Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Tundra misconceptions - Pt 1/3

The tundra holds a mythological appeal for me. It has always been something of a surreal landscape, something that I know exists but is so exotic that it can’t really exist. It ranks with the rainforests and the corral reefs of the world. Glaciers rank up there, too. These geographic features define an area above and beyond the landscapes I am used to seeing. These geographic features also hold an ecology so foreign to me that anything I read in books or see on television cannot possibly prepare me for what those features actually are. As of this moment in life I have now had contact with three out of the four I listed - corral reefs, glaciers, and now the tundra so I know that they do exist. But with each a similar feeling overwhelms me as I observe them.

After describing how much I read and how much I watch, nothing can educate me as much as how much I experience, I feel that some things need to be shared so that you can get just a slight feeling for the tundra. And I feel obligated to share a few things that people need to know about tundra that was lacking in my conception of tundra before experiencing it firsthand. My conception of tundra was that of a cold, foreboding environment, dry and brittle, light green to brown, invoking if not death, at least despair. This, I now know, is wrong on all accounts. After a few trips around Tununak across the tundra my initial reactions were centered around number one - how soft it is, number two - how many different plants they are growing in any square feet, and three - how little I truly know about the tundra.

Let me expound on these thoughts. First of all, walking in the tundra is like walking on a mattress, albeit a chunky mattress. Each step involves the constant monitoring and calculating of where to best place your foot next, a process similar to hiking a mountain trail. Then you modify your calculations with a certain margin of error due to the uncertainty of how much your foot will sink. This is one part of walking in the tundra that is unlike walking on anything else. One step may be on relatively sturdy ground when the next will involve sinking close to a foot. There are also rocks that speckle the landscape that themselves are speckled in lichens and mosses giving the rocks a type of tundra camouflage adding a very sturdy step to the mix.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Random thoughts on solar sanity

Today, September 22, at 5:18 pm, marks the autumnal equinox. At this point in time the Earth is at one of the four key points in its orbit around the sun. At the two ends of the orbit are the summer and winter solstices marking the points in our orbit where the our hemisphere, due to the Earth’s slant, is closest and furthest away respectively from the sun. The equinoxes, however, mark a tipping point. At the equinox, each hemisphere is equidistant to the sun. After that moment, we in the Northern Hemisphere will no longer be slanting toward to sun, but rather, away from it, each day being more pronounced than the last. What this means is that everyday between now and the winter solstice we begin to get less and less sunlight day to day. Its significance to me is that it is also the tipping point between my relative daily sunlight and that of everyone else I know. You see, the further north you are located in your hemisphere, the more severe the difference in sunlight becomes. At 5:18 I will switch from having more sunlight per day than everyone back home to the more depressing less sunlight per day. Here ends the astronomy lesson.

To mark this milestone, this beginning in a way, I wanted to set some baseline measurements with which you will be able to measure my sanity as I enter winter. I am doing this in an attempt, half facetiously, to make sure that if anyone notices a slip in my sanity, they immediately direct me to my sunlight imposter lamp sitting unplugged in the corner of my house. The way that I want to establish these baselines is to make a few statements indicating what I have come to see as normal living in Alaska. I feel I should also make a few statements indicative of the random thoughts already floating about in my head. Shall we begin?

I do not have a TV, DVD player, radio, and at the moment internet in my home. In addition, alcohol, from cooking wine to vodka, is prohibited by village ordinance in Tununak.

I feel that it is perfectly normal to buy twenty-five pounds each of two different kinds of beans and/or one hundred pounds of flour.

I feel that it is perfectly normal to consider buying twelve packs of Newman Os, and am quite taken with the fact that they are 15% off this month only! on Azure.

I look forward with great anticipation to getting packages in the mail, regardless of the outrageous cost of shipping.

I refer to four wheelers as Hondas regardless of manufacturer in the same way I call all tissues Kleenex.

I am in the process of procuring worms for a worm compost bin for my food scraps with the intention of creating compost then using the compost and my sun imposter to grow fresh vegetables.

Okay, a break, because I am beginning to think that I am already too late. But in the (butchered) words of Joseph Heller, “Those that know they are insane cannot possibly be insane because consciousness of insanity is the definition of sanity.” Perhaps there is still hope. And now I return to the random thought part of my baseline assigning.

We romanticize the Native Americans for their concepts on waste , regarding in high esteem the fact that after killing an animal they leave not a part unused. However, in our culture we regard the modern equivalent, a hot dog, as anything but romantic.

If someone were standing on the North Pole, every direction he or she pointed would be south. How would you give directions to that person?

Two jars of salsa are worth three boxes of cereal.

My knives are sharp. I have now cut myself twice – once slicing beets, once picking the seed out of a melon. I need to stop cutting myself until I am back in an area that has medical facilities I trust to stitch me up.

Eleven days equals twenty-one. Six to seven days equals never. Overnight equals the day after tomorrow. My brain just broke.

And that is that. Baselines set. Stay tuned. Hold on. It begins.

Friday, September 11, 2009

How not to catch a fish

Here in Tununak we have a river that weaves through town. I live on one end of town, and where we fish is near the bridge crossing the river on the other side of town. A week ago now I planned on getting a bit of fishing in with some of the other teachers. We were going to eat dinner and then gather our things and make the ten minute walk to the bridge. Midway through dinner we were interrupted by the knocking of children on the kitchen window.

This has come to be a common occurrence for we, the teachers, apparently, are objects of great interest to the local inhabitants under four feet in height. And we, being teachers, all know that if you give a mouse a cookie they will never go away...but, really, how can you ignore the sweet requests of children when all they want is to know what we are doing? And so we cave and we open the window and we begin talking to these miniature humans. And as we do we let slip that we are going down to the river and they quickly ask if they can come and we already know that this question is not really a question but merely a statement and that we will have a small escort of three children. Okay, we think, no big deal.

So we clean up dinner and our escort is awaiting at the front door. Only it has grown to about six children in the short time we were washing dishes. Alright, five fisherpeople and six local experts under four feet. Still not a big deal.

Our journey to the river begins. But as we walk, children with eyes of eagles and ears of owls, notice our journey and our escort becomes an entourage. Not only have they grown in number, but size as well. We have now acquired the junior and senior high. As our number grows, so does the noise, and as the noise builds more and more children are attracted. I believe we have reached critical mass. It's only a matter of time now. By the time we got to the bridge we are approaching thirty. Let me remind you that the entire school only has 120 students. So here we are with nearly a quarter of the school, none of which happened to bring fishing rods. Now some may be already making predictions as to how our fishing trip panned out. Let me mention a few more things to solidify those predictions.

First is that everyone of these children has more experience fishing in a single finger than our entire teacher party had combined. Second is that when someone, anyone, is near water without a fishing rod but with an ample number of pebbles and rocks, they are prone to throwing those pebbles and rocks into the water. And last is that fish are shy, skittish creatures by nature and don't respond well to loud, splash inducing children.

And so our night of fishing turned into a night of casting poorly to the chagrin of laughing natives only to reel in, repeatedly, an empty hook due in part to our inexperience catching fish and helped along being ensured that none of us got lucky and snagged a fish because all of the fish were far away from us after the onslaught of rocks and pebbles. And so we did not catch any fish (unless you count the the measly devilfish), but the weather was great, the moon was full, the sunset over the Bering beautiful, and the children, while unable to bring us any fish, did bring a night of smiles and laughter. Not too bad for a Friday night in Tununak.