Tundra misconceptions - Pt 3/3

The last thought on the tundra is how little I know about the tundra. This should be apparent from the previous two observations, but this short story should cement my lack of knowledge. Over Labor Day weekend there was the annual Blackberry Festival in Toksook Bay, one of our neighboring villages. Toksook is the closest village to us, a little more than six miles away, across the tundra and up over a hill. We planned on leaving Saturday morning and were getting all packed and suited up for the journey. Our hiking party consisted of my two neighbors, Ben and Sarah, Heidi and her husband George, and me. Ben and Sarah are teachers from New Yorkegon (umm…they taught in both New York and then Oregon before moving up to Alaska). Heidi is a teacher from Michigan who married the fourth member of our team, George, who is Yup’ik and grew up in Newtok, another village on the delta. As Ben, Sarah, and myself were putting on our hiking boots George came by to check on our progress. “You guys aren’t wearing rubber boots?” Sarah and Ben didn’t have any, while I did but hiking in them is literally a pain. Needless to say, our minds were pretty much already made up. We politely responded, feeling maybe a little nervous now, but still pretty set on our previous decision. “Why, should we?” George’s response only supported our lack of concern and unwillingness (in my case) in our footwear situation. “Well, you don’t need to wear rubber boots.” We left it at that.

Our hike began walking through uptown. Tununak, being the size it is, has both an uptown and a downtown, and entered the tundra. From here we had about a two mile hike to the “bridge” then up and over the hill into Toksook. Everything started fine, but about ten minutes into the tundra we began seeing reasons why both Heidi and George were wearing rubber boots. We had been following the four-wheeler tracks across the tundra. Tundra is similar to grass; the more you drive on it, the less of it there is. And like grass, underneath is mud. Now mud is not a huge problem. We were used to mud. Walking the dirt streets (yes, I can say streets because there are two) of Tununak is a weaving, dodging, at times leaping activity, but rarely a wet activity. What we were beginning to experience out in the tundra was that while it was possible to go around the mud puddles in the four-wheeler road, the surrounding tundra had the consistency of a wet sponge. Wetness was quickly becoming an issue. Lessons were being learned the hard way – when someone native to the area questions your decision not to wear rubber boots, you should also question that decision. And when a person native to the area is himself wearing rubber boots, you should not only question your decision, but change your plans. Too late though. A mile from Tununak, ankle deep in muck (which, by the way, is the Yup’ik word for water – how’s that for double entendre), we were on our way.

Having George with us proved to be a great benefit that became increasingly apparent on the walk home, but more on that later. With George in the lead, he used his experience walking through the tundra to guide us from if not dry, drier, spot to drier spot. By the time we got to the “bridge”, which turned out to be little more than a plank over the stream, we were wet, but not miserable.

Our hike back home, however, was a different story. Without our guide, we needed to apply our new knowledge of tundra navigation. Everything was going fine. I was leading when suddenly I looked up, and we seemed to be at a dead end. The trail kind of disappeared into a muddy, rutted out quagmire. I thought I saw some supportive spots and made my move. Nope, wrong. About a foot deep. Cold tundra water rushed into my non-knee high hiking boots. The nice thing about waterproof boots is that they keep water out. The bad thing about waterproof boots is that they keep water in. I could feel with every step the half-cup of water sloshing around in my boots, but we made it through the first challenge.

Ben took up the lead now and was doing a fine job. We were beginning to get pretty confident navigating dry spot to dry spot, correctly identifying which spots of tundra were stable and dry, and which were neither. All was going well, I was watching my feet to make sure I didn’t slip in the mud, when I heard Ben up ahead. “Oh! Oh! Oh no!” then Sara “Get the camera! Get the camera!” I stopped walking and looked up expecting to see the thing that she wanted Ben to take a picture of. By this time in our journey we had discussed that you can only get so wet. Well this is true, but I guess we were only referring to our feet. Ben, knowing that his feet were already soaked, was doing what we had decided was the most expedient way to cross the tundra: charging it through the puddles. It was faster this way, and again, you can only get so wet. But what none of use were expecting was a three foot deep puddle. Ben had unknowingly stepped off solid ground and his foot found ground three lower. Sara’s yell meant to save the camera, not the moment. In the moments immediately following I am grateful that the puddle was not deeper because we were laughing so hard a rescue would have been impossible. Ben’s step into the sinkhole quickly redefined our idea that you can only get so wet. Watching Ben wade out of the puddle he had found Sara and I, not wanting to follow Ben, found a, while longer, significantly less wet. The next twenty minutes over the tundra passed quickly without incident and I was celebrated our return to Tununak with an emptying of the boots of tundra water and a warm shower. Here’s to paying more notice to the subtle nuances of a new culture. Cheers.