My new favorite Alaskan memory...

I just got back to Nome from Unalakleet yesterday evening around 6:30, and I was blessed with big excitements during my time there. Unalakleet is the largest of the Norton Sound villages with close to 1000 residents. I had heard that it was the "best" village to visit, that the town was really clean, and the people held their education and health in really high regard. Thursday we hopped on a little 9-passenger bush plane and flew about 35 minutes south to the airport in Unalakleet. That was an experience in itself. Because the airport is so small in Nome, you can check your bags about 1 hour before your flight and then leave the airport until about 15 minutes before your flight. There is no security when flying to the villages, and if you're really sweet, you can usually talk the pilot into letting you sit in the co-pilot seat. I did not do that because I'm still a nervous flier, although I do really enjoy it once we're in the air. Our flight was a bit delayed, but we got to Unk with about an hour to spare.

Shanna, the dietitian who traveled with us had made arrangements for the three of us to stay at her boyfriend's parents house while in Unalakleet, so we went there first to drop our stuff. We were met by Nita, the mom, with open arms and cranberry rhubarb bread (delicious). After chatting, eating a bit, and making plans to picnic later that night, we headed over to the IRA building (a city building) to get set up for Summercise. We had gotten word the night before that Sarah Palin would be in Unalakleet on Friday, and that we would have to move Summercise to the school that day because she would need to IRA building to sign an energy bill.

Anyway...we had summercise that night from 7-8:30. There were about 30 kids there, who were AWESOME. There were two or three 4 year olds and several parents stayed and watched. We played name games, did relay races outside (the weather was BEAUTIFUL that day), talked about the negative health effects of drinking soda, played an exercise-dice game, and the native corporation talked to the kids about safe bodies. (i.e. wearing bike helmets, having adults they trust, what to do if someone makes them feel uncomfortable.) After cleaning up the building we headed back to Sam and Nita's place and almost immediately headed to the river and took their boat a few miles down to their relative's camp. There, we picnicked...they grilled burgers, salmon bellies, we had potato salad, grapes, more cranberry rhubarb bread, etc. I fished a little while we were there, but was unsuccessful. The pink salmon were jumping everywhere, but I guess they weren't hungry. It was frustrating, I would cast, and a fin would come out of the water right under my line...still no luck.

Sam and Nita were telling us how many bears they had in Unalakleet, and Christina mentioned really wanting to see one, so they offered to take us up the coast line to go bear watching. After the picnic, we headed in their little boat out toward the ocean. Before reaching the coast we ran into one of the health aids in town and her husband who were seining for fish. Sam hopped out on the bank of the river to help and I got some good pictures of their catch. They had probably 2-300 pink salmon in their nets and kept maybe 70 of them. After that, we continued out onto the ocean and headed in really close to shore to make our way back down looking for whale, seal, or walrus carcasses that the bears like to feed on. Nita says that when they go greens picking or cranberry picking around there, they'll see 8 or 9 bears per trip sometimes. Sure enough, we spotted one! It was a young one they said...maybe 2 or 3 years old, and a really dark color. I didn't get a picture of it because it ran away too fast, but it was so cool!

We watched the sunset out on the ocean and then went back to Nita and Sam's. Nita shared some sour dock (a green they pick) and wild rhubarb with us. We went to bed around 2 am and slept late the next day. We went back to the IRA building to move all of our stuff over to the school right when the crowd was gathering to see Sarah Palin. Just as we were finishing loading our stuff into the Jeep, she pulled up. We were the first people she came across, so she stopped and shook our hands. Shanna made me explain to her what Summercise was...so yes, I did see Sarah Palin and spoke with her for a few minutes. Unfortunately I did not get a picture WITH her, because she was being pulled away, but I did get some really stalker-like pictures of her talking to other people. ;) I didn't really realize what a big deal that was to get to meet her until we were on the plane heading home. I talked to the ex-vice presidential candidate and possible presidential candidate for 2012. How cool.

We had Summercise with about 40 kids this time, and the kids seemed to really love it again. One girl, Jill was so incredibly smart. She knew so much about nutrition and diabetes already, and I think she wanted to be a chef. KNOM, the radio station in Nome was in Unk. to cover the Palin visit, and stopped by to interview some of the kids, which I think was a big thrill for them.

Once we got done there, we went back to Sam and Nita's, where we had delicious salmon spread, more bread, potato salad again, sour dock and blueberries, and some other snacks. We had about an hour before we had to be at the airport, so we quickly dropped our bags off and ran some diabetes supplies over to the clinic there. I cannot tell you how beautiful their clinic is in Unalakleet. It looks much nicer and cleaner than the hospital in Nome, and you can tell the health aids and staff there are very proud of it. It looks brand new, although they built it over 5 years ago. The health aid we had seen seining the night before gave us a tour of the clinic before we left.

At this point we had about 30 minutes left, but Nita and Shanna were determined to get me to catch a fish. We ran back to the house where Nita was waiting with one of their fishing rods and an ulu. We all hopped in the truck and drove down to the mouth of the river. I cast a few times, and sure enough, I hooked a humpy (a pink salmon). I pulled it in and with maybe 10 minutes left to spare, Nita cut it up on the rocky river bank, put it in a zip lock bag, and drove us to the airport where I carried my cut fish on to the little 9 passenger plane back to Nome along with a home-made gift she gave both Christina and me. I have to keep that one a secret though until I get home and share it with Bobby and my parents.

It was such a surreal and busy trip...I'm so glad Unalakleet was the village I visited, I'm so thankful that Shanna introduced us to Nita and Sam (two of the most generous people I've met), and I am so thankful that God provided such beautiful adventures during our short time there.

all my love,
em