Winter Fun

The girls - Jessica, Lisa, Courtney, Me, Janna, and Carolina. Napakiak, Alaska

Here we are in Napakiak, Alaska Today, the girls decided to have a girls day out (Eric was allowed to come). We took our snowmobiles out on the frozen river to some of the surrounding villages. Everyone looked at us, as we "drove" into the villages. I know they were thinking "crazy white people!" It was a great time. The weather was much warmer that usual - at 20 degrees. That felt like a heat wave compared to sub zero temps.

I don't know how to drive the snowmobile very well, so I was glad Eric was here. Our machine is made for the powder of Utah, but it has worked pretty well in Bethel. I guess Bethel had more snow than usual, so we could ride our machine.

We stopped at the trading post in Napakiak, which is just like a 7-11, but with no gasoline. You can buy groceries and other small items. The prices were unbelievably high, but I was amazed at how much they had. I also noticed a box of these mushroom/fungus looking things. I learned that was called punk to make iqmik - which is a type of chew. Just about every man, woman, and yes even children use iqmik. They burn the punk, and add it to Copenhagen chew. It's pretty gross. As I said, everybody chews here. People are constantly spitting around town - and it's totally gross.

After the trading post, we had to find a bathroom which is not easy in a village. Villages do not have running water, and most homes still use a "honey bucket". A honey bucket is a plastic bucket with a seat attached. When the bucket is filled with waste, it must be dumped out. Each village has a place to dump the human waste, but most people just dump it outside. We decided to go to the washiteria to find a restroom. I could not believe at the price to do a load of laundry - it will cost you over 10 dollars to do one load! You can imagine the stares we received as a group of rowdy white girls tromp to the bathroom. Once we were finished, we all got back on our snowmobiles and headed home.