Location: NOME!
Time: 10 PM
Hello from Nome! Remember, there’s no place like -NOME! We arrived here
about 6 PM. I can’t believe that we are at the final destination for the Iditarod
Trail. Of course, we are way ahead of the mushers. They probably won’t start
arriving until Tuesday. This year’s race will take longer than last year, because
of the trail having so little snow in many parts. The other factor in slowing
it down is the temperature. As I have said, they prefer to run when it’s colder.
This morning when we got up and went out to see Unalakleet, I finally felt
like I was in Alaska! It was cold! The wind blowing in from the Norton Sound
is amazing! One of the native people told us that the name Unalakleet means
"where the east wind blows.”" Great name! He pointed out there is
not much snow. In fact, he said, “It is like a desert, a cold, dry desert.”
I asked him what he remembered as the coldest it had ever been, and he said,
“In 1985, it was 56 degrees below zero, and that is without wind. There is
no wind when it’s that cold.” He also said in the summer it sometimes gets
to about 80 degrees, but it’s usually in the 50’s and 60’s.
Today the temperature was 15 degrees, but it felt well below zero with the
wind chill. I wore all of my clothes today! The only part of me that was cold
was my face, right around my nose. Do you remember the white fur patch on my
large heavy mittens? That came in very handy today, to warm up my nose!
We walked around this coastal village this morning taking pictures. Many
of the people here have a subsistence style of life. That means they pretty
much live off of the land. They fish and hunt
and make use of as many of the materials at hand as they can. In the photos
you can see caribou hides drying, a
cache to store food in, structures to dry fish on and lots of fishing
boats pulled up along the beach. Look at the picture of what looks like
an airplane body. That’s what it is! It was no
longer able to fly, so they somewhat buried it and use it for storage.
After lunch Rick Ried had us hop on his ATV and he took us over to visit
the school. He and his wife Linda both work for the school department. She
teaches fifth grade and he is in charge of maintenance.
Like all of the schools we have seen here in Alaska, this one too was beautiful!
I took pictures in the first and second
grades. Everything looked just like Belmont! One difference I noticed
in the school was that the cafeteria serves both breakfast and lunch, and there
is no charge.
We spoke to several people in the school. There was a middle school teacher
with a group of her students working in their classroom. They were finishing
up some projects for a Science Fair to be held tomorrow evening.
She told us that every child in the school learns the native language and
culture, starting in ECC (early childhood class) and right through 5th
grade. From 6th through 12th they can choose to study
it more, or they can choose another area – like music or art.
We were surprised to see so many people in the building on a Sunday! There
were lots of people of all ages in the school gym, shooting hoops. I took a
picture of the youngest one. Ryder was happily
clutching the ball while his parents played nearby.
When we left the school we went back to check on the checkpoint. There
were local children waiting to get signatures from us. I spoke to Farrel, a
6th grader, Rachel, a 5th grader, Jason a second grader
and Jalen, a first grader. See if you can decide who is who
in the picture! They were all born here in Unalakleet. Farrell and Jason
are brothers, and they said they have been to Anchorage and neighboring villages.
They all love when the Iditarod comes to town, because so many people are visiting
their village, and it’s exciting. They told us that they like school, and they
just finished something called “The Battle of the Books.”
This is a reading contest between about 10 villages. They thought Unalakleet
had done very well, but they weren’t sure. "Maybe we came in second",
Farrel said. He thought that the two best books to read were Balto and
Stone Fox. The others seemed to agree.
When we got back to Brown’s Lodge, our Unalakleet "home", we
had to make a decision. Bill, our pilot, said that bad weather was coming in,
and we could either stay in Unalakleet, and perhaps not get out for a day or
two, or leave right away for Nome.
What we wanted to do was to stay there another night because there had been
no one in yet today to the checkpoint, and the action was to begin later in
the afternoon. In fact, Doug Swingley, the leader of the pack, was due in shortly.
It was a hard decision, but we opted for leaving and getting to Nome safely.
So, we packed up and boarded the plane. We circled over the checkpoint as Swingley
came in, but I couldn’t get any pictures. It was too quick.
We flew up to the north and over to the west, following the coastline.
There was magnificent scenery when we weren’t in the clouds. It was a bit scary
to me when we briefly flew over the open water of the
Bering Sea. I felt much safer when we hugged the coastline, as rugged as
it was! You can see some of the views from the plane, including the checkpoint
of Safety and an aerial view
of Nome. Safety is the last checkpoint before Nome. Good name, isn’t
it?
We arrived safely into the Nome airport,
and went to the Nome Nugget, our new hotel. My husband and I stayed here in
the summer of 1995. It looks quite different now, all set up for the Iditarod.
I’ll take some pictures of Nome tomorrow. It’s a real neat town!
My last photo for the day is a beautiful sunset
over the sea. My alarm is set for 3 AM. I am still trying to see the Northern
Lights!
Good night, from Mrs. McClintock |
