March 2006 Archives

Here are the Lady Eagles on defense.
I hope I get to practice with these girls next season.
They played these two home games with 6 and then 5 players only. And just kept hustling. Even more apparent in their self-taught skills is the absence of a feeder program. But they just don't stop running, and with no subs available.

Another thing we noticed right off in these games was the high level of sportsmanship and respect, from both the players and the fans. My experience in small close-knit towns is that the parents can get pretty rambunctious and even mean. I had a father at Calvary Chistian swear at me when I was on the court once. But the Fort Yukon fans, though loud, were completely positive, and never yelled at the referees. Even the "wet section" as they called the set of bleachers where the rowdier adults would sit. But again--in the stands there were only positive cheerful fans who happily raced to the court at halftime to take their chance at the CakeWalk fundraiser.

These boys have recently been made quite infamous in Michael D'Orso's book Eagle Blue. A pre-publication copy floated around the town for a while, and blood boiled. We haven't read it ourselves.
But we've seen the Eagles play, in fact I'm listening to their regional championship game live on KZPA as I post this photo. It was pretty fun watching them play. Their coach has them looking pretty sharp...and although its pretty much a five person team--four seniors and one junior take the vast majority of playing time, they are quite successful. Hopefully we'll be listening to their state championship appearance next week. The level reminds me quite a bit of Class S New Hampshire. Though you can see the echos of the absense of a real competetive feeder program. There are about 12-15 kids per grade here, can you imagine spending 7,000 dollars to charter a team in from another village for fourth graders to play?

I watched this guy enjoy a treat before catching a ride back out to the airport.

Inside this cabin we held our two interviews for the Venetie home visitor position. It was heated by a big barrel stove in the middle, and was pretty toasty. Not much for insulation though, just the logs and some spray foam under the roof
We met the Venetie Second Chief here who gave some stern recommendations to Christina and I about our program and our presence in the villages. She urged us to spend more time in the villages, rather than trying to operate everything from back in comfy Fort Yukon. Good advice as we've seen evidence that previous village home visitors were being paid full time while never having actually made a real home visit.
I look forward to more time in Venetie.

When a plane lands in a small village it makes a low circle over downtown before landing, in this way the people are alerted to its arrival and will send out a vehicle to pick up the passengers. in Venetie we were met by a woman in her truck and paid her ten dollars for a ride into "town." Gas in Venetie is going for 5 dollars a gallon these days. When we were there they were on the last day of electricity rationing, as the town would receive a fuel delivery the next day, with which they could run their generator. So the electricity was being shut off for the whole town at 8pm. The cabins we flew over were pretty good size, and spread out a bit...mostly newer looking than those in Fort Yukon...at least to me.

Venetie lies on the Chandalar river, at the foot of the Brooks Range. I got to see mountains in the distance, a sight for sore eyes.

This is the plane I took with some co-workers over to Venetie to hold a couple interviews. It was flown expertly this time by Danny-boy, who was our personnal pilot for the afternoon. The take off procedure involves nothing more than throwing your backpack in the rear, walking up the wing to the copilot seat and pulling your own door shut. No taxiing, no traffic control clearance, no fighting for overhead storage space, no shutting off of cell phones. In fact the pilot just waited for us, and we left on our own schedule. During the flight we watched some folks on sno-gos below making the trip by land, three hours on the snow, about thirty five minutes in the air.

I have it on good authority that Danny-boy likes to let his passengers fly themselves if there isn't anyone else aboard. As his plane is contracted for my grantee agency (the mothership employer of the Fort Yukon: CATG) I will be flying with him lots in the future. Sitting next to him on this flight I'm pretty sure I can keep the bird in the air when I get the chance.

a sample of what's been coming out of the oven every saturday morning.