Ghost village ruins of an Inupiat home constructed from ship timbers, sod and the bones of Bowhead Whales. Tikigaq, Alaska September 3, 2011
Saltwater inundation caused by an encroaching sea forced the people of Point Hope to relocate further inland down Tikigaq Peninsula a few decades ago, but I am told that as recently as the 1970’s a few people still inhabited homes such as the one above. In fact, on at least one such structure we saw, there was a junction box for electricity. Along with these igloos (a term which refers not just to structures made of ice, but to any dome-shaped Inupiat dwelling), there were other more familiar-looking homes in old Tikigaq, but those too have long been abandoned to decay back into the Arctic tundra.
The Bones of Tikigaq Whaling Festival Site, Point Hope, Alaska. The larger bones presented as arches are the jawbones of Bowhead Whales. Traditionally, the skull is returned to the sea so that the whale’s spirit is properly released. Point Hope, Alaska, August 12, 2012
Our first view of Point Hope, Alaska – 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle (August 1, 2011)
Modern-day Point Hope is located on a narrow peninsula hooking into the Chukchi Sea. In the not-so-distant past, the village was further out on the peninsula, but erosion caused by an encroaching sea has wiped away a good bit of the peninsula, and the old village, called Tikigaq (which means index finger – for the peninsula’s shape), was relocated further inland due to seawater inundation. With evidence of habitation going back at least nine thousand years, Tikigaq Peninsula is regarded as one of the very oldest continuously inhabited sites in North America.
The very essence of an Alaskan bush village is its isolation and remoteness. The only road leading out of Point Hope, Seven Mile Road, ends abruptly a good bit less then seven miles: 250 miles from Barrow, 572 miles to Fairbanks, 694 miles from Anchorage. Thus Point Hope exists as a neatly lain out grid of homes and other buildings surrounded on two sides by water and on one by the vast Arctic tundra. Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes are regular visitors. To experience life in a place so thoroughly separated from the rest of the world is perspective changing – and in an unexpected way, exhilarating.
Large ocean-going barges freight in everything from the school bus – which keeps children safe from both frostbite and Polar Bears – to heavy equipment and building supplies; planes bring in smaller items, including groceries and mail. Hunting and gathering provide a great deal of additional food. This subsistence take includes Bowhead and Beluga whale meat and blubber, caribou, ducks, geese, ptarmigan, salmon, char and grayling along with cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) a few blueberries and in some families, seaweeds.
Photographs in coming days will show more of the village and perhaps lend some insight into life there. Thanks for reading.
A number of families kept teams of dogs, and during the wintertime holidays there were dog sled races. These were short races of perhaps a few miles. The speed and skill demonstrated was incredible. December 27, 2010
Blueberry picking on the Arctic tundra. This photograph was used in a Ted Talk about Climate Change. Sarichef Island, September, 2010
As is the case anywhere one might go, there are multiple realities in Shishmaref – or in any bush village. Some of these realities fit together neatly in a positive and even happy manner, like smiling faces after berry picking on a pleasantly crisp fall morning. Some realities exist more as collective memories, and you’d have to dig and observe closely to find their vestiges. Other realities contradict and clash and it can be difficult to understand how they are connected to the broader cultural, and still other realities go mostly undiscussed – pretended away – as they seep into village fabric like a sludgy toxin.
A reality in the “sludgy toxin” category in most bush communities we are familiar with are the schools. For anyone who was fortunate enough to be educated in a fairly decent k-12 system, or who has taught in such schools, the level of professional misfeasance and malfeasance – the combination of indifference, incompetence and outright corruption in Alaska’s bush schools – would probably defy belief. Before coming to Alaska, Barbra and I taught in good schools in the lower 48. So we know what that looks like. Nothing in that experience prepared us for what we encountered in the Alaskan Bush. The blame, when one talks to many teachers and administrators in bush Alaska, is placed on the children themselves and their parents. These educators and administrators spin their tales to state legislators, the governor’s office, department of education officials, university education departments and anyone else who asks, and Alaska’s state legislators, the governor’s office, department of education officials and university personnel nod along, agreeing that little can be done to improve matters.
But the reality is that any of the schools we taught in, visited or heard about from others could have easily… and I emphasize easily… been improved with a bit of competent administration. The acquiescence to self-serving fictions among Alaska’s leadership – the phony wistful sighs followed by reassurances among themselves that the problems can’t be fixed, so therefore they aren’t obliged to try – continues year after year.
Because it is easy to dismiss these bush schools and the Native communities they serve. After all, these are other people’s children.
Thank you for allowing me to finally get that off my chest. Comments, as always, are welcome. JD
In bush communities such as Shishmaref, virtually everything comes into the village either by plane or by barge. Trucks, boats, hondas*, snowmachines*, pipes, building materials, food, clothing, clothing washers, bags of chips, cases of pop, birthday presents… It’s not practical to ship out empty detergent bottles, worn out dryers, broken down vehicles or broken toys. So most of the refuse goes to a local dump. In these modern times, when most of what is consumed takes a very long time to return to its elemental or mineral form, whatever isn’t burned remains there – buried or piled high. And there it will remain till the sea comes one day. (Photograph by Barbra Donachy, October 31, 2010)
* “Honda” is the Alaskan term for quad or ATV. “Snowmachine” is Alaskan for snowmobile. Out in the bush, bicycles are often called pedal bikes to distinguish them from hondas/ATVs, which are also often called bikes.
An abandoned home in Shishmaref faces an encroaching sea.
It is reported that since 1969, the ocean has eaten away 200 feet of land along the coast of already tiny Sarichef Island where Shishmaref is located. In the past, a sheet of ice forming in fall and lasting through spring kept the Chukchi sea blanketed and calm. Warming sea temperatures in the Arctic mean the ocean is freezing later. When fall and winter storms occur, packing winds that have traveled uninterrupted over thousands of miles of open sea, the surf thus generated claws at the barrier island without mercy. Particularly violent storms can rip away massive chunks of land. Entire homes have been washed away, a fate this abandoned house appears to be facing. Photograph: October 10, 2010
To imagine Shishmaref, begin with Sarichef Island where the village is situated. Sarichef is one of several low-lying barrier islands running for about 70 miles along the northwest shore of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. If you’ve ever been to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, you have some idea of such islands. Sand is everywhere. The above photo depicts a section of the main thoroughfare traversing this village of about 570 residents. There are no roads connecting Shishmaref with the larger world. Vehicles and building materials arrive primarily by ocean barge. Groceries are freighted in by plane. Because of the added freight costs, everything in the small local store is quite expensive. Pink salmon and Dolly Varden Char which migrate along the beach, seals taken from the nearby sea, and Musk Oxen, Caribou, an occasional Moose and waterfowl along with blueberries and Cloudberries taken from the mainland supplement most diets.
In 2010-2011 when we lived there, virtually the entire community was without the kind of city plumbing considered necessary in most of North America. The white plastic container near the middle of the street is where “honey buckets” are emptied into. These containers are then taken to a settling lagoon. Most houses have large water tanks of up to about 300 gallons which must regularly be refilled. The closest village is Wales, population about 145, over 70 roadless miles down the coast.
When we first came to Alaska back in 2009, you could still make the 49 mile drive from Cordova to the Million Dollar Bridge (the Bridge to Nowhere). Across the broad, swift, roily Copper River, massive Childs Glacier towered. We had just completed the Salmon Jam half-marathon. Along with another couple, we rented a car and made the drive out through the vast delta wetlands along a mostly unpaved rough, pot-holed road – Trumpeter Swans, other waterfowl, beaver lodges, bear scat and even a couple of moose along the way, distant mountains, our eyes wide with Alaska wow.
Barbra was our primary photographer in those days. We had identified an area that was active, popping and cracking, sloughing off showers of ice. “That entire face is going to go,” I predicted. Barbra set up the camera on a tripod and programmed it to take a shot every second. (The result was like a stop action film.) Shortly after the above shot was made, a wave of five or six feet came barreling toward us with a speed that caught us off guard. I grabbed the tripod as we scrambled for higher ground. Back in Cordova, upon seeing the photos on our camera a Forest Service Ranger told us we had witnessed a “once in every five years or so event.”
The flower petals have dropped. Tiny, hard berries are taunting me with their promise. It will be quite some time before they will be ripe and ready for picking. Normally, when I can’t stand the wait for this summer’s fruit, I usually have last year’s berries stashed in my freezer to bake with while I oh-so-patiently wait for this year’s fruit to mature. With the move this year, we gifted our stash to friends at the Lake. So, I wait.
We all know I’m not really going to wait to play in the kitchen. 😉 Now that I have not one, but two grocery stores nearby, I don’t have to keep a stocked pantry like we did at the Lake. But pantry items do drive inspiration. We mailed quite a bit of dry goods that we hadn’t used up. Boxes of pasta, pounds of rice and cans of pumpkin puree didn’t trigger any ideas. There was this bag of mini-marshmallows tucked away. I had purchased them for hot cocoa. What about hot cocoa cookies? Rocky road bars? Marshmallow thumbprints? None of these ideas appealed to me. Then I thought s’mores! I am a s’mores fan, but only in small quantities. I enjoy the summertime fireside treat in ones or twos. What if the essence of chocolate, graham crackers, and toasted marshmallows were featured in cookies instead of their original over-sweet form? The result? A chewy cookie with bursts of chocolate, crunches of graham cracker, and bites of gooey marshmallow.
The recipe was a successful distraction until the real show starts. (C’mon berries!) Between now and then, I will keep myself occupied with processing spruce tip syrup. And maybe figuring out a way to bake with pasta, rice, and pumpkin? Or not.
Double Chocolate S’more Cookies – small batch
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup mini marshmallows (and a few extra for finishing)
1 sheet graham cracker, roughly chopped
Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
Mix in vanilla.
Mix in egg.
Slowly add in flour mixture. Mix until incorporated.
Fold in chocolate chips, marshmallows and chopped graham cracker.
I used a 1 1/2 tbsp cookie scoop to spoon out 12 portions of dough to place on prepared cookie sheet.
Bake cookies for 10 minutes.
Quickly remove baking sheet from oven and add a few more marshmallows on each cookie. Place back in the oven for 2 additional minutes.
When done, cookies will be firm on the edges and soft in the middle. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on sheet before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
