Wk 07 Golden Lining
Date Posted: 4.2.2007
Location: 64º5'N 165º4'W
Nome, Alaska, United States
Weather Conditions: Snowing 31° F (-1°C)
The plane is in the hangar. The engine has been lifted out for a complete overhaul. "It's pretty cool to watch" says Paul. The only thing is...unfortunately that plane laying apart in pieces - an engine here, a gas line there - is the very plane that is supposed to take us across the Bering Strait to the expedition starting point in Provideniya. That is, we have finally received the green light from all authorities to land in Provideniya, for the Polar Huskies to enter Russia in full force and for the dog food to be part of our loads on the sleds (yes, the dog food - more on that later). "I received the phone call from Paul that the plane will be out maybe until April 9th and I actually laughed" says Mille. "Of course it is, because it is the only thing that would hold us back at this point!" We shouldn't say that. One never knows what may be next! "It seems every day brings a challenge - and one obviously ventures out on expeditions expecting daily challenges. This is just not the sort of challenges we expect from the trail" says Aaron.
So what can we do about it? As Aaron said a few weeks ago, "We have to stay tuned and keep an open mind." "We are looking for the silver lining every minute of the day" says Mille. "Actually, I am looking for the gold lining" she continues with a grin.
It may be hard to see the gold lining in our entry into Chukotka. It could possibly be delayed another week, making for a total delay of more than a month! However, we have to see the gold lining by realizing it could have been longer than that - or even never. On Monday, with the expected departure on Tuesday, it was with rather long faces we received the news that we would still not be allowed to land in Chukotka on Tuesday, Wednesday, or any time during the week! It was frustrating as we would deal with one issue and then a new 'problem' would arise. On Monday, we were told our paperwork for the Polar Huskies was not sufficient. We were told we need new health certificates that would require blood tests drawn from each Polar Husky by a federally certified vet as well as several vaccinations that are not the norm in the United States (No such vets were to be located around Nome. Actually, no vet was available until mid-week!). We were told we needed a vaccination against 'the plague.' The plague! We called federal veterinary offices from coast to coast and 'the plague' seemed to throw everyone for a loop! Regardless of the 'mysterious-missing-plaque-vaccine,' Paul quickly set out to arrange for a vet to travel to Nome to do the necessary work. Next, we needed more letters explaining 'what we are doing' which had the crew at Education Basecamp typing which was keeping the the gold connections in the keyboards red hot! Now, the latest....we were asked to get certification that our dog food is not poisoning!
Huh? Well, you may have heard about the major recall of dog food here in the United States because the gluten used in the making of the dog food went awry. With two pallets loaded to the brink with dog food to land along with us in Russia, we were simply being asked to prove our dog food did not present any risk. With a letter of certification in hand from the 'Red Paw' dog food company, we were cleared! Just like we mentioned in last week's report, again clearing all these hurdles could not have happened without help from our friends - old and new alike.
"I did think for a few moments that maybe this was just not going to happen" admits Paul. Mille continues, "Standing in a snow storm with sleds that are 1200 lbs heavy and fields of boulders with only one way forward - now that's a challenge in thinking 'is this maybe not possible?' We have been there and many other 'impossible-to-pass-kinda-places' and always made it with determination and a lot of Polar Husky power. So, to sit with my head in my hands and have true doubts as the not so great news kept coming in this week was very intimidating." However, determination and teamwork is getting the job done. The Polar Huskies stuck waiting (im)patiently for some action, an entire team of incredible people - American and Russian alike - have been pulling hard on both sides of the Bering Strait to make this happen. And for all we know at this moment, they have pulled through Polar Husky style!
'Without doubt, the greatest moment of relief was a good laugh I had Wednesday morning at about 4 am. It had been a very tough and long day, one of those I tuck away to not re-visit too often," says Mille. I had just fallen asleep when the golden connections in my cell phone made it ring. It was Mr. John Mann, the spokesman for the Governor of Chukotka, Mr. Roman Abramovich. "I was more than thankful when Mr. Mann returned my calls. I felt a great sense of hope from his assurance that he would work with us to make everything happen" says Mille. It was not many minutes before the phone conversation brought fruitful results. It was Mr. Mann calling again. This time with some quick fact checking on his end, he called with the breaking news that the dreadful-basically-impossible plague vaccination was simply a matter of wrongful translation... "bubonnaya chuma (бубонная чума) is the bubonic plague. Sobachya chuma (собачья чума), or more commonly, chumka (чумка), is distemper, which is usually vaccinated together with rabies" explained Mr. Mann. Ha! That meant the Polar Huskies are all set to go! Golden!
Not all the Polar Huskies are going with us though. After contemplating what is ahead and what is best for Freja in the long run, we decided she would be better off going home to the kennel. There are no broken bones, as we had feared most with the swelling of her paw, but she developed some frost bite on her paw from not having good circulation when it was in the trap. So, Paul loaded her in her box and sent her back to Expedition Basecamp where she will hang out inside to let it heal the fastest and best way possible. Given that Freja is by far our most experienced lead dog, she leaves some big paw prints for Disko and Co. to follow. We have full confidence they will shine! "Disko and Tucker have been doing great as lead dogs" says Paul. "Because the dogs have to be in a certain spot in town, it is way to dangerous to try to take off for a training run with the sleds having to navigate through town. It is even tricky when the Polar Huskies are pulling this four-wheeler I am borrowing through the town of Nome and onto the ice along the coast line and the snow covered beach."
While running, Paul had noticed signs sticking out of the ice up to 1/2 a mile or even a mile from shore. He thought it had to do with some sort of fishing. Well, Kevin, who lives in Nome, showed him that it does. They are crabbing holes! And not just any crab - these are Red Crabs. These crabs, which are caught right there in the Norton Sound, are considered some of the most delicious crabs in the world! Kevin goes out crabbing every two days. He chisels a hole in the ice, pulls up his 'pot' (that's the crab trap net), gets his catch, puts in a new jar of bait and lowers the pot back down. The bait is cut-up pieces of fish, like salmon, put into a jar with holes in it. The crab smell the bait and wanders into the trap. "I had no idea crabs have a sense of smell" adds Mille. The crabs are put into a cooler immediately to keep them warm! "If the crab freezes, the meat sticks like glue to the shell" explained Kevin. On a good catch, Kevin gets ten or so crabs in his pot. When Paul was out there they had seven crabs which were a couple of pounds each. Kevin catches them for his own use, but also sells them to the local processing plant. He is paid about $3/lb. When looking it up online, we can buy "the worlds most delicious Red Crab from Norton Sound" for $125 for five pounds! (check out the Culture Zone for some crab receipes). Paul has enjoyed crab while in Nome, but that night instead of crab, Kevin actually made Paul some delicious musk ox burgers, using meat from a bull he had hunted earlier this year. How does musk ox taste? "It is very much like beef" says Paul. "I can't tell you exactly why, but I do like musk ox better. That said, between musk ox and the infamous crab, my favorite is still caribou dipped in butter" he continues.
Crabs and other delicacies from the sea is not the only golden treasure found along the beach of Norton Sound. When you are out on the sea ice and you look back at land, you can see people going back and forth with shovels in hand going to their crab holes along the coast. This is the very beach where, in the beginning of the gold rush in 1899, the gold prospectors were literally walking on gold!! As Paul learned when he met some 'gold diggers' earlier in the week - they are still digging.
Nome is a gold town. The local newspaper is Nugget News and the local hotel is the Nome Nugget Inn. As we told you in an earlier report, the town was founded during the gold rush. The first people to find gold in Nome were three lucky Swedes (really, it was two Swedes and one Norwegian). When they first came to the area they really didn't find much gold. However, they still famously made more than 90 claims of land and did indeed find lots of gold! However, there were those that had no claims too. During this time, someone thought to pan the sand on the beach and within days gold was discovered for 40 miles along the water line in either direction from Nome. During the first summer alone, more than two million dollars worth of gold was taken from the beaches of what came to be known as the booming city of Nome.
Today, Nome is a rather big place for a community in the high North with a population of more than 3500 people. And it still has much to do with gold. Just this year the largest gold mine operation to-date is expected to open up for operation just 7 miles outside of town. Running a 'big town' like that in the high North is neither easy nor cheap. It takes a 'lot of gold' or rather resources! Nome is the only town we have been in around or above the Arctic Circle that does not have all the pipes running in corridors above ground, because of the permafrost. A local explained to Paul that the pipes were dug down with a complex heating system a few years back. The heat is needed to keep the pipes from freezing in the ground as they are surrounded by permafrost. Given that there are no roads leading to Nome, everything - all goods, resources, building materials, food and fuels - is still brought in by air lift or barge (a flat bottomed vessel that travels along the coast line with supplies to Arctic communities when the ice opens up on the Sea to allow for travel). This includes the heating fuel and fuel needed to generate electricity, which is then stored in huge tanks. Because the fuel has to travel a long way and it is expensive to maintain the holding tanks and all the materials associated with it (the tanks came on the barge too!), the cost of heat and electricity in Nome is a great deal more than in Minnesota. A whopping 17-24 cents a kilowatt compared to around 7 cents a kilowatt down south. How much is it per kilowatt in your neighborhood? Look it up and post it in Collaboration Zone 03: Earth Zone. Also, make sure to join this weeks chat with Aaron! Ask him lots of questions about geology, geography, his corn stove, and the use of worlds' natural resources on Thursday at 12 PM. Also, if you are gearing up for for a local 'recycle your cell phone' campaign, maybe for Earth Day, and are looking into how to recycle you cell phone, share it with the rest of us in the Earth Zone. Speaking of cell phones, on Friday, a couple of cell phones were stolen out of the Education Basecamp office. We, of course, disconnected the phones. Now, we just hope the thieves remember to recycle the phones and not throw them in the trash. With gold inside of the cell phones (gold is even found in the airplane engine), recycling them saves precious natural resources!
On the note of power and gold, the most golden power we know of is of course some raw Polar Husky power. This week's first Polar Husky Superstar, Sable, is one of the most powerful dogs in the Polar Husky kennel. Sable is a really really happy dog. She is very sweet with people and Sable is extremely playful. She loves to chase around and have a blast with anyone up for it at the end of the work day when the harness comes off. But, when the harness is on, Sable is nothing but a pulling machine. Actually, much like a big bulldozer! Don't get in her way! When Sable is about to pull the sled, pouring her awesome technique and brute power into the job, if you are not pulling with her you are obviously pulling against - which is simply not acceptable to Sable. She will let the Polar Husky who is slacking know just that. Sable is a great teacher!
This week's other Polar Husky Superstar is Baffin, and he has rarely ever run with Sable simply because he needs no mentoring. Though only a little more than two years old, Baffin is huge with a deep chest and massive bones. However, Baffin is as sweet and playful as can be and he is a monster in a harness. That is, a monster of power and concentration. Baffin actually pulls so hard that we dare say he is the only Polar Husky that when we have our break for lunch he is most often found sound asleep from the second we stop right up untill he hears Paul's voice calling "hop!" to go again. Baffin also will never be a slacker when he is 'at work.' He simply will not do it if he thinks the sled needs to get moving! So, when we take the harness off him at the end of the day, Baffin will go by himself for a bit to empty his bladder for a good 5-10 minutes before he joins the play with Sable and Co. As you can probably imagine, both Sable and Baffin have the golden touch for running in wheel and moving those loaded sleds forward. Hopefully we are moving them forward very soon being pulled by precious Polar Huskies worth their weight in gold!
