An Excuse for Adventure

How often do we live in a place and not take full advantage of all the great things around us? I know I do way too often. I realize that we have jobs and responsibilities to uphold and it never hurts to have a little down time, but looking back more often than not I realize I could have done a little more with that day, or a little more with that week. Well…I definitely don’t have that excuse this past weekend. What a great extended weekend!

This past Thursday as I might have mentioned in my previous blog, Jess arrived in beautiful sunny downtown Bethel. After three flights, eight hours of flying, an extended layover in the Anchorage International Airport, six bags of peanuts, two crying babies, and a partridge in a pair tree; Jess finally arrived in the last frontier. With her, she brought Mother Natures graceful sunshine (at least for a few days) and some warmer temperatures. Immediately upon her arrival, I whisked her around Bethel like a kindergartner showing their parents their school for the first time. Trying to look cool, calm and in control, I immediately drove her across the ice road in hopes of showing her what a “wild man” I have become throughout our several months of separation. What Jess doesn’t realize is that behind my charming smile and cool demeanor, I am just as nervous as she is about getting on and off the river during spring conditions. (One of the keys to life…don’t let em see you sweat). Our first day was filled with long walks, stories about the dogs, gossip about friends, griping about the cost of groceries, yoga class, and of course conversation about the weather. Of course lying, I say “You know how lucky you are it’s not like -100 Jess. I used to think that was cold, but now it’s like a refreshing ocean breeze.”

After a long walk and seeing me shiver in the nice temperatures, Jess picked up on my white lies and we got on with our trip. The last weekend in March is historically one of the busier weekends all year in Bethel between the Camai Dance Festival, the sled dog camp out race, and another sprint sled dog race. Camai is an annual three-day dance festival celebrating Alaskan Native tradition and heritage. Dance groups from all over the world and YK Delta fly, drive and snow machine in to participate in this historic festival. Dance groups range everywhere from the Midnight Cloggers (twelve middle aged white homemakers from Anchorage) to local villagers dancing away in praise to commemorate the good salmon catch this past summer.

On Saturday, Jess and I followed up the teams for the annual camp-out sled race. The camp-out race consists of about seven-eight teams that stroll up river casually Saturday, camp-out, have a little party and Sunday race back to Bethel. Thanks to Jerry’s generosity and an invention called studded snow tires; Jess and I followed the dogs (and people) up river Saturday for about two hours before turning back. The ice road was in good condition, but I found myself at least once throwing the truck in reverse after hearing some ice pop to go ask some native fisherman if the ice was thick enough to drive. The answer was always yes…but it always feels good to have some reassurance.

By far one of the highlights of Jess’s trip to Bethel was having the opportunity to participate in some manuking (aka ice fishing) and snow machining. If you were to look up the term manuking in the dictionary it would probably say something like…the art of standing still in very cold temperatures for long periods of time, with a line tied to a stick bobbing up and down in hopes of catching a semi frozen fish. Regardless, it was a great time had by all and my first time manuking in Alaska. In total, we caught about 10 fish between the five of us. Of course, Jess had three fish pulled out of the ice before I even had my first bite. I think she is still a bit bitter as I was forced to steal her pole “stick” and fishing hole while she was in the truck warming up in order to have some luck of my own. The secret to manuking is fish eyeballs. Once we had our first catch, we popped both eyes out of the Pike, put them on our hooks and the rest was easy. Here fishy fishy….

Keeping with our trend of frozen sports, Jess and I also had the chance to do some snow machining up river and through the sloughs on Tuesday. Everyone else in the world calls it snowmobiling, but here in AK they call it snow machining or snow-going. Thanks to the generosity of one of our foundations board members Frank, Jess and I were equipped with two beautiful machines. Frank was even nice enough to lend Jess and I his beaver skin hats and bunny boots to complete the full food chain ensemble! Snow machining can be an absolute blast if one is equipped for the weather as Jess and I were. These machines are getting pretty sophisticated these days as well. It might sound crazy flying across a frozen bumpy river at sixty miles an hour; but I assure you it is completely feasible and safe and can even be accomplished with heated thumb warmers on your machine.

Good company makes all the difference in the world. It brightens your day, gives you someone else to talk to besides two dogs and creates a perfect excuse to get out of your routine and shake things up a bit. Overall, it was a great extended weekend with Jess and a nice way to finish off the remaining weeks of winter. Bethel is a hard place to describe to someone over the phone or blog. People always ask what I love most about Bethel and in many regards it’s the same things I don’t like about Bethel. It’s remote and quiet, very simple, embodies a small town feel and makes you appreciate the small things in life. But at the end of the day if you have a love for the outdoors, it’s pretty tough not to enjoy the worlds biggest frozen playground right out your backdoor.