documenting the basic shopping experience in an Alaskan Bush Village, but for right now I'll be giving a brief description of how it all works. Because the price of food at the local store in the village is so high (because of the cost to ship it up here) and because there's not a big supply of it anyways, most shopping in the Bush is done either online or on the phone through a catalog. There are two big companies that ship food up to the villages to consumers: Span Alaska and Fred Meyer. Since I've had so many problems with getting my food on a timely manner, and getting the actual food that I ordered, I only use Span Alaska...because I can't wait weeks up here to get the wrong order from Fred Meyer anymore....I've had a lot of problems with them, so I've lost all trust...

For example, once I ordered a bunch of bread and canned food. When the Fred Meyer package arrived (2 weeks late) I opened it to find 24 boxes of Dinosaur Egg oatmeal. Who in the right mind living up here would order 24 boxes of Dinosaur Egg oatmeal??? So after calling them and arguing with them for a while, they let me keep the Dino Eggs for free, and said they'd ship up my original order. Absolutely crazy, can you imagine living thousands of miles away from anyone, and the only thing you have to survive on is Dinosaur Egg Oatmeal?

So after that whole ordeal, I decided not to go with Fred Meyer anymore (and I've had only one actual bowl of Dino Eggs since the incident last fall). But anyways, when you order your food online you order a big bulk of items so you don't have to post an order every couple weeks and pay for all the shipping. I just put in an order for what I think will be my last Bush Food Order of the Winter: 40 lbs. of Ground Beef, 8 24 oz packages of Chicken Strips, and 12 Red Baron Pepperoni Pizzas. I already have a small stock of other things, so this should get me through the rest of the Winter.

Due to the fact that I travel quite a bit with my job, whenever I go to Anchorage or down to the lower 48, I'll get a few flat rate boxes and just fill them full of things like: Hamburger Helper, Raviolis, Fruit cups, all kinds of canned goods...basically just things that you can fit into a box that cost 1/3 the price you'll pay for it at the local grocery store. This saves a lot of money, plus friends and family members send me food from time to time in the mail (non-frozen obviously), and it all just helps me to avoid the local store as much as possible.

The one thing I do like to get at the store that isn't too overpriced is the casual energy drink. These days an energy drink goes for about 2-3 bucks in the lower 48. At the local store they go for around 3-4 bucks, so the mark-up isn't bad when compared to other items. For example, you can typically get a 12-pack of pop for around 5-6 dollars, up here it costs 13-14 bucks for your cherished Dr. Pepper or Mt. Dew or whatever. So basically what you would pay for a 12-pack of Corona bottles is the same price as a 12-pack of Pepsi.

I'll be elaborating more in my Bush videos of the two grocery stores here, but for right that gives you an idea of how things are up here. I also have some beautiful pictures of some sunrises and sunsets right outside my house that I hope to have up when I get some time in the next couple days. Be sure also to checkout: "Flying Wild Alaska" on the Discovery channel (comes on Fridays), the first episode was last Friday, but this series is based entirely in my village of Unalakleet, Alaska. My house was actually on one of the opening shots in the Pilot episode.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

December Blizzard 2010

A couple days before I flew out for holiday break there was a big snow fall, followed by a blizzard. Although this isn't the roughest blizzard you'll see in Bush Alaska, this is something that you may encounter quite frequently when living up here. Also, at the end of this video is a shot of a bush plan flying over my house. My house is right on the coast between the Unalakleet River and Bering Sea, so when the planes come in they fly right over my house, and sometimes appear as though they're flying right into my house...ha.

Flying in Bush Alaska

I just recently got back to the village from the holiday break, and as I was leaving for the lower 48 I decided to take some video showing the basic Bush Alaska flying experience. There are two airlines in my village: Era and Pen Air. I mainly fly Pen Air to get to Anchorage because I've found some good deals with them and they fly earlier in the day. However, Era also flies to Anchorage, and is the actual popular airline off of the current Discovery show "Flying Wild in Alaska."

I wasn't able to see the first episode air on January 5th, but basically they filmed the show in my village from July to November 2010. So if you tune into the show, almost all of it takes place where I live. What's unique about Era is that they do so much more than just basic passenger flights. I'm not an expert on the company, but I imagine you could probably learn a lot from watching the show. The only time I've actually flown on Era was on a small charter plane....2 hours, no bathroom, and no complimentary drink or snack.....but that's how most charters are out here.

And that's my experience so far with Era, when it comes to Pen Air, their planes seat about 25 people (again, don't quote me on that), and provide the basic in-flight services that every airline does (except no movies). As I was flying back to the village yesterday, a man was actually kicked off the plane in Anchorage for being too intoxicated. So I guess the rule of thumb is that if you plan on flying into the village, and you show up obviously drunk, they won't let you fly. Most villages are either dry (no booze) or damp (you can order booze in, but no one can sell it in the village...my village is damp), so it makes sense that you're not allowed to fly into the village if you're hammered.

Below is my first intro-video to flying in Bush Alaska: