Savoonga and Anchorage

Over the past month, I was fortunate enough to go on two trip. First I went to Savoonga and the next week I went to Anchorage.

Savoonga is a village located on St. Lawerence Island, between Alaska and Russia. This trip was one of my favorite village trips to date. I went to Savoonga to cover a story about the first ASIST workshope in a village. ASIST stands for Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. It is a two day workshop that was brought to Savoonga through a grant. I was unable to go to all of the training but I did go most of the second day. It was amazing to see how many high school students attended the training and wanted to help. The village was going to start a youth council for suicide prevention because the need to get involved among the students. I did get a profile and 2 news stories from that trip. Since a group of friends from Nome were in town to conduct this workshop, we explored Nome. We decided to go on a walk along the beach and we couldn't have had a better adventure. As we were walking, I found a big piece of baleen laying on the beach. Of course we took lots of pictures but as we walked further along, we found a bunch of them neatly lying in a row (the picture above). We decided to continue our walk. A little bit further, we saw a large skeleton. Loren decided to try and pick it up but he could had a hard time. Turns out the skeleton was from a walrus. The spin was alonger than any of us and about as wide as my head. The skull was missing it's ivory, for obvious reasons (natives carve stuff out of them). After realizing we couldn't move it, we decided to continue our journey. Jason looked out to the water and discovered there were a bunch of whales within sight. We stood there and watch the whales come up for breath. There was a bunch of them. Apparently, this is was whale migration season. As we continued our journey down the beach, we saw a bunch of kids running. We asked them what the rush was and they said they wanted to make beef jerkey. Sure enough, there was a whale that was catch and brought onto shore only hours ago and the kids went to slice up their share for afternoon snacks. The name beef jerkey made me laugh, it seemed more like whale jerky to me. The following is a picture of one of the kids getting his jerkey

After that great adventure, we decided to head back to town to go to Eskimo Dancing and a potluck. It was a contempory potluck with Subway and Airport Pizza but fun none the less. I personally was forced to dance by some of the kids who went to the workshop. Another great think about Savoonga, there are many ivory carving artists in that village and they make some beautiful work! I only had $30 on me which was enough to get an old ivory charm for a necklace. I found out that old ivory is found in camps across the St. Lawrence Island. The island used to be covered with camps but a famine and flu struck the island killing about 4/5ths of the population. The remaining population moved to Gambell and then Savoonga. So there are camps from before 1918 with thousands of ivory burried around the camps.

The other great trip I went on was to Anchorage. I had the opportunity to go there through an organization that I volunteer for, Relay for Life. During college, I have always been a huge supporter of it and found they are trying to start one in Nome. As a volunteer, the relay staff decided to send me and 2 other ladies to Anchorage for a training session. The training itself was very educational but the city was a complete culture shock! I've been a city girl so long and then I moved to Nome and grew accustomed to that lifestyle. Once I was in a heavily populated area, I grew nervous and couldn't get over how strange it was to see so many cars on a road.... or stop lights... or skyscrapers... or just about everything. It was interesting to walk around the hospital to go the training and see people in business suits. That is not something I don't think anyone in Nome owns. I never thought it would affect me because I was a business major in college and was no stranger to the professional "looking" world but it really is another world to me now. The city of Anchorage is a lot different than I thought. It was clearly planned out so the city is extremely spaced out. You have to have a car to get anywhere.

It wasn't a bad type of culture shock (if there is such a thing) but it was definately a reality check that there are so many different lifestyles within the World, US, and even the state of Alaska.

Working Hard

Time seemed to be flying by lately. I've been continuing my regular duties at the radio station and been taking on a few new ones as well. For example, the Sounding Board season started in September. Sounding board is our version of a talk show. Once a week, an employee heads up an hour long talk show about a topic of their choice, preferably one that would encourage people to pick up the phone. This show can be as controversal as the state putting limits on the subsistance license salmon catch or as fun as people's names. The last few weeks I had the honor of holding 2 of my own talk shows. Since I am still learning about Alaska and the people, I decided to take the fun approach to Sounding Board. My first show was about TV in Western Alaska and the changes it has taken. Since TV still doesn't have a strong presence in Bush Alaska(in comparison to the Lower 48) I thought it would be an interesting subject to hear how tv first came to villages and how it has changed. News Director Paul Korchin was my cohost. To fill up time between calls (we were a talk show but we were a talk show for Western Alaska to call and express concerns, opinions, or experiences about the topic) we aired audio clips. I got a clips from a man who is the station manager at the only Bush Alaska tv network and a man who works for an Alaskan Media network. The second Sounding Board I hosted was Potlucks. Leah Radde was my cohost and I got audio clips from the individual who was in charge of the Nome Community Thanksgiving Dinner and from a local pastor who has regular potlucks at their church. I didn't need most of my audio clips because there were so many calls and emails. It was a huge success.
Outside of Sounding Board, I've created a few profiles, been on some village trips, and have been writing the stations annual Christmas Play. The play is a production that is done every year and is aired on Christmas day after the 12:15 and 5:15 hotlines. It should be exciting... more on that later!
Besides all of these wonderful projects, on top of my daily duties, I have changed air shifts. I am now the 12 to 2 Lunchtime Deejay. All shifts have music that is placed into your air shift but the noon deejay creates their own shows. Each day has it's own guidelines to follow for example Monday is Monday Limelight where I feature an artist of my choice. Twofer Tuesdays have two songs back to back by the same artist. Tuesdays could also be Decades where I play songs for a chosen decade. Wednesdays are the hardest day. Music genres are wednesday's theme. Not only do I have to think of a new music genre that hasn't been done before, but I have to make sure we have music for it. Thursdays are my last and favorite day. Theme park Thursday is what they are called. I love them because I can be more creative. For example, Thanksgiving's theme was Thursday of Thanks. Next weeks theme will be either songs written for a famous person or songs that will give you good directions (drivin directions not life directions).
After thinking of all the wonderful things I've been able to do and the flexability my job has, I couldn't be more thankful for all the experiences I have and have the resources to learn.

2nd Village Trip to Teller

I was able to go on my second village trip a few weeks ago. It was an amazing experience. Teller is one of the few villages that you can drive to from Nome. It is a 2 hour drive northwest of Nome. The picture above is a view of the village from the landing strip.

The trip was to cover the 5th Annual Teller Cultural Festival for the station. The festival was a 2 day long event. I flew in on a Friday morning. Since the event didn't start until Friday evening so I had to figure out things to do until then. Walking around town, I tried to find out other story ideas to bring back to the station. I came across the story of a man who created a class that taught the tradition of building a utility dog sled made of traditional elements. Joe Garney, a thought to be a sort of local hero, is well-known for his racing days in the Iditarod. He now trains dogs for others to run. He is a wealth of knowledge of traditions pertaining to building. He felt obligated to create this class so I interviewed him and created a KNOM profile on the class he created that is still in the works because they received the wrong materials.

After talking with Joe, I went on a walk with his daughter. She was a few years older than myself and is a councilor in town. She talks works with a wellness group in town to encourage people to express their feelings, particularly towards depression. Depression and pressure is a huge issue in the villages. Villages typically have a few suicides every year. This year was particularly hard for Teller. The village already had a suicide during the fall and had someone hang themself earlier that week. Ages of those who commit suicide are typically in the early to mid 20s. This girl was telling me the effect that this has on her 8 year old child. She says the high amount of suicides are getting the younger generation used to it, thinking that suicides are common. It was a very eye opening conversation.

After insight, I went to my room (i slept in a book closet at the school) and waited til the funeral was over for the recently deceased. I couldn't believe how right after the funeral reception, these people had the festival. It was indescribable. Since people were morning, and understandably so, the festival started with some inspirational singing. After the introduction, some prayers, and singing, the Eskimo dancing started. Cultural festivals are basically a great way to get local villages and "tribes" together to perform and share their culture through dance. There were four groups, King Island Dancers (from Nome), Golovin Dancers, Brevig Mission Dancers, and Teller Dancers.

During the second day of the festival, there were workshops and a potluck, in addition to more dancing. The workshops include Eskimo games (like the Seal hop), beading, and a wellness video. The potluck was interesting. Typical food found at the potluck includes: salmon eggs, dried fish, balooga, reindeer soup, tundra berries, fried bread, and other food that I could not identify. There were some food that I could identify, such as salad, Pilot Bread, and pasta salad. One of the elders saw my plate and saidI had too much "White People food." After the potluck, we had more Eskimo Dancing. That lasted til about 2:30 am.

I got some good stories and good experiences from this trip. I wrote 5 news stories and created a KNOM profile from the trip. Over all, I think it was successful. In addition, I have some crazy memories. For example, I was walking along the harbor side of the village and I saw a boat with red stuff streaming to the water. I walked closer to see what it was.... it was blood. Someone killed a seal and left it laying right next to the boat. Naturally my first reaction was to take a picture, so the picture is below!

Gold Mining and Bath Tubs

There has been some pretty exciting events the past few weeks.

First of all, I discovered someone wrong with the radio station. Since I work solo on Sundays, I saw some readings that didn't seem right on the transmiter. We have to periodically record the numbers and one of the numbers that should have been around 50 was at 1. I immediately called Ric, the station manager. He came over right away. It turned out that we had a cable break on the transmiter and we had to turn the station off for almost 4 days. It was the longest we have ever been down. It was such a valuable experience because we received so many phone calls and emails from listeners who said they missed us. Bless their hearts, most of them thought their radios were old and they weren't getting the station so they called the station to see if it was us or them with problems.

Another eventful Nome activity that I participated in includes gold mining. One of my friends is a miner. His fellow miners were out of town and he needed a deck hand so I volunteered. It was certainly an experience. When we were launching the gold dredge, the waves were so high that I was splashed head to toe with water. Good thing I had a water proof outfit on! I tried to drive the boat but the motor was too much for me to understand. Andrew, the miner, added a tube to the motor to make it easier to steer. If you ask me, it was a little more complicated. Once we got to the location they were working on. Andrew jumped in the water with a large tube that served as a vacuum. It was made of metal to prevent it from floating up. While he got the gold, I was on the dredge pushing big rocks out of the sloose box. While on the water, the waves got so high that I got sea sick. After that, Andrew and I decided it was time to go back and the current was getting to much. Once we got back to land, we went through the sloose box and tooke out the gold carpet. Since gold is so heavy, it feel in the carpet and didn't get pushed out like all of the rocks. We emptied the gold and other stuff mixed with it into a container. We went to Andrews camp and filtered out the bigger pieces. I got to keep the flakes while Andrew go the gold dust. After going through the gold, I got to shoot a 44 Magnum gun. Andrew has the gun just in case a bear comes by. It was fun to shoot but I can't see myself ever owning a gun.

The final exciting event to report was the bath tub race. Every Labor Day, the town has a wacky tradition of having a team of 5 people race bath tubs down main street. KNOM was of course more than eager to participate. We strategically selected our team captain, a 6 year old girl who is extremely light. We threw here in the tub so it was lighter to push. The race has all kinds of rules. One of them is there has to be a bar of soap, wash cloth, towel, and bath mat with every team. Kind of unusual event. It was a lot of fun though! We came in last place and got a trophy for it. It was great! There is a picture above with our fabulous team and our tub!

Gold Mining and Pilgram

There is a gold mining camp just down the road from Nome. Unfortunately, you have to drive on the beach using a 4 wheeler or truck to get there because there are no

roads and you have to cross a river. The camp is by the mouth of the Penny River. GPAA is associated with this camp, which is a big gold mininging organziation. People all over the US come to mine here. It is a cute place in a beautiful location. The camp itself is modeled from the old west. As you can see from the picture, the saloon is a big common area for everyone. There is also a cafeteria, church, and trading post. The camp opens up to the public on Friday nights. They serve free spagetti to anyone who can get to the camp and the night ends with a night of karaokee in the saloon. It is pretty fun. I have been there twice. The campers also divide their gold that was found that week. It is interesting to see all of the gold they have gathered.

Another adventure that I recently had is my first trip to Pilgram Hot Springs. This little town is located about 90 miles away from Nome. It was created in the early 1900s to house children. During this time, many people were getting sick with the flu. They wanted to protect the children so they built an orphanage and a church near these hot springs. No one lives there now but it is a popular tourist destination. Walking into the church, the first floor is an annex and what can be assumed to be a kitchen and dinning area. The worship part of the church is on the second floor. Another house out in this abbandoned village is the old orphanage. This is a sad building to walk into. The building is empty except some small rooms and closets with school desks shoved into it. It is also condemed. The first half of the building is fine to walk into but the other half looks like it fell from the posts that it was standing on to protect it from permafrost. If you leave the little abandoned village, you come across a path that will take you to the springs. There is so much sulfer that it smells like rotten eggs. Apparently someone had the idea that these springs would make a great hot tub. Near the springs, they build large 3-4 foot deep tub and had the springs pour hot water into it. We tried to get in but the water was so hot that your foot would turn red after 5 second of being in the water. I'm sure the water would be wonderful in the fall.

The Little Things

There are a lot of little things about Alaska that I would love to remember. For example, muskox are very typical to see around here. You are not allowed to get close to them but there is a short hunting season for them. They are like the cows of the north. They just wonder around the tundra and eat grass. It is always fun to see them in the most random places you can think of. We've seen them everywhere from near White Alice (the weird radio thing on top of Anvil Mountain) to eating grass near the correctional center. I remember reading somewhere that these animals are the closest animals we have from before the Ice Age. There is a picture of muskox above... clearly I don't have a good zoom function.

Another aspect of Alaska that I love is the ability to walk out to the tundra and pick berries. It sounds silly but it is a lifestyle. Many people pick enough berries for the winter. Typically berries go into Eskimo Icecream, which consists of seal oil, crisco, berries, and maybe some other things. It sounds nasty but it is pretty good! I typically make jam out of the berries. Pancakes are another good use of the berries. Between Leah and I, we have enough to last all winter. There is something very peaceful about picking berries so we always try and find an excuse to pick more berries.

Fireweed is another thing that is big up here. It is a flower that grows just about everywhere. It is so pretty and brings a lot of life to this part of the world. This purple flower is used to make honey, wine, and jam. I haven't made wine but my attempts at the other two are pretty good!

My First Village Trip

This picture is of Sarah Palin and myself.

This past week was a nice steady week. I was very proud of myself because I was able to gain permission from a publishing company to use their book. Another big event this week was KNOM's 38th birthday.

Finally, I got to go on my first village trip. A village trip is invaluable to KNOM members. They help us learn more about our audience and their lifestyles. Since Nome is more of a city, it doesn't fully portray the lifestyle of these villages.

Friday was my first trip. I flew to Unalakleet, one of the larger fishing villages, to attend a bill signing. Sarah Palin flew into Unalakleet to sign this bill into a law. The bill was about the cost of oil for rural Alaska. The bill stated the cost to heat a home in Anchorage is approximately $2,200 and in Junaeu it costs about $4,440 but in rural Alaska, it costs about $6,600. The bill is going to put limits on the cost of fuel oil to heat homes so it will be more affordable.

Sarah came in and spoke for a while and had the mayor speak as well as the people who made the event possible.

The event still amazes me. The entire town helped make this possible. Everyone brought in their best salmon (mostly king salmon) or entre and make it a potluck. There was so much food. We had king crab, pink salmon, chum salmon, king salmon, salmon dip, fried bread, cheese and crackers, pasta salad, and even eskimo ice cream! Eskimo ice cream is a combination of seal oil or crisco, sugar, and wild berries. They used seal oil in the stuff i tried and it was amazing! This sweet old lady kind of adopted me because my coworker ran off to talk to other people. She kept throwing food on my plate and told me to put some meat on my bones.

The lady, who seemed to adopt me for the afternoon, introduced me to her entire family. She told me all about the IRA and how important it was to her. In addition she introduced me to half of Unalakleet's IRA. No village was recognized by the state of Alaska, in the time of the indian land act, unless it sent in a petition to the state to be a town. After they were approved, the town had to have a mayor and various other parts of a local government. The town maintained their old ways sort of a tribe leader through the IRA. The IRA and local government work together but some of the elders don't always respect the government because they believe that the IRA should run the village. In some villages, there is a huge rivalry, but there didn't seem to be anything to bad in Unalakleet.

After the wonderful Sarah Palin/Potluck event, I went to Summersize. That is a summer "camp" program for local children. Since this event is a Nome event, it was a big deal to have it in Unalakleet. I went to see if there was a story. There wasn't but I did get some children to record their youth dreams for a spot we have.

After this, I walked to me with Jessie and the mayor saw me and picked me up to take me to his work. The mayor is also the manager of the commercial fishing company in town. He showed me around the building and introduced some of his employees. He has people working for him from age 18 to 80. Jessie arrived and we interived him on building activity going on during the summer. After the interview Jessie and I relaxed and had a smoothie at "Peace on Earth" pizza parlor.

This is a picture of me next to my first bush plane flight. The flight wasn't that bad. There wasn't too much turbulance on the 9 passanger plane.

KNOM Update

So far, I am learning so much at the station. During the fourth of July, I got to do a remote with one of my coworkers. We went to the parade on Front Street and reported on air about what was going on during the parade. It was fun! John was the main person on the mic and I was assisting him, while learning how to use the equipment. We explained each float on the air and commented on it.

I am now running the station on Sundays by myself. It is kind of a scary thought but thank goodness there is a house full of KNOMers next door if anything happens.

KNOM will have FCC representatives here next week to check the station. We have had radio engineers working on the equipment for the last few weeks. Tom Busch works with the equipment and KNOM usually flys him out here when we are experience problems but if there is something that he doesn't understand, Less is the go to guy. Less and Tom will be here during the inspection. Since Less is here, I asked for him to explain more information about the transmitter, when he had time. He was able to take me out to the transmitter and show me around. The AM transmitter is in a field about 3 miles away from Nome. Less explained the purpose of the rings around the tower and how it is raised or lowered to get a higher or lower frequency. We walked along the gravel road to make sure all the wires were ok. We found 3 copper wires were broken and one copper strip. These wires surround the transmitter and are underground. Less let me help him weld the wires together. It was a lot of fun and suprizingly easy!

I almost have my second rotation done! I am so excited that I go my first month of work done a month before it airs. I don't think it is that bad for a newbie!

The pictures I have included in this entry are pictures of White Alice, the cold war equipment found on Anvil Mountain. I know it has nothing to do with the entry but I thought it would be fun.

Tree at last!

There hasn't been anything big going on this week at work except for a new project that I am taking on. I am assisting with an advertising campaign for Denali KidCare. This program seems pretty amazing. It pays for doctor bills for teens, kids, and pregnant women. It will even fly people to Anchorage to get the treatment they might need.

Outside of work, I was able to go on my first trip to Council. It is a big deal to go out there! There are only a few roads that lead outside of Nome and all of them don't go any further than about 120 miles. Council is about a 90 mile drive away from Nome. The road is a long dirt road that takes you up, down, and around all kinds of mountains. Driving on it, makes you feel like you should be in a truck commercial. Along the coast, most of the houses look the same as the first picture I have included in my blog. It starts getting different when you drive in the village called Safety. Safety is the last checkpoint in the Iditarod. One of the things that puts Safety on the map is the roadhouse. Just as it sounds, it is a roadhouse that has a rustic touch with walrus tusks decorating the walls along with autographed dollar bills from locals. In addition, people are known to come from all around and drink at the bar. With that in mind, the first picture in this blog is of the outside of the roadhouse with the old fashion face front. Notice the small blue plane in the parking lot. Apparently, it is common for people to fly to Safety Roadhouse.... only in Nome.

Further in the trip, we stopped at the "Train to No Where." This is the second picture in the blog. This train was built to easily transport gold to New York. Unfortunately, the builders forgot that they were in Bush Alaska and things like trains don't last. The area was flooded and the train got stuck.

After a long drive, we finally got to Council. This cute little village has about 15-20 houses and is a get away place for people in Nome. This village is unique for 2 reasons. First of all, there is no bridge to get to it so you either stop and walk across the river to get to your house or hope that your car can make it across. The water is about30 feet wide and 1-2 feet deep at the most so trucks can easily get across. The second aspect that makes Council unique is the trees. About 15 miles away from the city, we started seeing a few trees pop out. Since Nome is so far north, we don't get any trees, just tundra. It was interesting to suddenly see a line of trees pop up as if they suddently existed. The camping experience was great. It was kind of hot (70 degrees, which is hot for Northwest Alaska) with no wind so we had a lot of bugs. Despite all of the bug bites, we decided it was worth it to see trees again.

Over all, we saw 3 wild reindeer, a fox, a beaver dam, several rainbow trout, countless bunnies (over 30 just sitting in the road), and a heard of muskox from a distance.

I also got to visit Anvil Mountain. This mountain is right outside of Nome and is known for the abbandoned Cold War structures. There is always a large amount of wildlife at the top of it. Bywildlife, I mean muskox. I have never seen muskox up close but I have collected a lot of the kivia. Kivia is the fur muskox shed and is known to be worth alot of money.

Playing Catch up

Again, I've been bad at posting blogs. But I will catch you up on the highlights of the past week.

First of all, I went on an amazing hike last week. We walked about 5 miles in an area about 20 minute drive outside of the city. It was beautiful. You would never guess that we were near Nome, looking at the geography. We were surrounded by steep snow-topped mountains. We climbed over a hill to get this location and that was kind of rough. The tundra itself is very bumpy. It looks like a mountain range for ants. I realized why people thought my tenis shoes weren't a good idea walking in. A person can easily twist their ankles with this rough land. In addtion, there wild berries dye your shoes all kinds of shades of purple. Other than that, I have a new love for hiking. I wish I brought my camera to take pictures but I will try to go again sometime soon so I'll have pictures soon enough.

The Midnight Sun Festival was an interesting event. All kinds of things were going on that weekend, such as The Great Alaskan Bluegrass Band concert, and several Folk Fest mainstage events. Friday's big event was a concert at Airport Pizza. TLC didn't show up to that event but almost the whole town was there for open mic night. The night ended with the TGABB (The Great Alaskan Bluegrass Band) playing all kinds of classic bluegrass band songs. Saturday was the main Midnight Sun day. David and I walked in the Gold Dust Dash, which is a 4 mile walk or run along the beach. The winners got a gold nugget. We showed up late so we finished dead last. It was pretty funny because the local paper published all the contestants and their time. Of course my name was last. After the dash, I went to the town parade. There was some cute floats. I've included a picture of the King Island Dancers on their float. After the parade there was a mock bank robbery. People dressed in 1800 style clothing and robbed the local Wells Fargo. It was pretty amusing! There was some time for people to run home after the robbery and change. The next event was the Polar Bear Plunge in the Bering Sea. About 200 people wore swimsuits in 50 degree weather and jumped in the cold water. I jumped in but didn't get my hair wet. My coworkers yelled at me and told me I have to do it again. Carol, one of the ladies who works at Northwest Campus of University of Alaska Fairbanks, filmed me jumping into the water. She said she is going to put it online for me. I felt like a walking popcicle when I came out of the water. The medics measured the temperature and found that the shallow (ankle deep) water was 40 degrees but it got colder the further you went out. Later that night we watched the mainstage. This was where the locals had the opportunity of having 10 minutes to perform whatever they wanted on the stage. The night ended with people singing a song called Goodnight Irene where people came up with their own verse. After the 3 hour mainstage, the volunteers met with Wes and went out to dinner.

The last Midnight Sun event I went to was on Sunday. It was a river raft race. This is where people make a raft and row it 5 miles down the Nome River. I went to Laureli's house on my break. Her house was very nice. Her husband and her built it themselves. The plumbing is the only thing they had help with because they didn't want to mess that up. They are paying for their house out of pocket so it isn't complete yet. They have a latter for stairs and there is no insulation on the walls. Laureli said her family used to live in tents until the house became livable. Apparently alot of people do that up here. Most people build their houses or fix it up because they would rather do it themselves then borrow money.

Other than the festival, everything has been going great. I have been working with kids at Vacation Bible School for the past week. It was fun and a great way to get out and meet new people. The lady who did crafts is native and has made some beautiful jewerly out of seal skin. I told her that I would love her to make one for me and I will pay her. She told me she would teach me how to make one myself because she is starting a sewing class. I am looking forward to that.

Work has been great. I am starting to get the hang of life at the station. I have produced several spots and am almost done with my first rotation. This Sunday I will be taking over the Sunday duties which have me run the station by myself. It will have its challenges but it is nothing I can't overcome.

TLC is in town

I realize that I haven't been updating my blog recently. I have been so consumed in work and vacation bible school (this week's hobby) that I haven't had time to go online. There was a unique activity today that I had to take the time to shed some light on it and I will go back and update my blog tomorrow on the midnight sun events.

Television network, TLC, decided that Nome, Alaska is an ideal place for their next reality tv show. One of the most popular restaurants in town is a common tourist attraction. As previously mentioned, Airport Pizza is well-known around this area and delivers pizza to many villages. TLC is in Nome for the next 2 weeks to film Airport Pizza and various Nome activities. They filmed most of the Midnight Sun festivities. Tonight, they created an event that had the whole town talking.

Airport Pizza conducted a pizza eating contest. This contest took 2 starving people and gave them 30 minutes to consume a 26 inch pizza (yes I said 26 inches). It seemed like everyone in town came to watch or eat the "large" pizza. The contest was primarily used for TLC to have more to show on their Pilot episode of this new reality show. And of course, many people were happy to show the wacky side of Nome that we all know and love. A man who dresses up as Santa and has gone to Santa conventions around the world showed up in his usual red attire. A cute little old man who tends to talk alot and likes to sing old songs you would hear in a lounge came to do commentary for the show. There were the usual bar drinkers. And what would a Nome event be without Velvet Eyes, Nome's residental reindeer? Even Velvet participated in the pizza eating contest (as you see in the picture above). Lets just say that his partner was the luckiest person there because he knew Velvet would eat whatever he couldn't. Over all, about 5 people were able to complete the contest.

The Week of the Midnight Sun

This week is a huge celebration in Nome. The 21st of June is when the sun is out the longest, creating approximately 22 hours of daylight. Nome holds a week of events to celebrate this event. Most of the events take place on the weekend and consist of folk music, gold digging, a 5K race, and a polar bear plunge

Monday was a great workday. I got to learn more about NexGen and I created my first spot on drive-in movies. This was a quick fact for our listeners to hear about trends throughout the decades. This is a trends and fads are a topic I need to cover in my spots. In addition, I got to deejay my shift with my supervisor, Kelly Brabec. One of my housemate's friends came to visit. With Jessica, Danielle's friend, and a man who came from the "Lower 48" to work on out NexGen system, the KNOM community house is full. You'd think it would be crazy with so many people under this roof but it's the same as it's always been. The house typically has house guests for dinner so we are used to having random people over. In fact, we had the principal of one of the schools come over for dinner. It is interesting to see how age doesn't factor into social circles. Everyone hangs out with everyone in a small town. Carl, the principal, has come to the house on numorous occasions to hang out. He was telling me that he has a daughter my age and a son who is older than me and works on cruises. After dinner, David and I went on a walk and ran into a unique site.

There is a man in town who rescued a baby reindeer who's mother died. After taking care of the reindeer till it was able to go back to the tundra, the man tried to release the reindeer back in the wild. It didn't want to go so now the reindeer asks like a dog and rides around town in the back of the man's truck. David and I saw this truck drive by. The picture above is my attempt at taking a picture of the reindeer in the truck.

I created my second spot today about alcohol awareness. Alaskan islands close to Nome are alcohol free. Despite this fact, it is a huge problem. People smuggle alcohol on the islands and sell it to the islanders. The going rate to a fifth of liquor on the island is approximately $300 (according to an article I read).

In addition to my spot, I completed my first solo deejay shift. I felt so proud!

After work, I took a bike ride. I learned a valuable lesson from the ride, never ride a bike by the sea when the wind is at 26 miles an hour. It took me about an hour to get back from my trip because the wind was so strong and cars kept going by and blowing dirt in my eyes.

After my bike ride, one of my roomates and I decided to go to the Midnight Sun's Barn Dance. It reminded me of North Carolina. We learned various square dancing moves and then performed them while a band of string instruments played in the background.

Beach Weekend

This weekend allowed me to experience an Alaskan summer. On Friday, we went Snake River and meet up with some friends. The ones we met up with had been on the river fishing and caught two dollyvarden fish. After putting butter and other spices on it, they wrapped it in butter and grilled it. By the time we arrived, they were grilling the second fish and eating the first fish. The told us to pick off what we wanted from the fish. It was wonderful! After dinner, we got some gold pans and tried our luck in the river. With the water being too cold, we couldn't put our hands in it for long periods of time. We decided we would stick to our day job.

The next day, we went to West Beach (the beach on the west end of Nome). We started a bonfire on the beach enjoyed the sound of the water. John was paning for gold on the shore but the gold was so fine he couldn't find anything. In fact, I was fasinated at how shiny my shoes were after our trip to the beach. Clearly there was remains of gold stuck to our shoes because my shoes look like there is glitter on it. Graham and Jeff built a fort out of drift wood. For a place that has no trees, there is a lot of drift wood here! Eventually we decided to have a cookout. We grilled hot dogs and made smores over our fire. It was delicious but still a little chilly in this 40-50 degree June evening.

Sunday was my first weekend work day. My job has me operate the radio station by mysel on Sundays. During this time, I do various tasks like find news that is worthy to read on the air. In addition, I have to record the weather report so it will be played every hour. In addition, I have 2 music specials. I play new music and easy listening music after each news report.

The picture above was from a few days ago when David, Danielle, and I took a walk on the beach.

The first week...

KNOM opperates in a unique way. It doesn't sell any advertisements. The station earns its money from donations. People all over the country donate money to get newsletters updating them on the status of the radio station. With no advertisements, KNOM takes the opportunity to fill that void with educational information. This is where my job becomes important to the station. I am the Educational Production Director at KNOM. I create educational spots varying on issues from substance abuse to native culture. These spots, similar to radio ads, range from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Most of them fall around the 1 minute range. After I create them, they are rotated into the system and broadcasted with the music. In addition to the production position, I deejay for about 12 hours a week. I have a 2pm to 4 pm shift and all day Sunday.

KNOM has a large listening audience and is well known in Alaska. There are reports of KNOM being heard from places varying between Kodiak, Barrow, and the Russian coast. In addition, many of KNOM's listeners live in a small house with no running water on an island. The radio gives them a sense of comfort in their isolation during the dark winter.

This week I learned more about my position and started taking over some of the tasks. I started writing some of the spots (educational clips that are broadcasted) and deejayed my first 2 hour shift. In addition, I was introduced the NexGen program and was granted time to explore the archives to get ideas of what I should write.

Outside of work, I have been exploring the town. I have gone on walks to up to the tundra. In addition, I have gone on bike rides by the beach. The picture above is a picture of a house in Fort Davis. This area is located approximately 3 miles out of town and has about 15 small houses. The military was forced to move up here to create a more lawful environment in an area full of gold and greed. In 1920, the gold rush started to die down so the military moved out. Meanwhile, a majority of Fort Davis was wiped out during floods and storms. Only a few houses remain in this area that is called "The Last Frontier."

The first few workdays...

This week has already few by fast. Due to a large amount of things to do, I didn't have a lot of time to write so the following are making up for the past few days.

Sunday:

Sunday was an early morning because I was still experiencing jet lag. After forcing myself to stay in bed for a while to get used to the idea of waking up at a later time, I went to a Lutheran church service. I was a minority in this service. There were approximately 30 people present and about 10 of them were caucasian. The rest of the people were Eskimos. Due to the large portion of Eskimos, we had a prayer and the doxology in one of the local native tongues. The doxology is as follows

Koo yuk loo God Ega you tay a goon (Praise God from all blessings flow)

Koo yuk loo O mah roet mah ah nee (Praise Him all creatures here below)

Koo yuk lo puk mah nie noo nah me e toh wak ( Praise him above ye heavenly host)

Koo yuk loo ah tah tahm Kit oon nagah lit koo sik. AMEN. (Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost)

After church, I talked to some of the people in the fellowship hall for about an hour. I met a man named Robert (he called himself Don Don). He' a 52 year old native who was telling me about a store he works at called Chukotka. Though it has primarily Russian merchandize, the little trailer serves as a tourist store with Alaskan souveniors. After looking in the store and getting some post cards, I walked down town and went in a few other gift shops and the visitor center. Everyone is so friendly! Every place I went, I was stopped to talk for at least 20 minutes. Later that night, we went to see Star Trek at the Subway/movie theater. When we walked out of the movie theater at midnight, we could see the sun still blinding us. The picture above is of what we sall when we came out of the theater at midnight.

Monday:

Today was my first day of work. I spent most of the day sitting in other people's shows on the air. I also got to sit in and watch my boss, Ric, perform my time slot. I had my own desk on the second floor with a great view of the tundra. I was able to read some information on Bush Alaska and I went over the rules and procedures of KNOM. Some of the articles the station has of local villages are amazing. There was one journal about a man who went from a big city to a village off the coast of Alaska. He talked about how the people live day to day and barily makes ends-meet. Later that night, the volunteer house made a family dinner with all 5 of us (plus jeff makes 6). After dinner, we walked out on the beach. The shore was covered in flat patches of ice. We started climbing on them as if it was a playground. We climbed as far as it was safe on them. Some of them went out pretty far and others broke in half as we were standing on them. We were hanging out on the ice til about midnight.

The First Day

On the first day, I started my day by visiting Laura, one of my co-workers, at the radio station. Being the Saturday deejay, she goes to the station for a few hours about 3-4 times that day to answer calls, broadcast information from local rangers and police, and make sure that the news and weather reports are constantly reported. When I was there, she informed me that I will be doing what she is doing on Sundays when I start work.

After I left the station, I walked back to the house to meet one of my roomates who was doing a story in Kodiak.

I have 4 roomates, John, Laura, Danelle, and David. Each one of these people are different in their own way and are very passionate about this radio station. Danelle loves the outdoors and loves volunteering and sports. Laura is very soft natured and sweet with an amazing talent to cook. John is huge on video games and always seems to come home with a different game (he came back with a Wii fit the other day). David has been here the longest. He is a Harvard grad and is very helpful to any new person who comes to the station. All of these people are very outgoing and friendly.

After meeting the final roomate, we decided to have a "family" breakfest. Danelle, Laura, and Laura's boyfriend made potatoes, eggs with tomatoes in them, muffins, pancakes.... and probably several other things that slip my mind right now. It was nice to get to sit around and get to know everyone.

After the meal, Danelle and myself decided to go on a hike. She took me to a "mountain" called Anvil mountain. It looked more like a rather steep hill but there was so much fog that it covered about half of the hill giving the appearence of a tall mountain. Climbing up, we sall an area that looks like it could be a condemed mine. Danelle said she thought the military used to use it. The mountain, from a distance looked like it was covered in dead plants but up close it is very alive. The plants are so unusual. The ground is covered in brown grass, moss, and a lot of flat rocks. There are several patches of flowers on the way up but if you weren't looking hard for them, you would never see them. They are smaller than a buttercup flower varying in two colors: creme-yellow and purple. On the climb, we ran into a lot of fresh reindeer poop so we were on the lookout for them. We got about 2/3rd to the top and had to turn around because my shoes weren't built for that steep climb.

We drove back to town and decided to go on a walk. I wanted to walk along the water. Since there was rain in the morning, Jeff said a lot of gold washes up on the shore and comes down from the mountains after a storm. I wanted to walk along and see if I saw anything. Machines were lined up all along the sandy side of the beach, which suck up water and sift the gold out of it. One man from Minnesota gladly explained what he was doing and said if we come to the beach any time this week, he will demonstrate it for us. His machine wasn't running at the time.

Walking back from the beach, we decided to stop in a grocery store. The cheapest box of orange juice was $9.19. The cheapest bag of family size chips was $9.50. These prices are insaine! One unique feature of the store is how it ads a mile on your Alaska Airlines mileage for every $2 you spend.

When we got back to the house, David and Laura decided to join us on a walk around the city to introduce me to my new home. We walked down main street and the town is really cute with some buildings trying to look similar to how Nome looked in 1901. I'll have pictures later. We walked into the senior center because there was a rubbage sale. Since yard sales are unrealistic people would sell their stuff at the senior center. I got a bag full of warm clothes for $1. After walking around downtown, Danelle headed back to the house the rest of us continued to a place called Airport Pizza. It aquired the name because the restraunt has a deal with a local airlines to fly pizza to villages out in the islands off the coast of Alaska. After some coffee and smoothies, we saw the Lutheran church, a few more grocery stores in town, and the little "suburb" outside of the city which looks like a small patch of 2 story houses.

We headed back to the house and had a low key night. Three roomates and myself watched movies and joked around. As cheesy as it sounds, it felt like we were a family.

The Journey to Nome

This entry was written the day after the event due to jet lag.

On June 5, 2009, I arrived at the airport approximately 4:30am eastern standard time. Upon arrival I checked 2 suitcases, which left me a carry-on item and a laptop bag. I received all 4 of my boarding passes when I checked in. I said my farewells to my family and went through security to go to my gate. I went into detail with each flight because each one was an interesting experience in itself.

As the day progressed there was a drastic change in demographics.

The first flight was flying from Baltimore to Chicago. American Airlines was the airlines that i started with. This flight was a shuttle plane that only held approximately 60 passengers. The passengers appeared to be more professional appearing with nice suits on. Leaving at 6am EST his flight was approximately 2 hours long so I arrived in Chicago (with the time change) at approximately 7am. Viewing the landscape of Chicago from the airplane window, the land was seemingly flat with agriculture giving the land a quilt appearence

The second flight took me from Chicago to Seattle. This flight was my first plane with Alaska Airlines and I continued to fly with them during the duration of the trip. This company has a partnership with American Airlines so they work with each other to provide cheap flights for travelers. This flight took 4 hours and 15 minutes. The plane departed at 8 am and arrived in Seattle around 10:15 am. The demographics on this flight included a large portion of elderly individuals. Looking out the window, approaching Seattle, the landscape was mountainous. The mountains were very wide with snow covering the tops. From the height of the plane, it seemed easy to climb them.

The third flight started in Seattle and flew to Anchorage. This flight was about 3 hours long, leaving the airport at 1 pm and arriving around 3:15pm. The Anchorage flight had a large portion of males with skiis and fishing rods. The landscape in Anchorage was also mountainous but with many differences. The mountains appeared to be more jagged and and rocky. In addition, they appeared to be closer together with steeper slopes.

The final flight left the airport around 5pm. This flight was unique. It flew to a town called Kotzebue before its arrival in Nome. The plane was the same size as planes used during the previous flights, however the airlines cut the plane in half and used the first half, typically used for passangers, to load packages, mail, and anything else that the town might need. This flight arrived in Kotzebue after 6pm. The runway was clearly not build for such a large plane so the plane had to be close to the ground prior to landing to avoid crashing. This town is located within the artic circle. The tundra landscape was flat with many ponds and streams surrounding the area and large potholes (from the airplane view). A large portion of the holes and ponds and dents in the ground had ice/snow gathered in it. The ground had some leafless bushes and appearingly dead grass. The Baltic Sea was covered in little icebergs. The town itself looked like a fishing town with a few bright colored houses in the middle of a dull colored tundra. At this stop, approximately 2/3rd of the passangers got off the flight. The demographics of this flight consisted of appearingly native Alaskans. Those who did not appear to be a native were wearing hunting t-shirts or gear. A couple of the people seemed suprized to see aquantences on the flight and started to talk to them at the begining of each takeoff. After the passangers and cargo got off the flight, new passangers got on the flight and we took off for the less than 1/2 hour flight to Nome. The landscape in Nome was similar to the landscape in Kotzebue. The airport was slightly larger with a little bit longer of a runway and a few extra warehouse buildings for planes. The airport itself was a warehouse appearing building.

When I got off the plane, I was instantly greeted by Ric Schmidt, the station manager, and his wife, Lynette Schmidt. After a few minutes, my roomates/co-workers arrived at the airport to meet me and help me with my luggage. I got to the house and received a grand tour of the house. There is one bedroom, a kitchen, dinning area, 1/2 bathroom, and living room on the first floor. The second floor has a boys bathroom, girls bathroom, and 6 bedrooms. I had a choice between 2 empty rooms on the second floor. I chose the baby blue room with a window facing the radio station.

As I was unpacking, my roomates offerred to cover my window. They wrapped the window screen with aluminum foil to block the never ending sunlight.

It was a long first day but my co-workers made me feel at home and excited to start my new position at KNOM.