Sunday, June 29, 2008

Day 32, 4 frozen,1 burial, 1 death

Wednesday, excavated a burial that looks to have been a predation by a large carnivore. Skull was detached at C3, with 2 large puncture woulds in the back of the skull just above the foreman magnum, with right zygomatic also being crushed. C4 to T5 was there with the attendent ribs and both hummeri but the rest of the thorax, sacrum and the entire left pelvis and leg were gone along with both forearms. Took all day until after 6--
Thursday was a day off because of another Naualatuk,Cleaned one ATV tubby of debris off the point, see attached picture,had to take a bear guard with me, no bear(s)but see attached pictures of a bear/seal confrontation. Notice the fog, it does get a little spooky when the visability drops below 50 yards. this took place about 1 mile north and of where we live and 100 yards out on the ice, right opposite the Napa gas station.The only one in town.
Friday, got stuck in the lab with 7 teenagers, you can well imagine how much fun that was, actually it went pretty well with only 2 or 3 times I had to interfere. All of them are bright, some are sophomores and some are seniors, with different perspectives and goals, some pretty unclear, all of them are interesting, in different ways.
Dennis, Justin, Ali all leave today, by the time I get back Andrew,and Nadia will be gone. Katey left on saturday. That just leaves, me Tony and Krista, with two new ones coming in. One is a Polar Tech teacher from the NE somewhere. I'm out tomorrow morning--having a wee bit of trouble processing that--I've gotten very comfortable here--it feels natural to have sunlight 24 hours a day and to be working my ass off out at the northernmost point in the U.S.and spending massive amounts of time with 20-26 year olds.
Saturday was difficult--8:30 AM a 12 year old on an ATV across the street from where we stay, got himself into an accident--no one saw it snd his three buddies hauled him on the ATV over to the college, ran into the cafeteria, told the adults and took off. Ambulance took 25 minutes to get here, Fire and Police were here earlier, one of our crew, Paddy, was one of the first on site and knew some first aid and CPR--didn't make any difference--Massive head trauma,massive blood loss he did not make it.
Later in the day 4 of our bunch decided to do a "Polar Plunge". the deal is, either bathing suits or naked to go in to the Chukchi sea, submerge and come back out. Water is about 34 degrees. Andrew Katey, Krista and Nadia did it and Nadia and Katey did it twice. Didn't make any sense to me--
Dinner was at Osaka on Anne and Glenn for Clare's birthday, good sushi ( and actually good breakfasts also) but as you may imagine, Really expensive, medium sushi plate by us about 20 bucks--here $54--dragon roll $19
All the restruants here are American slash Japanese/chinese/korean/Thai/ pizza/mexican. all 5 of them.
I'll see a lot of you this week, be safe, be well--life is too damn short to waste on anything but what and who you love.

1 comment:

erik said...

Yes! You are right! Life is too, too short. Especially for some I see. What a waste of life. Here where I live it is mandatory for young people to wear a helmet on bicycles and motor cycles. ATV`s ?. Now adults are starting to wear them to set a good example to their children. This young lad could have been living today if only he had been wearing a helmet. "Oh" they say "it don`t look cool to wear a helmet". I bet the other boys that brought their buddy in wish now that they had been wearing some head gear. So sad. Keep the posts and pictures coming. e.