Tales of Teaching in the Alaska Bush: Berry Picking

The week before school started was just insane. Trying to get my classroom ready and prepare myself for the first day of school was an overwhelming task. My classroom had previously been a social studies room and was filled with TONS of history, geography, and general social studies books. There was a very minuscule amount of language arts materials, and there was no classroom library or resources for one (in my room at least). So I didn't just have to organize and arrange my classroom the way I wanted it, I had to change my entire room over from social studies to language arts. I literally had to empty out the whole classroom, putting all of the books, posters, furniture, supplies, etc. that I did not need/want into the hallway for the maintenance men to pick up. (Thank the Lord for the maintenance men!) I was at the school working late into the night (usually somewhere between 10pm and 12:30am) almost every night trying to get ready, and then I would have to be up early again the next morning for more training. It was EXHAUSTING! And that was just my classroom, that didn't even include getting prepared to actually TEACH! Needless to say, in the middle of this week of insanity I needed a break!

From the first day we had arrived in Chevak, it had pretty much been raining or cloudy every day. Thankfully, in the middle of our teacher work week we had a respite from the rain and there was a gloriously sunny, warm, and beautiful day. We did not need convincing to take advantage of the nice weather and take a break to do some berry picking. Falon, Stephanie's daughter Zoe, and I went together. Falon and I had not been yet, but Zoe had, so she was our little guide :) It was just what we needed!

The tundra behind our apartments

These are the plumbing pipes that run throughout the whole village. You can hear it when water (and other things) go whooshing through them. Crossing our fingers that they don't freeze up (at least not for TOO long) this winter. Then we'll be on honey buckets. It will definitely be an adventure! :D
But we'll just wait and see what happens.

The lake and the village.

A picture at the end of the lake.

A picture across the lake to the village houses.

Looking back at the school and the edge of teacher housing.

Making our way out to pick berries with Zoe leading the way.

The tundra had a few ponds and marshy areas hidden throughout.

The mountains in the distance.

The tundra and some water in the distance. Those buildings off to the left are at the airport runway.

Tundra

You can literally look out over the tundra and see for miles. It's so weird, and so not what I am used to. I am used to looking out and seeing mountains surrounding me on every side. I actually had a really interesting conversation with one of the school board members about the tundra. He said that he has driven through Palmer and on the Alaskan Highway and he felt suffocated and claustrophobic because there were mountains and trees everywhere and he couldn't see over them like he can on the tundra. I had not thought about it that way until I talked to him. It was really interesting to hear his perspective. I love and miss my mountains, but the tundra is beautiful too, just in a different way.

One of the little pond areas.

Mountains in the distance.

Looking back at the lake and the village after walking a ways.

That thing that looks like a grassy mound inside the fenced area is actually a sod house. It is built the way they used to build shelters a long time ago. Sometimes they have native dancing or story telling inside. I have not been in it yet, but I hope to get a chance soon.

Berries!

The old airport.

The backside of teaching housing and the school.

The tundra and the mountains.

Tundra.

Zoe leading the way. We let her walk across the marshy part

first to make sure there were no sink holes before we followed :)

That pinkish looking berry near the ground is a salmon berry.

Pop a squat and start picking!

Zoe and Falon scoping out the berries.

Falon working on filling up her bowl.

Trying to pick the good ones :)

I'm pretty sure we picked salmon berries, black berries, and bear berries (not as good as black berries).

Cheese!

Falon found a comfortable spot to pick berries from. The tundra is actually very soft and springy, so it was pretty comfy to plop down and pick some berries, however, it was a tad bit damp....oh well :)

Zoe's a goofball.

Looking back towards the school and teacher housing.

Woohoo! I got 1/4 of a sandwich bag full! ;-)

I didn't actually pick that many, but we didn't go with the purpose of picking a lot of berries, we just went for the sake of getting outside in the sunshine and having some fun!