50 Horse-Power Motors

When I start to feel overwhelmed by how stressful life can be, I think about how much harder my grandma had it when she was growing up. While we have the luxury of electricity, running water, internet, satellite tv, heat, higher education, 50 horse-power motors, boats, cars, trucks, four-wheelers, and good-paying job opportunities, we often forget to show gratitude for how good we have it.

I remember my grandma telling me about how she used to have to walk upriver in the winter, towing a sled behind her, to haul large ice chunks that would be thawed out for fresh water for her family. When they would go out to partake in subsistence activities in the summer, they wouldn't go out for just a few hours like we do now. Instead they would spend the whole summer at Egavik (12 miles north of Unalakleet) gathering berries and fish that would last them the whole year.

Lomen's Egavik Store, storage and living quarters about to fall into the Norton Sound-Photo taken summer 2015

Some families were lucky enough to have 9-horse-power motors, while others had to pull their boats upriver. As you can imagine, it took all day just to get to the fishing holes. Now, we can use our fast, high-tech boats to get upriver in an hour or less so we can fish for just a few hours and get home in time to cook dinner. 

Kids these days don't know the struggle and would rather stay home and play video games and check their Facebook instead of doing subsistence with their families. My grandma's generation didn't have the option to not do subsistence activities. It really was a way of life: the ONLY way of life. They didn't have AC shelves stocked with all the western foods that we do now. They relied on salmon, caribou, moose, seal, various birds, and other local animals to fulfill their nutritional needs. I asked my grandma what she did for fun as a kid. She said they didn't have time to play. All her time was spent helping out around the house and doing subsistence activities with her family.

My grandma's generation didn't have the healthcare that we have today. They didn't get sent to bigger cities to deliver their babies. Many women in her day delivered babies in their own homes. In my grandma's case, she delivered one of her sons all by herself, when my grandpa ran to get help and didn't return in time. Women endured the pain that came with childbirth naturally. Epidurals, IV drugs, and labor inductions were not an option to women back then. Now, women are so quick to opt for labor pain drugs without even reading up on the negative side effects. This may be a reason for all the new disorders that keep showing up (ADHD, autism, etc). 

My grandma didn't get to finish high school because there wasn't a local high school in our village. Her family didn't have the money to send her to boarding school so she stayed behind and helped her parents with subsistence. She may only have an 8th grade education, but she is one of the smartest and hardest working women I know. 

I have to remind myself that my life is so easy compared to my grandma's and her generations and the generations before her. I have to remember to be grateful for how simple my life is. My washer, dryer, heat, electricity, television that records all the episodes of Gilmore Girls and Seahawks games, my job, antibiotics, Amazon, my truck, my Jeep, running water, daily airplanes that deliver mail and bring us to bigger cities, our regional clinic, health aides, our physician, two well-stocked grocery stores, our 50-horse-powered Lund, the refrigerator, the internet, and the list goes on. Next time I feel overwhelmed about how hard life is, I will remind myself that my life today doesn't even come close to what my grandmother went through.

Furnace problems!

My family and I came back to Unalakleet only to find that our house froze. Not sure how or why, but the house thermostat read 40 degrees. It doesn’t help that it’s January and it’s freezing outside and gusting 22 mph outside. Today it’s a little warmer; 23 degrees Fahrenheit. My husband is working on getting the furnace fired back up. I really hope his “Mr. Fix-it” powers work because I’d like to move back into my own home. I hate living out of my luggage. We stayed at my in-laws last night. They are traveling down states, so we had the house to ourselves.

Other than a freezing house, everything else is fine. We got our grocery shopping done and everything shipped home. I brought some fried chicken and broccoli salad home from Anchorage, so it was a lazy dinner night.

The city water is bad again so people have been going up, left and right, to our house to get fresh well water. That is how we found out our house froze. Reuben’s friend called while he was getting water. He told Reuben that the garage was freezing and so was the house. He started a fire in the garage, which was nice. I just wish we knew what was wrong with the furnace. Wish us luck on getting heat back! 

My only favorite thing about winter... The beauty of Mother Nature

Our world was shaken!

Two nights ago, January 24th at 1:34 am Southcentral Alaska experienced a pretty tough quake. My husband, daughter and I were in Anchorage for the weekend getting some grocery shopping done. We were all sleeping at Fairfield Inn when the quake started. Half-asleep, I thought I was at home because when it's windy (and Unalakleet is windy all too often) our house shakes. I opened my eyes and realized we were not at home, but in a hotel in Anchorage. The whole hotel was swaying side-to-side, like it was a tree being blown around by 60 mile-an-hour winds. It felt like the hotel could uplift from it's foundation and crumble to the ground. I didn't know how to react because I've never experienced an earthquake of that magnitude. My husband and baby slept right through it! I couldn't believe it. Maybe they thought they were being rocked to sleep and it was soothing. The quake lasted about 45 seconds.

After the quake stopped, I heard car alarms going off outside. Luckily there was no damage to our hotel room. It just didn't feel real. I was glad we were only on the second floor of the hotel. I can just imagine people up on the 15th floor freaking out and wanting to rush downstairs. The only damage I've heard about so far was a road in the Kenai area. The news stated that 4,800 homes were without power in the Kenai Peninsula. If I never have to experience another earthquake, that would be fine by me. Thank God nobody was hurt!

Native Lifestyle While Pregnant

Being pregnant is tough when you are Alaska Native. You are told by so many people not to do this and not to do that. In the winter, people kept telling me, "You shouldn't be riding a snowmachine. You might crash and have a miscarriage." In the summer, when my family and I went boating and fishing, people kept telling me I might go into labor upriver. I was told not to go out the ocean to check the crab pot because it was too rough. I was told not to go on long road trips because I might get caught in traffic and have my baby in the car. 

I didn't heed what others said. Instead, I went ahead and went boating, fishing, checking the crab pot, and took long car rides. I knew my body. I had two kids before this pregnancy so I threw out all those suggestions and went with what my body told me. I didn't have any pregnancy complications besides nausea and fatigue early on. I wasn't going to let my pregnancy stop me from living the traditional lifestyle. 

I was boating, fishing, and berry picking until I was 8 1/2 months pregnant.  

Fishing at main river by my in-law's cabin

Because we live in rural Alaska, our healthcare is limited to health aides and one physician. We aren't given the option to give birth in our hometown in case of emergencies. Pregnant women from our region are sent via airplane to Nome a month prior to their due dates because that is the only way to and from most rural Alaskan villages (besides snowmachine in winter time). I told our clinic I was not going to waste a month of my summer away from home when I can be out in the country and filling our freezer with fish and berries. We decided that we would fly into Anchorage, rather than Nome, to deliver our baby, but we wouldn't leave until the week before her due date. Turns out we didn't make a bad decision. 

Our baby doll 7 lbs 13 oz, 21 in long

Cassidy was born August 5th at 2:54 am. She turned out perfectly fine, regardless of the fact that I went snowmachining, boating, road tripping, and staying in my village longer than suggested. 

Cassidy at 5 months old

We love fishing!

Summer is my favorite time of the year. Not only is it warmer, but it's time to come out of hibernation. I'm not talking about the bears. I'm talking about me! I spend a lot of time indoors in the wintertime, because I get cold so easily. Sure it's nice to breath fresh, crisp, cold air, but I like to go out without having to throw on my whole closet of winter clothes.

I love summer time because I get to go out boating again and fishing and berry picking. If I could I would fish all day everyday.

My favorite kind of fish: Silver Salmon!

My husband cutting some salmon for fillets

My husband gets tired after a couple hours of fishing so I'm forced to go home. Plus putting away fish so they don't spoil takes a couple hours in itself. You gotta gut, fillet, clean, and vacuum-pack fish that you will cook throughout the year. If you're going to can fish, that's another long process. For that you might put your fish on ice overnight and cut them early morning.

Our first batch of pink salmon drying on the fish rack

I love the feeling of the first tug on my fishing pole line. I try to guess what kind of salmon is at the end of the line when reeling it in. Silvers and chum (dog salmon) are sometimes hard to distinguish between. They are about the same size, but many locals are not big on chum. Chum is only good for dried fish or dog food. Silvers, on the other hand, are delicious any way you prepare them (strips, fried, baked, canned, half-dried and half boiled).

My family is good at filling our freezer. So much delicious looking silvers.

My boys, Keane (9) and Brian (7) enjoy fishing. Two summers ago, Keane caught his first of many silvers. He was really quiet about it so my husband and I didn't even know he had something on his line. We were fishing from the boat and we all had our lines out. I looked over at Keane and noticed his fishing pole was drooped over and he was using all his might to reel in whatever was at the end of his line. I quickly reeled in my line so I could grab the dipnet. I was so excited to see what kind of fish he had. 

This would be his very first silver! Keane kept reeling and at one point the silver tugged so hard that Keane almost flew out of the side of the boat. This didn't scare him. I think he was too excited to think about anything other than getting that fish into the boat. Finally he got the fish close enough for me to collect it with the dipnet. 

When we got the fish in the boat, Keane let out a big sigh and smiled really hard. Right away he asked, "Mom is that a silver?!?" He knew how much I loved silvers so I could tell he was proud of himself. I told him, "Yes! Way to go! Your very first silver!" I had him pose with his silver and he quickly went back to fishing. That day he caught two more silvers! Fishing for silvers is not an easy task for a 50 lb 7-year-old so I was pretty proud. I think he became addicted to fishing like his mom. That's something to be proud of.

I Remember When...

I remember when I was a young girl: about 10 or 11, I went out berry picking with my aunt Jolene, sister Katie, and cousins Melanie, Adam, and Kyle. We were at VOR and everyone was spread apart on the tundra. I picked for a good hour or so, then got bored so I went to sit in the back of the truck to wait. My aunt can spend all day on the tundra. As a kid, berry picking was fun... for about an hour. Anything longer was a chore. My aunt Jolene motivated us to fill our buckets by saying the first to fill their bucket would get a dollar or a can of soda. This worked for awhile. Other times we only liked ot follow berry picking because my grandma always packed the good snacks: snacks we didn't get on a daily basis. She always told us we were going on a picnic. "Picnic" meant berry picking and then taking a break to sit on the tundra with pilot crackers and cheese, fish strips, candy, soda, chips, and other goodies.

Anyways, back to this berry picking trip. My cousins Adam and Kyle were already sitting in the back of my gram's blue, F-150 pick-up. All three of us were talking and throwing berries at one another. The truck was parked next to a long row of bushes. We stopped talking when we heard something in the bushes. It wasn't windy out so we knew there had to be an animal nearby. My cousins and I looked in the direction where we heard the noise and to our surprise there was a big brown bear. We all freaked out and started yelling for my aunt to let her know about the bear.

My aunt and cousin Melanie came running back to the truck. When they got in, Jolene honked the horn over and over to get Katie's attention. Katie was picking near the bushes that the bear was hanging around. When we got Katie's attention, she started running back to the truck. I'm not sure if the bear noticed her or not, but as she was running to the truck she tripped and spilled her berry bucket. I can just imagine her pulse racing and her heart thumping with the bear so close to her. I wonder if she was more worried about her hard-earned, spilled berries. Anyways, we all got away unharmed. We didn't stop berry picking. Instead, my aunt took us to another one of her favorite berry-picking spots. I love that we grew up with traditional values such as subsistence and respect for others and the land.

Mouth-watering blueberries! Not the store-bought flavorless blueberries. These are the real deal!

It's not uncommon to bump into brown bears in the summer, especially when berry picking. My family and I live 4 miles on the outskirts of Unalakleet. This summer we had a mother brown bear and her two cubs visiting our backyard several times. Another couple of brown bears were spotted in the vacinity as well. I don't worry too much about them because our house is surrounded by heavy equipment and we don't leave food lying around. Also, my husband is pretty protective and has several rifles ready in case bears came too close.

Brown bear family that was spotted around our house this summer

Unalakleet...small town, but big living!

This is my town. It may be small, but it's all I know. In a town of 750 people, everyone knows everyone's business (who's pregnant, who's the dad of who, who recently got booze off of Everts, etc etc etc). Much of the town is related to one another. Everyone waves "Hi" to one another as they pass by so when us villagers go into the "big city" (Anchorage), we might catch ourselves accidentally waving to strangers that drive past us and give us funny looks like "do I know you?"

There are no time constraints. There is no traffic so we can get to work in a matter of minutes. Our kids can play outdoors anywhere in town without parents having to worry about them getting kidnapped. Everyone in town looks out for each others' kids.

Posing in front of Whaleback

I'm not saying life is perfect in the village. We pay the price... literally. Everything is so expensive. Last year a gallon of gas was $6.62. A gallon of milk costs about $13. A dozen eggs costs $5. Cereal costs between $6-$10 a box. Life isn't perfect, but it's a lifestyle that I've become accustomed to.

There is so much beauty to my town. We live right next to the ocean so we have great views of sunsets and the nearby island, Besboro.

Besboro Island enveloped by a beautiful sunset :)

Local smokehouse

We can walk out our front door and go berry picking for blueberries, salmonberries, cranberries, and blackberries.

Mmm!!! We are so blessed to have fresh fruit right out our front door!

Keane is a champ berry picker!

To the east and west of our village we have an abundance in seafood (salmon, trout, crab, beluga, and seal).

My son Keane (age 9) is such a good provider. One of his many silvers he caught last summer.

Our providers (husband) take their snowmachines up north to fill our freezers with caribou in the springtime. In the fall, many of us go out boating or drive up the road to look for bull moose. Much of our freezer space is filled with food that we subsist for locally. It's not only a matter of saving money, but it's a way of life.

Unalakleet is my hometown. It's where I grew up and it's where I will raise my kids and where they will raise their kids and so on.