Moose Catches, Cold Catches and A Couple Days of Snow

It's been a while since my last post so I figured I would update my readers on the last two weeks of my life here in the good ole frozen North. It certainly hasn't been anything too amazing for me, but my friends, the other teachers have had a few awesome events happen.

My beautiful snow angel that I made

"Mmm, this snow is so yummy!"

The first thing that happened with two of the other teachers was a week ago, on Super Bowl Sunday. You see, instead of sitting around watching people tackle each other over a pigskin like the rest of the world, two adventurous women set out on a journey to capture a mighty northern beast. Their adventure began with their native guides, one of which was a student from my class.  They set off along the path southeast of the village. While the world was waiting for power to return to the most important game of the year, shots rang out across the tundra. Two girls from the Lower 48 took aim and shot a moose each! Their very first catches ever meant a tremendous victory for each of these women. And while the exhilaration of their first kill pumped through their veins, they began the work of cutting up these magnificent animals. 

"Help me! I can't get out!!"

Your first kill in the village means donation time. After cleaning and cutting, the meat is distributed around town to those who need it; elders, families, what have you. The task at hand is not easy, but the girls managed to pass out all of their meat by eleven o'clock the following evening after having worked all day at school. It was a very exciting accomplishment for both ladies and I am proud of them.

My roommate getting her things together for her
first official dance in Potlatch this year.
She has her hat, belt, and boots here in this picture.

 Unfortunately I've been suffering from a head cold for the past few days so I wasn't able to embark on another adventure with some of my coworkers. However, they were able to go on a twenty mile drive down the river to cheer on our high school boys basketball team. Four teachers found themselves in another village, much smaller than ours. They had a wonderful time, and I was very jealous I missed out. On their way back, they almost missed the path, but thankfully made it home all in one piece before the storm blew in.

Practicing for Potlatch

We also had a visitor this week. It is always a good time when the tech guy comes, especially when we break out the dog toys. The video below is of our tug-of-war competition. The snow goggles are a safety precaution. Unfortunately I didn't get much of it because I'm still getting used to my camera, but it is a combination of tug-of-war and the Native Youth Olympic stick pull. I dare you to have as much fun as we did playing this crazy game!


 That's about it for this week's blog. I'm looking forward to two weeks from now when our village has Potlatch. I'm  sure it will be very exciting, I will have lots of pictures of that events and hopefully many more stories. My roommate will be dancing at Potlatch, which is an extreme honor. For my prayer warriors out there, please pray for me that I will get over this cold ASAP! Thanks, and God Bless!