In the light snow of the morning, we talked to a friend walking. It turned out, her son had just turned 40 on the 26th which is Andy’s birthday, too. In Ak, if you live in bush, you go to a city, most often Anchorage, one month before the baby is due. Our friend lived in the small village of Nikolai. She had not seen a doctor or any health care worker. She didn’t know when the baby was due, making the birth a surprise for her and the untrained women who assisted the birth. All she remembers is one woman asking the other,” where are the scissors?”
She also recalled her high school years at Chemawa Indian School in Salem OR. What she liked most was that they provided breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday which she didn’t have at home. Of course these “Indian” boarding schools were instrumental in the death of native languages and culture as well as families. But in the 1960s it probably was a good choice. Her other option was to move to McGrath. There was no school in Nikolai. It’s current school, with only ten students, will face closure if they lose one student. Online schooling will prevail.
We headed out on Goog’s Haul Road in the warm 30° weather. The snow fall increased and a combination of flakes and fog shortened our visibility. We had to strip a layer because trudging increased body heat. When our path arced to the south, the razors of pelting snow lashed our faces. You know that wind you can lean into. This was fun. But we had heard that Matthias had headed out on foot heading up the Innoko to a cabin. It would be easy to lose a trail, or, soaking wet, become hypothermic.
When you don’t drive or need to fly, a blizzard doesn’t pack the same wallop it once did. I read The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin a couple of years ago. Two hundred thirty-five people died, many of them children, who couldn’t make it home in the driving snow when they were released from school early, due to impending bad weather.
Mountain Peace 