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.