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Despite my best intentions to write once a week, nine days have elapsed since last I sat with you all to tell my tale. At last, here I am on a Friday afternoon, having gotten off work an hour early today. So, my friends, the tale continues…
I have now made it through two full weeks of training, and am ready to take off the training wheels, which run in circles inside the brain in this context, and move around more. The trainings have been wonderful; packed with info, relevancy, humor, and bonding, but nonetheless, we have been sitting in the same folding chairs for ten days, and being the breed of people that are drawn to the Alaska wilderness to share our passion of it with the public, I think we are all raring to move more, and get out into it!
That said, it is still snowing outside. Snowing and 20 something degrees, making the getting out into it a bit more of a challenge. The folks that have made it through a long Denali winter of dark and sub-zero temps as the norm are visibly agitated and grumbly. I’m sure they feel even more grumbly when
I keep opening my large mouth to proclaim how much I LOVE the snow!! A sure way to make friendsJ All I want to do, though, is get out again on the skis and glide!
Alas, that will have to wait one more day, as tomorrow I am tagging along on a ride to Fairbanks to meet and pickup my new roommate and go shopping with her, both for food and sundries. I am dying to get into Value Village… I have not had a thrift store fix in way too many weeks, and my list is long to make this barren cabin a home for the next five months. They provided only the bare minimum for us; four plastic camp plates, bowls, and cups (people that went to summer camp; you know the kind! The beige, plasticy stuff) four of each type of “silver” ware, a serving spoon, spatula, whisk, knife, and a few pots and pans. I can’t wait to get a rug for the linoleum floor, and a few lamps to cozy it up in here. Not to mention a blender, a toaster, real ceramic dishes, glasses, and perhaps even a microwave. Plants too! I shall
make it a home, I shall!!!
Now, having indicated that training is over, I can hear you all asking, “what will you do on Monday, Suzanne??” Ah, well, you see, training is really not yet over. The portion where we sit in the classroom for 8 hours a day is done with, but now we begin the next phase, which is a bit more active. On Monday, snow allowing, we will venture out in vans to explore the park road, which is where most of the thousands of visitors coming to the park each summer will travel. The road is 92 miles from start to finish, and takes a very long day to travel to the end and back. After mile 30, private vehicles are no longer allowed.
Now, imagine a week-long break in the writing here, filled with a trip to Fairbanks, a new roommate, another week of training, and that will bring you to where I sit nowJ
To recount: the trip into the park was wonderful, but we only went to mile 53, The Toklat River, and then had to turn around due to too much snow still obscuring the roadway. We saw eagles,
moose, gyr Hawks, willow ptarmigan, and fresh tracks in the snow of both grizzly and wolf!! The park is stunning covered in a blanket of snow; it’s hard to believe it will all be gone in a matter of weeks. When the snow and ice start to melt it’s called ‘break-up” here, and when it all starts up again (in August or Sept!!), it’s called ‘freeze-up”. People actually mark these as events; in fact, there is a wooden tripod on a river outside of the park, and every year the locals put wagers into a pot for which day the tripod will fall through. Whoever wins, wins the pot. This year, nobody will win because noone would ever have guessed that thing would still be standing in May! Break-up usually has begun over a month ago now.
On Saturday, I went with three others to Fairbanks to pick up my new roommate, Eden. We all had various shopping lists, and Eden had to do her whole stock up of weeks of food, so it was quite a full day. Eden is a really mature 23 year old who is here to fight fires. She’s got enough experience under her
belt as someone many years her senior, and she’s really friendly and fun, so I lucked out in the roommate dept. We took our much anticipated trip to Value Village, which being the only thriftstore in all of Fairbanks, was completely picked over and sparse. Despite that, we got some dishes, to replace the plasticware, a blender for me, and a coffeemaker for Eden.
This past week the training got more concrete and hands-on; we spent a day in the kennels learning how to run the dog-sled programs, a couple of days learning the ropes in the visitors center, went on one of the ranger-led walks we will soon be leading, and had one full day hearing from different scientists about the research they are conducting in the park. As someone who learned late in life that she really loves being in school, I am just eating it up, and getting paid to do so!
So we find ourselves once again at the weekend. Tomorrow I am at last going to get paired with my dog (that kept getting postponed), and will spend the rest of the day organizing all the paperwork from training to try to start
putting together some of my programs. Next week is still training, but for two of those days I will be shadowing someone at the visitor center’s desk because the park is finally opening on the 15
th. I will also have Wed and Thurs off because we are starting our staggered days off. We work what is called a 5, 4, 9 schedule; 5 days of 9 hour days with a two day weekend, then 4 days with a 3 day weekend. My days off are Mon, Tues, and every other Sunday. Since I’m off on Sat and Sun this week, I get Wed and Thurs this week, then start the Mon Tues next week.
OK, time to publish this! I’ll try to keep up more…
Love to all,
Suzanne
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Hilary Stern
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Snow!
It\\\'s hard to imagine such wildness from where I\\\'m sitting now-- at Seatac on my way to New York. Thanks for the flight of fancy. It\\\'s so beautiful. I can\\\'t wait to visit you.