Wishbone Lake Observation Journal

For my class this semester (Traditional Ecological Knowledge), one of the assignements was to go to an outdoor place, away from people and civilization, and just spend time there, alone. No phone. No dog. Just be. This was my resulting essay: 

Everywhere you go, there you are. As I sat in my camp chair in the middle of frozen Wishbone Lake, I had time to reflect on the space and time of my visit. 

It was a 10-mile snowmachine ride into the backcountry of the Talkeetna Mountains right behind our house. My husband and I took separate machines and he led the way, having explored that area a couple of weeks prior to my starting these observations. Even on Saturday afternoons, we seldom saw another soul on the well-worn trail through the trees, across creeks, and past ragged cliff faces. Recovering from achilles surgery, the vibration of the motor had a healing sensation on my foot, and I enjoyed the rides immensely. 

Once out on the lake, I set up my chair on the trail behind my machine and settled in to enjoy the peace and quiet that is so much a part of the last frontier while my husband continued on down the trail to give me some alone time for the next hour. 

As the silence closed in around me, my tinnitus heightened, and I found myself wishing for wind. On one occasion, the wind answered, bringing snow along for the ride. As I sat there, in the middle of the lake, I tried to see how much snow would pile up on me before the torn discs in my lower back begged me to move. The flakes were small, but my dark jacket and snow pants allowed for close examination of the hexagon shapes, each different and unique. I love the wind. I love the feel of it. I love the sound of it. I loved watching it roll through the trees and across the snowblown lake, creating drifts and shallows as it went. 

In all my time there, I never saw an animal, not a bird, not a sound. There were tracks, moose and rabbit, maybe a fox here or there. We saw wolf tracks on the trail on the way in, which made me feel the need to look behind me now and again as I sat there. I wondered if there was some being just inside the treeline, hunkered down, watching me and wondering what I was doing. Was a crossfox curiously scurrying from tree to tree? If he was there, I did not see him or hear him. Perhaps it was a she, fattened with kits, heading back to her den with a mouse or a vole who had met his demise. 

I couldn’t have been more than 5 miles from a blacktop road, just a couple of miles from a gravel road neighborhood and a lake, 17-mile Lake, filled with ice fishermen, women, and children. It was because of this that the complete silence took me by surprise. I noticed that I couldn’t even hear Gregg coming back until he had come over the top of ridge. 

I’ve only been to Wishbone Lake in the winter, this winter. I look forward to driving the 4-wheeler into it this summer, though, from the look of it, there may be some wet crossings that will add to the adventure. I wonder… will there be birds chirping in the trees in the summer? Will there be fish jumping in the lake? Will an occasional moose dare to show its face at the water’s edge? For now, the lake is sleeping. It’s tucked in under a thick blanket of snow, silently sleeping. 

The lake sits in a sort of hollow, surrounded by mountain peaks, and makes me grateful that this is in my backyard; we had driven the snowmachines straight from our house to this wild place. The hills that rise up from the edge of the lake are tree covered, but the craggy mountaintops are just beyond. I would say that I’m lucky, but really, luck had nothing to do with it. A lot of hard work and dream chasing brought me to that very spot on Wishbone Lake. There, I was. Everywhere I go, there I am.

CCS 612 Reaction Paper 4

I'm taking CCS 612 (Cross-Cultural Studies: Traditional Ecological Knowledge) as a step toward my PhD in Indigenous Studies.

This is a reaction to Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future by Melissa K. Nelson.

This week’s chapter readings (Nelson) gave me a lot to think about. I came away from it thinking about the positive impact that indigenous knowledge, native science, could have on western civilization if only the concept of colonization could be wiped clean. As I type this, I’ve got my hair pulled up because my face is covered with a greasy salve that I bought from a lady in Nome. The salve doesn’t have a name and she makes it with local ingredients. It’s a healing ointment for dry skin, psoriasis, and such, and my face is just flaking away from dryness, partly because of physical therapy in a pool once/week and partly because it’s just so dry this time of year. I’ve had the salve for several years and seldom use it. Instead, I turn to mass-produced lotions and skin care, but the face creams I’ve been using don’t seem to be helping at all, and I saw this little jar in my medicine cabinet today and thought, “Well, duh! Isn’t this just what I’ve been reading about? Native science!” It seems like just a bad habit that I fall into, searching for answers on Amazon or in storefronts. I’ve been making a concerted effort lately to really pay attention to what food and drink I’m putting into my body, so it only makes sense to pay attention to what I’m putting on it, as well.

In Chapter 18, Mohawk was talking about food as medicine, and it made me pause and think about the floral jellies that I make. I research edible flowers and then grow them from seed, harvest the petals, and make jelly. I’ve learned a lot over the last few years about nutritional, even medicinal, benefits of many of the flowers. Some of the flowers, I harvest in the wild, like Fireweed and Dandelion. I also find it fun to learn what the different flavors are that come from the flowers. Nasturtium jelly tastes like nectarines. Black Pansy jelly tastes like blackberries. Calendula jelly tastes lemony. Bachelor Button jelly tastes like strawberries. There are more that I have discovered, but I’ll stop here. Last summer, when my then 3-year-old grandson was walking with me through the garden, I would pick petals off of this flower or that one and give them to him to eat. The raw petals don’t have much flavor, but it was fun to teach him that he could eat grandma’s flowers. When Mohawk wrote about elders being a repository of knowledge, it made me think about that day and about how my daughters, and even my sister, often call me for advice or information regarding cooking, baking, and gardening. Before my dad passed, he would also call me with questions about those things. Now, I get to start passing on that knowledge to my grandchildren and it’s difficult to describe the feeling of leaving an almost tangible impression on other humans to carry with them long after I’m gone.

In Chapter 19, Nelson was talking about being Ojibwe and the deep meaning behind the annual wild rice harvest. I spent some time teaching at a BIA school on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe reservation in northern Wisconsin, and students were often “in class” outside of the classroom in the mornings. In the fall, often coinciding with the beginning of the school year, was the wild rice harvest. This pulled students into the local lakes and waterways until late morning on most days. However, the integration of Traditional Ojibwe Knowledge into the regular school day was the key lifeline for those students. The reward was having wild rice for lunch! The K-12 school had no more than 100 students when I was there in 2005-2007, and the cafeteria cooks made lunch from scratch every day, and the menu depended on the season. However, whenever they said we were having a feast, it meant that wild rice was on the menu. In that culture, if you had wild rice, you were livin’ large. Fall also meant deer hunting, so it was not unusual for us to have venison with our wild rice. Duke mentioned this same feast tradition in Chapter 22. It brought back good memories and a hunger for wild rice!

I loved how Rivera, Chapter 20, put it when he said that the Andeans would have a conversation with wild plants before, during, and after harvest. It reminded me of picking berries on the tundra behind our cabin on the Unalakleet River. Hundreds, probably thousands, of acres of blueberries, salmon berries, cranberries, black berries (crow berries) all mixed in together. There was a special time in late summer and early fall when I could go out to the tundra and sit in one spot and pick all 4 kinds of berries within arm’s reach. I was always alone, the spot being 12 miles from town, so I would often sing or just talk to the berries and the mountains in the distance, partly because it made me feel a connection with the earth and partly because I didn’t want a bear or a wolf to just happen upon me out there.

Memories of my own ocean food gathering were brought to mind as I read Ross’ Chapter 21. When I lived in Homer, we would go digging for razor clams in September. Earlier in the summer, we would go across the bay to camp. While over there, we would scour the boulders at low tide for mussels and butter clams which would be steamed and served with a coconut curry broth and big hunks of fresh French bread. It was so delicious that I can taste it as I type. Ross also emphasized thinking small - home gardens, using what’s around on the land and in the water, and steering clear of big-business food products. It’s all so true and I’ve lived most of my adult life according to that very principal. My daughters, having been raised with gardens, now have their own gardens and are teaching their children about organic (native) home-grown food. Food gathering can also be a fun, family experience like when I go blueberry picking with my daughter and grandson out at Hatcher’s Pass. We have made it an annual family tradition. This coming Saturday, we (my husband, myself, my daughter, her husband, and my grandson) are all going ice-fishing together. I love that we do those things together. Bonding over the catching and harvesting of food is food for the soul in itself.

Finally, in Chapter 23, when Mohawk talked of the fragility of a high tech civilization, it made me reflect on how thankful I am for the modern conveniences that we now have, that we didn’t have when living offgrid in the 400sf cabin on the Unalakleet River. Much like the Andeans, I have conversations with my appliances on a regular basis. I don’t know that I’ll ever turn on a tap for warm running water again and not be grateful for it. I’m thankful every time I open the refrigerator to get a cold glass of iced tea. I’m so very thankful to have ice in the summer, not just in the winter. The robot vacuum, dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer - I’m very spoiled now, but I am thankful. However, the fragility of it all is not lost on me. I’ll always garden, hunt, fish, gather, and put up all that I can.

Food is medicine and so is the acquisition of that food. Mindfulness in all steps of the process is as nourishing as it is healing. Now is the time to extend that thought pattern to medicine for the external. Over the last couple of years, I have been learning about essential oils and rely on my homemade roll-ons to ease back pain, capsules to ease stomach pain, and cleaners to keep my home as nontoxic as possible. Why didn’t I turn to that healing salve first? From now on, I will.

Stormy Seas

 

This morning, in the weekly email that the Mat-Su College Campus Director sends out to all faculty, he described a recent Kenai Fjords boat tour that he had taken. It was a stormy day for a boat ride, and he was prone to seasickness. However, the day afforded him a once-in-a-lifetime look at Fin Whales and he closed his description with, "I was happy to have the open seas behind me, but the pictures are a reminder of the unknowns yet to be discovered way out there. ... I think this is a hard time to feel like you can do much of anything. If you have to be someplace during a global pandemic, then Alaska appears to be the right place. Bad beginnings don't always mean bad endings, it helps to keep on moving forward."

I identified so much with his analogy of being in the midst of a storm on the open sea that I sent him this response:

Thank you so much for this. You have no idea, or perhaps you do, how much I needed to hear/read this today. I, too, have questioned a big decision that I recently made, the decision to teach WRTG 110 even though it would be 100% online.

My husband and I moved to the road system, Sutton, just about a year ago from Unalakleet. More specifically, we lived 8 miles up the Unalakleet River from the village in an offgrid, 400sf cabin that he built 25 years ago. We were the only people who lived on the river year-round, but at 63 (him) and 52 (me), it was time to stop hauling water and climbing the side of a mountain to get to the outhouse. Actually, the social isolation had become more than I could bear, yearning for a life of book clubs, time with grandkids, and having guests over for dinner, I was even looking forward to teaching in a classroom again. I had been teaching online for UAF's Bristol Bay Campus for two years at that point. You read that right - when I cranked up our small, portable generator, I could get perfect internet capabilities in the middle of nowhere.

When January came, and our feet were firmly planted in Sutton, the idea of teaching at Mat-Su College was like a dream come true. Teaching WRTG 090 and 110 in the classroom that semester felt good, and being able to have that face-to-face connection with students was just what I needed. Then, Spring Break came. And went. Along with it went my face-to-face classes. Thankfully, having a background in online teaching helped the students and me to muddle through the rest of the semester.

Disheartened but determined when UA announced that the fall semester would be online, I signed the contract to teach WRTG 110. When 22 students initially registered, I was surprised. I asked all students to email a brief blurb to me describing their personal situation, why they were taking the class, etc., as I always do with online classes. When I read that my students were scattered from Anchorage to Qatar and most with little or no college or online class experience, I could see the storm coming and I was headed directly into the open seas.

Knowing that there would be no protected areas to shelter me from this storm, I steadied myself and set my course. I began to teach technology in tandem with writing. I was tasked with teaching students about rubrics, Blackboard, Zoom, Youtube, subtitles, Google docs, and... the waves just kept rolling in. Gone were the sunny days of class discussions about the assigned readings and raised hands with questions that others had and I could answer in 10 seconds. Feeling rudderless, I continued on.

In addition to now grading 20 discussion posts and replies every week (thankfully, 2 students dropped the class), there were now 20 grammar assignments to grade, because we couldn't simply go over the lesson together in class where I could gauge their understanding. Next, came the 20 reading quizzes to grade every week, because I could not simply take 3 minutes to walk around the room and look at their work or engage in a class discussion. Then came the 20 weekly exercises that needed to be graded, which would have taken the form of small group discussions in the classroom. Finally, the 20 essays come in which are often turned in off-topic because the students don't want to "bother" me with an email.

I have to believe that if the class hadn't been wide open for any UAA student to take, I would have had more control over the wind. My Spring Semester classroom had 13 students and a lot less grading. The very nature of online teaching requires more time. In addition, more students equates to even more time.

This morning, I woke to 72 assignments waiting to be graded in Blackboard from that one, single class.

Could I assign less work? Yes, but that would mean that students don't learn as much. I've already reduced the number of essays for the course. I love to teach writing, and I'm very good at it. However, stacking my class to capacity with students from all over, outside the Mat-Su area, some of whom have never taken a college course or been out of school for over a decade, most of whom have a very minimal understanding of online technology, leaves me with very little room to actually teach writing. Most days, like today, I feel like I will surely drown.

To pay an adjunct for 7 1/2 hours of work each week for a 3-credit class when there has been such a drastic change in course is akin to paying a fisherman for only those times when he's actually taking a fish off the hook.

I will continue to alter the course this semester to keep both my students and myself from going under. However, the experience has persuaded me to withdraw my name from the adjunct faculty pool, and head for safe harbor, for next semester and until we go back to in-person teaching.

Again, thank you for your timely message this morning. I hope I continue to receive them even during the time when I'm not a part of the adjunct faculty.

Clearing the Air

 I have a terrible habit of speaking the truth on social media, probably because I didn’t have a friend to vent to over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

• Two people were illegally hunting moose after dark from a moving boat on the river in front of our cabin. That post nearly got me lynched. 

• The Unalakleet River Lodge used toxic cleaners in the cabins and the lodge (that post got me banned from the lodge). They didn’t use locally sourced ingredients and they served only the cheapest cuts of meat to the hard-working guides. I told the guests how delicious moose, caribou, and halibut were. The guests, who paid $5,300 per person for one week, would never get to taste them at the lodge and I was told to shut my mouth about local game. I could have gone on and on, but I won’t.

• I could order groceries for ⅓ as much, with free delivery from Target, as they charged at the local AC grocery store. That pissed off the store managers, who were besties with the lodge owner and manager, so that contributed to my banishment from the lodge.

• There were empty whiskey bottles on the school lawn, tobacco stains on my classroom carpet, and racism was rampant in Kwethluk. That blog post brought threats from the community that were so severe that I broke my teaching contract and left the village in March.

• The Unalakleet High School pressured me to give passing grades to athletes so that they could play in sporting events. That post got me fired, or non-retained as they say in the ed biz.

Silence!

 Being silenced is a feeling that has been with me since birth. 

• My mother has a boyfriend and we go to his house for dinner, but I shouldn’t tell my dad. 

• My grandma says bad things about my mother, but I shouldn’t tell my mother. 

• My mom screams and throws things at my dad every night after I go to bed, but that’s private, family business. 

• My dad uses a credit card to break into the house when Mom is not home - shhhhh. 

• My mom slapped my face, but she’s sorry - shhhhh. 

• I want to disappear - shhhh. 

• I climb on the bathroom sink so that I can open the medicine cabinet, and I eat all of the yummy, orange, baby aspirins. Maybe they will make me sleep and never wake up, but I drop the glass bottle in the sink and Mom comes to check on me. At the hospital, they make me puke and send me home. I was just trying to disappear, but I don’t dare tell anyone that. Shhhh.

That was all before I was 8 years old, and made a powerful impression on me.

Life went on.

Don’t tell your father.

Don’t tell your mother.

Don’t say that about your stepfather.

Don’t tell the school counselor.

Don’t say that.

Don’t write that.

Don’t look at me like that.

Don’t breathe.

Don’t smile.

Don’t go.

Don’t stay.

Don’t play.

Don’t look.

Don’t listen.

Be quiet.

Be good.

Be polite.

Be subservient.

Be invisible.

You are selfish.

You are weak.

You are a bad …

You will never ....

Stand straight.

Smile with your mouth closed.

Wear a little makeup.

Run faster.

Try harder.

Writing Through the Pandemic: Week Two - 19

19 dead in a nursing home

While 18-year olds feel the need to roam

Needlessly.

In the 17th century, it was the Bubonic Plague.

16 cases under the U.S. flag

In twenty-15.

The Order spreads hate with 14 Words,

Faster than 13 antibodies spread herd

Immunity.

What will the world look like 12 months from now?

Angel Number one-11 promises to somehow

Get our attention.

The 10-day forecast calls for sun,

Gaining 9 minutes of light for each one,

While social distancing.

Greenhouse gas emissions fell 8 percent.

Of 7 Deadly Sins, the worst - indulgence,

Gluttony.

6 degrees of separation.

5 fingers of desperation

Want a handshake.

Riots revealed on Channel 4.

Wearing masks, they charge the doors

At 3 Bears.

Experts predict 2 more years

For us to listen to the music of spheres

Alone. 

Hunker Down

In an effort to get my writing juices flowing again, I have joined a Writing Through the Pandemic group sponsored by the Homer Library (Homer, Alaska). Here is my first submission...

Prompt
Make a list of 16 observations of life during the COVID-19 pandemic:
* 4 of them in your immediate living situation (your home, your food, your family dynamics, etc.)
* 4 of them beyond the borders of your home but still close (neighborhood, hiking trails nearby, grocery store, town)
* 4 of them far from home (outside news, family or friends you're in touch with, news from faraway places)
* 4 things about your life that are non-COVID related (life goes on, what are some of the circumstances of your life right now that would be true with or without the virus?)

Immediate Living Situation

1. In many ways, it feels like I’m back at our cabin on the Unalakleet River. It’s break-up and the river is unnavigable, so we are hunkered down for several weeks until we can move again. However, having just moved into our home in Sutton in December, we have a lot of projects to work on, inside and out, so it is nice to have the time, and the restrictions, to do so.
2. I haven’t been to a grocery store since March 13. Because I am one of those high risk people, my husband does all of the grocery shopping. I am a list maker, so I send him to the store with a detailed list every 10 days or so. However, he is an impulse buyer, so he always comes home with things not on the list. I joke that it’s like Chopped every night for dinner. Having lived offgrid for the last 3 years, I am used to having a stocked pantry, so this is not much of a change for us.
3. Gregg and I are used to being in close quarters together for extended periods of time, and I’m actually going to miss it when he starts work at Fish & Game on May 1. Our three dogs, garden, and greenhouse promise to keep me busy, though.
4. Since my job was mainly online before this all started (online UAF professor and holding a distance staff position as Writing Support Specialist for UAF-Bristol Bay Campus), not much has changed in that arena. However, most of my online students in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands no longer have internet access with the school’s being closed. I have learned that Distance Learning is not synonymous with Online Learning, so I email hoards of files and self-made videos to central contacts in Unalaska and Togiak which they then download onto thumb drives. The drives are then taped on an outside office door for the students to pick up. They are returned the same way, and then my contacts email the completed assignments back to me. It really took a lot of out-of-the-box thinking to figure that all out!

Neighborhood

1. Moving to Sutton last December was a chance for me to have friends again, a chance to be a part of a community, something that I hadn’t really had for 6 years or so. This place is perfect for me in that the library is the heart of the community. The good news is that even though the building is closed, the library is alive and well. The exercise class that I attended there is now via audio conference. The book club, game nights, and stitching get-togethers have been cancelled for now, and that is difficult. However, last week, the library did start checking out books again! So, I can put books on hold online, call the library before I go there, and they put the books, with my name on them, on a table outside for me to pick up. I do miss chatting with the ladies who work there, though. That’s where I met everyone I know in town.
2. Sutton’s population is small, 1,600, but mighty. We have a local general store with an attached cafe. We can buy local, fresh eggs and order take-out. We love our neighbors so we order take-out every Friday as a show of support during this time. This week, we’ve already decided that it’s going to be pizza - fresh-made crust and fresh toppings with a slightly spicy red sauce and plenty of cheese! The best part is that it’s only half a mile from our house. Again, I always send Gregg there now, so I miss the lively conversation that a small general store produces.
3. Since we live in a place carved out of the wilderness and pressed tightly between the Matanuska River to the south and the Talkeetna Mountains to the north, the backcountry is only a mile away. I hopped on the 4-wheeler yesterday to go exploring. Just being able to feel the cool wind on my face and enjoy the beauty we live in freshened my spirit.
4. Our neighborhood is in hunker down mode. We see families riding around on 4-wheelers and dirt bikes, walking dogs, and pushing strollers. We all keep our distance and wave. I am cognizant of keeping my own dog, a chocolate lab named Nuka, close when we are out for a walk. She is used to going up to people and asking for a rub, but I understand that the virus is so contagious, that that is not optimal right now. Nuka doesn’t understand.

Far Away

1. Far away has a different connotation now than it did a couple of months ago. I used to have one daughter who lived far away, in Wisconsin, and one daughter who lived close, in Eagle River. Now, they are both far away. I’m thankful for FaceTime. Sarah, in Eagle River, FaceTimed me just yesterday to ask me about gardening, since she is getting ready to sow seeds. I wish I could be beside her with my hands in the dirt next to hers, but that’s not going to happen this year.
2. April, in Wisconsin, was supposed to come visit this summer with her husband and two-year old son, but of course that has been cancelled. I haven’t seen my grandson, Jack, in over a year and it may be another year before I get the chance again. I guess I should qualify that statement by saying that I haven’t seen Jack in person, because we do FaceTime and that makes my heart sing.
3. I also keep in touch with family and friends in the far-flung corners of the Lower 48 - Lori’s in Florida, Vicki’s in Texas, Robin’s in Louisiana, Holly, my sister, is in Washington state. All of them are in the high risk category and are often frustrated by the lack of consideration that the general populations are showing in their areas by not respecting social distancing and not wearing masks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for their safety.
4. Then, there are those friends and family members who think this is overblown, a hoax, a conspiracy, or whatever. I wish I could just say, “You do you,” but I can’t. What they do affects those around them, whether it’s browsing through Walmart and then visiting older family members, spreading false news (who really knows what is fake anymore), rebuffing social distancing mandates, or refusing to wear masks. No matter what their political views, it’s still better to be selfless than careless.

Non-COVID

1. We brought home two Miniature American Eskimo puppies, a breeding pair, from Minnesota when we were there 6 weeks ago for Spring Break. They are smart and lively and we love them to pieces. I found them online and when we went to pick them up, we realized it was a puppy mill. They were scared to death and had no human socialization. We have loved them to pieces and they are cuddly little creatures now. I look forward to training them to do some fun tricks, because the breed has a history of being circus performers.
2. I have hundreds of seeds planted, waiting for the snow to melt so that they can settle into their new home in the fertile Matanuska River Valley. I love growing my own edible flowers from seeds and making flavorful and colorful jellies out of the petals, and I’m looking forward to a successful vegetable growing season after 3 failed attempts in Unalakleet!
3. Our “new” home is a 19-year-old, 1 bedroom, 1 bath (just a shower, no tub), 1,000 square foot, log cabin a stone’s throw from the river one way and a mountain range the other. It is beautiful. It is quaint. It is on a dirt road. It has modern appliances and a big kitchen. It is perfect for us.
4. Gregg and I just celebrated our 3rd Anniversary. We are happy. We are thankful.