Just another Sunday night in Bethel…This past weekend my roommates and I went Ptarmigan hunting. Ptarmigans (said like, ‘Tarmigan’) are medium sized birds found on the tundra that surrounds Bethel. No, we didn’t have a gun, crossbow or even a bow-and-arrow in our arsenal. We had a beat-up 1980’s 5 passenger station wagon, 2 radio stations and some good company. See, the trick to catching these Ptarmigans is NOT concentration and pinpoint accuracy …it’s simply cruising around town in any old clunker car as it gets dark. Heading out when it’s dark outside is vital… These brilliant birds actually fly into telephone wires and poles, knocking themselves unconscious. Our job as the hunter is to find the helpless poultry, throw a bag over it and kill it by spinning it around a couple times in a helicopter motion. Sounds pretty easy…
The seven of us piled into the stealthy hunting vehicle just as it neared dusk and set off to find some unconscious prey. We drove around some of the back roads for over an hour scouring the ground for any signs of these white beauties. Unfortunately, we had no luck. We pulled out all of the stops…even attempting to lure the Ptarmigans to us with my best Ptarmingan mating call. My mating calls proved fruitless and no Ptarmigans were apprehended. We haven’t given up hope however…we’ll be making the rounds a few more times over the next couple of weeks. Just last week, my roommate Joe came within inches of catching his first Ptarmigan…except when he reached for the bird it suddenly sprang to life in his hands and narrowly escaped becoming our dinner.
Clearly, our subpar hunting skill isn’t what’s keeping us fed. Thankfully, we have generous friends in the community. In addition to the millions of salmon that have been donated to us, we’ve also been given duck and moose. We had a delicious ‘moose stew’ for dinner last week. If you’ve never eaten moose, I highly suggest it. Moose hunting season just ended here so there is a good amount of moose in town right now. Each moose has about 800 POUNDS OF MEAT!!! Needless to say my roommates and I never caught the elusive moose…maybe next year?!
On a separate note, we're slowly losing our daylight here. On my first night in Bethel it was light outside until just after midnight. Since then however, we've been losing about 6 minutes of light EVERY day. Now it's actually getting dark close to 9pm. That probably doesn't seem so bad but at 6 minutes a day, we're heading for some dark days ahead. We'll continue to lose daylight until mid-winter (January-ish) when there is just about 4 hours of light a day (from 11am-3pm). There's a good chance that I'll go through an entire day seeing just a few minutes of daylight as I walk to the courthouse or lunch. TIB
This week I get to travel to Anchorage for the annual Public Defender's Conference. It will be a cool opportunity for me to a learn a bit more about the CINA cases and law in general. I'm also just really excited to see some mountains and experience another part of Alaska!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Jabzz
Please keep my friend Jabulani’s family in your prayers. He was a friend of mine from South Africa who passed away just a couple of days ago.
Next Stop: Iditarod
This past weekend I made my first, very important, step towards winning this year’s Iditarod… Our friend Mike invited me and a couple of the roomies to help ‘run’ the dogs. ‘Running’ dogs, as I mentioned in the previous entry, basically just means 'training them'. Because there’s no snow yet the dogs are forced to run the streets of Bethel. Eventually, when it snows (in like 15 minutes) we’ll hook them up to a sled and actually take them out for realski.
For a basic intro to dog sledding, based entirely on my very limited knowledge…Sled dogs stay in a dog yard of sorts. There will be a bunch of dogs chained up to posts and each with its own dog house. At this particular house there are about thirty dogs which get broken up into about three teams. The first and second team will race in all of the major races including the Kuskokwim 300, one of the biggest races in Alaska. The dogs train and race throughout the entire year except in the summer when it’s simply too “hot” to take them out. The max temperature they like to ‘run’ the dogs at is 50 degrees. Any hotter and the dogs over-heat. After the dogs’ long, boring summer they are all ecstatic to start training again which I learned quickly as I was pounced on and nipped at by excited huskies.
I’ve been helping out with these dogs on weekends and this weekend we made that major step towards actually racing. We learned how to hook up the dogs into their spots and bring them on a training run. They formation is probably exactly what you’ve seen on TV. We had 5 rows of 2 dogs. Maybe the funniest part about the whole experience was taking them from their dog house to their spot in the line. You’re supposed to grab their collar and pull upwards forcing the dogs to stand on their hind legs. Then, they hop like a kangaroo the fifteen or so yards to their spot in the line where we connected them to a beastly six-wheeler that looks very similar to a Gator. No sooner did we have the dogs in their spots than we were jetting off down the street. The entire process of unhooking the dogs from their chain and bringing them to their spot is a chaotic, noisy and sometimes frustrating endeavor. The dogs are so excited to be moving around that they have no regard for the pitiful rookie (me) trying to hop them like a kangaroo then hook them up in their spot. They don't waste anytime as the moment they’re hooked up the dogs are pulling. We actually had to put a block in front of a wheel of the six-wheeler so they wouldn’t take off without us. God bless these dogs, they were pulling as hard as they could but we kept the six-wheeler at a cool eight miles and hr to pace them a little bit.
My vantage point was fantastic. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I was cruising down main streets in a sweet six wheeler being pulled by ten very hyper sled dogs who were leaving a trail of slobber and sweat in their wake.
A couple of times an extremely bold (some might say slightly idiotic) dog would run out into the street to challenge the sled dogs who were now parading through their territory. Don’t be fooled by the amazing strength and ambition of these sled dogs... as soon as they saw a challenger they immediately slammed on the brakes and began a chorus of barking, snarling and posturing. Casey, Mike’s partner, and I sat powerless as these dogs all tried to get a piece of the poor sap that thought it stood a chance. Besides a few minor hiccups the training went great. We cruised around Bethel for about twenty five minutes. Any longer would have been a real struggle for the dogs, especially in this weather. It was about 55 degrees and I could tell by the frothing mouths and 3 feet of slobber hanging off one of the dogs that we were pushing our luck a little bit.
After the run was an equally amazing sight to the hyper, crazy pre-run moments. My roommate John commented that it looked like Casey and I had driven around the corner, beat the crap out of the dogs and come back. The dogs were covered in slobber and panting so heavily that the drool literaly poured out of their mouths. An even better indication of how tired they were…they actually let me take their restraints off. Although it was easier to unhook them, there was also the disadavantage of being covered in doggy drool.
All in all, it was one of those TIB moments. It was really cool to get an inside look at an activity that is so ingrained in the culture of Alaska. I’m really excited to see the team progress over the next few weeks until it snows somtime in October.
Random comments….
BC football…54 yards. Seriously?!?!?!
I had to wear a winter hat today on my run…very depressing.
My land line phone here is 907-543-2319. You are all welcome to call here anytime. (Just remember it’s probably a 4 hr difference for most of you!)
I miss you all and I love to hear updates so feel free to send me an email pj.driscoll1@gmail or just say ‘hi’ on my Facebook.
PEACE
For a basic intro to dog sledding, based entirely on my very limited knowledge…Sled dogs stay in a dog yard of sorts. There will be a bunch of dogs chained up to posts and each with its own dog house. At this particular house there are about thirty dogs which get broken up into about three teams. The first and second team will race in all of the major races including the Kuskokwim 300, one of the biggest races in Alaska. The dogs train and race throughout the entire year except in the summer when it’s simply too “hot” to take them out. The max temperature they like to ‘run’ the dogs at is 50 degrees. Any hotter and the dogs over-heat. After the dogs’ long, boring summer they are all ecstatic to start training again which I learned quickly as I was pounced on and nipped at by excited huskies.
I’ve been helping out with these dogs on weekends and this weekend we made that major step towards actually racing. We learned how to hook up the dogs into their spots and bring them on a training run. They formation is probably exactly what you’ve seen on TV. We had 5 rows of 2 dogs. Maybe the funniest part about the whole experience was taking them from their dog house to their spot in the line. You’re supposed to grab their collar and pull upwards forcing the dogs to stand on their hind legs. Then, they hop like a kangaroo the fifteen or so yards to their spot in the line where we connected them to a beastly six-wheeler that looks very similar to a Gator. No sooner did we have the dogs in their spots than we were jetting off down the street. The entire process of unhooking the dogs from their chain and bringing them to their spot is a chaotic, noisy and sometimes frustrating endeavor. The dogs are so excited to be moving around that they have no regard for the pitiful rookie (me) trying to hop them like a kangaroo then hook them up in their spot. They don't waste anytime as the moment they’re hooked up the dogs are pulling. We actually had to put a block in front of a wheel of the six-wheeler so they wouldn’t take off without us. God bless these dogs, they were pulling as hard as they could but we kept the six-wheeler at a cool eight miles and hr to pace them a little bit.
My vantage point was fantastic. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I was cruising down main streets in a sweet six wheeler being pulled by ten very hyper sled dogs who were leaving a trail of slobber and sweat in their wake.
A couple of times an extremely bold (some might say slightly idiotic) dog would run out into the street to challenge the sled dogs who were now parading through their territory. Don’t be fooled by the amazing strength and ambition of these sled dogs... as soon as they saw a challenger they immediately slammed on the brakes and began a chorus of barking, snarling and posturing. Casey, Mike’s partner, and I sat powerless as these dogs all tried to get a piece of the poor sap that thought it stood a chance. Besides a few minor hiccups the training went great. We cruised around Bethel for about twenty five minutes. Any longer would have been a real struggle for the dogs, especially in this weather. It was about 55 degrees and I could tell by the frothing mouths and 3 feet of slobber hanging off one of the dogs that we were pushing our luck a little bit.
After the run was an equally amazing sight to the hyper, crazy pre-run moments. My roommate John commented that it looked like Casey and I had driven around the corner, beat the crap out of the dogs and come back. The dogs were covered in slobber and panting so heavily that the drool literaly poured out of their mouths. An even better indication of how tired they were…they actually let me take their restraints off. Although it was easier to unhook them, there was also the disadavantage of being covered in doggy drool.
All in all, it was one of those TIB moments. It was really cool to get an inside look at an activity that is so ingrained in the culture of Alaska. I’m really excited to see the team progress over the next few weeks until it snows somtime in October.
Random comments….
BC football…54 yards. Seriously?!?!?!
I had to wear a winter hat today on my run…very depressing.
My land line phone here is 907-543-2319. You are all welcome to call here anytime. (Just remember it’s probably a 4 hr difference for most of you!)
I miss you all and I love to hear updates so feel free to send me an email pj.driscoll1@gmail or just say ‘hi’ on my Facebook.
PEACE
Thursday, September 10, 2009
TIB
TIB = This Is Bethel
This a little phrase that my roomates and I use to explain the things that happen here that just leave you shaking your head in confusion because you have never experienced anything like it. (Ten points if you name the movie that we got "TIB" from. Hint: "TIA")
For instance... I woke up one morning towards the end of August and began my walk to work like I do every other morning cutting behind some abandoned apartments to the board walk that crosses the tundra. I took one step onto the boardwalk and nearly 'bit it'. The boardwalk was frosted over. IN AUGUST. By the end of the day it was about 60 degrees and I was walking around in a t-shirt. TIB
A few times I've tried to get to the library or the gym and they've been closed due to 'staff shortages'. The 'staff shortages' are a result of the flu that everyone and their mom seems to be getting in Bethel. (watch out mom, the flu's coming!) When one or two people are out these places are on 'staff shortage'. Word on the street is swine flu has made it to Alaska somehow...over 30% of the high school was absent the other day. TIB
We went out boating on the river the other day and on our way back we say a little 10 ft boat with an ENORMOUS moose (weighing almost 1,500 pounds) in it. Moose hunting season just began at the beginning of September after 5 years of a hiatus. The hiatus was an attempt to build up the moose population in the Delta (the area I live in). Everything in the area basically stops while moose hunting season goes on. We're waiting for a construction crew to finish our siding and at the court they say its almost impossible to get jurors right now because people are out hunting. One thing I've learned is that hunting has a VERY different meaning here than back home in many of the lower 48 (that's where you city slickers live). Here hunting is done for survival. Many of the people here practice subsistence living; hunting and fishing for their food. My roomates and I have dreams about tracking down a moose ourselves! TIB
The past few weeks a couple of my roomates and I have been helping out with some dog teams. Dog racing is HUGE in Bethel. Bethel hosts the Kuskokwim 300, one of the biggest Dog Races in all of Alaska. Every Sunday we have dinner with a local family whose daughter won the Jr. Iditarod last year by 2 seconds. Most of you have probably heard of the Iditarod which is Alaska's most famous race and stretches for 1,000 miles. Hopefuly within the next few weeks I'll be helping 'run' dogs. We'll strap the dogs to a four wheeler and they'll train by running around town. It's not out of the ordinary to see a team of sled dogs cruising around on the gravel streets as we head into dog racing season. Before you know it I'll be competing for the Iditarod! TIB
This was a fairly quick update so there will be more to follow. Sorry there haven't been pictures but it takes about three years to load them on the internet here. TIB
Also, I do NOT have a cell phone here. I guess I should have mentioned that a month ago. There are no cell phone towers that call outside of Bethel. Cell phones are slowly making there way here but so far there are no major carriers. TIB
I love you all.
Peace.
This a little phrase that my roomates and I use to explain the things that happen here that just leave you shaking your head in confusion because you have never experienced anything like it. (Ten points if you name the movie that we got "TIB" from. Hint: "TIA")
For instance... I woke up one morning towards the end of August and began my walk to work like I do every other morning cutting behind some abandoned apartments to the board walk that crosses the tundra. I took one step onto the boardwalk and nearly 'bit it'. The boardwalk was frosted over. IN AUGUST. By the end of the day it was about 60 degrees and I was walking around in a t-shirt. TIB
A few times I've tried to get to the library or the gym and they've been closed due to 'staff shortages'. The 'staff shortages' are a result of the flu that everyone and their mom seems to be getting in Bethel. (watch out mom, the flu's coming!) When one or two people are out these places are on 'staff shortage'. Word on the street is swine flu has made it to Alaska somehow...over 30% of the high school was absent the other day. TIB
We went out boating on the river the other day and on our way back we say a little 10 ft boat with an ENORMOUS moose (weighing almost 1,500 pounds) in it. Moose hunting season just began at the beginning of September after 5 years of a hiatus. The hiatus was an attempt to build up the moose population in the Delta (the area I live in). Everything in the area basically stops while moose hunting season goes on. We're waiting for a construction crew to finish our siding and at the court they say its almost impossible to get jurors right now because people are out hunting. One thing I've learned is that hunting has a VERY different meaning here than back home in many of the lower 48 (that's where you city slickers live). Here hunting is done for survival. Many of the people here practice subsistence living; hunting and fishing for their food. My roomates and I have dreams about tracking down a moose ourselves! TIB
The past few weeks a couple of my roomates and I have been helping out with some dog teams. Dog racing is HUGE in Bethel. Bethel hosts the Kuskokwim 300, one of the biggest Dog Races in all of Alaska. Every Sunday we have dinner with a local family whose daughter won the Jr. Iditarod last year by 2 seconds. Most of you have probably heard of the Iditarod which is Alaska's most famous race and stretches for 1,000 miles. Hopefuly within the next few weeks I'll be helping 'run' dogs. We'll strap the dogs to a four wheeler and they'll train by running around town. It's not out of the ordinary to see a team of sled dogs cruising around on the gravel streets as we head into dog racing season. Before you know it I'll be competing for the Iditarod! TIB
This was a fairly quick update so there will be more to follow. Sorry there haven't been pictures but it takes about three years to load them on the internet here. TIB
Also, I do NOT have a cell phone here. I guess I should have mentioned that a month ago. There are no cell phone towers that call outside of Bethel. Cell phones are slowly making there way here but so far there are no major carriers. TIB
I love you all.
Peace.
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