Hike to The Bay

Last weekend B, E, G, H and I hiked 6 miles over the tundra to the nearest village, which I’ll call The Bay (it’s accurate – this village is on a large bay). The Bay was hosting their annual Blackberry Festival and though we didn’t really see too many festivities exactly, we did get to see some more Yup’ik dancing. I’m going to post some pictures of our hike as well as a couple of short video clips of the dancing very soon.

Our hike over was beautiful, it was actually a lovely day, sunny, kind of warm even – basically it felt like my conception of a fall day (minus that leafy smell and plus the smell of “tundra tea” underfoot – a piney, lemony smell). G and H were going to stay with G’s mother, who lives in The Bay, but B and E and I weren’t sure where we’d stay – maybe at the school. Anyway, as B mentioned earlier, it was suggested that we wear rubber boots, but we don’t have them, so we just both wore our hiking boots. Well, the tundra is a lot more like a marsh than you might imagine. By the time we’d walked the first two miles, all three of us had soaking wet feet and muddy pant legs. You’d take a step onto what looked like solid land and just sink down right up to your ankle, or calf. It was okay, though, because then we finally crossed “The Bridge” (some rickety sheets of metal under several inches of thick, slick mud) and began to ascend “The Mountain” (more like a big hill, but the rest of the tundra in this area is so flat that the hills around here get counted as mountains). The going was a little harder since it was uphill, but on the other hand so much more pleasant, since the ground underfoot was both solid and dry. We stopped to rest and snack a few times, then G’s mother showed up on her ATV and gave H and all our bags a ride into town. This made cresting the hill even nicer, and from there it was just a long downhill stroll into town.

The Bay is about twice as big as The Village, and feels like it. Actually after a month here, The Bay felt like a booming metropolis. It has more than one “street” (dirt road) and three stores, plus a playground at the school. We saw a bunch of kids from our Village, then went to the community center to see some Yup’ik dancing. That lasted more than two hours, and then we were able to connect with some teachers from The Bay, one of whom generously put us up for the night. We stayed up late talking with her and another out-of-town teacher who was also visiting, then woke up on the early side, ate a little breakfast, and headed back for The Village.

I’ll say here that the dancing we saw in The Bay was not nearly as nice, in my opinion, as what we saw a few weeks ago here in The Village. It could be because it wasn’t new for me, but I think it was due more to the surroundings – here the dancers had performed in the gym, with the drummers/singers behind them, and everyone just sitting on the floor around the perimeter of the gym. There, the dancers were on stage, under rather bright fluorescent lights, with the drummers in front of them, kind of blocking them (at least for someone my height). It felt less personal, less engaging. Still, I wanted you all to be able to see some of the dancing. Apparently in mid-winter our village hosts a dance festival, and there’s a big festival in Athol, so hopefully I’ll be able to post some better video then.

Anyway, our walk back to The Village was a little more adventurous, because we were without G to guide us. Getting down the mountain was easy enough, we just followed the ATV tracks, and we made it back to the bridge without too much trouble. But then we were back in the swampy, boggy tundra. With each step our feet seemed to sink further into the ground, coming up with a loud sucking sound. If we stopped to get our bearings or choose a better path, our feet would sink slowly down – several times I looked down at my feet, thinking I was on solid ground, only to find that my feet had disappeared. So eventually we were just like, ok – we’re wet. But we’re on our way home and as soon as we get there we can put on dry socks and drink hot tea, so let’s just get there. So we stopped being so careful about our path. At one point B was crossing a particularly swampy area while E and I watched to see if we should follow – suddenly B’s lower half disappeared into the tundra. While E and I tried to stop laughing (and I yelled to B to get the camera out of his pocket), he jumped/ran/struggled out of the waist-deep pool of water he’d stepped into and up onto a low ridge. His entire lower body was absolutely drenched, his jeans were dripping, and the water was cold. It was a funny sight, but I was glad we were only about a mile out from the village – it wasn’t very warm out and I know B was not very comfortable in those sopping wet boots and jeans.

By the time we arrived back at the BIA, E and I were soaked up to our knees with mud and water, and B of course was still very wet.