Our School: Home of the Scammon Bay Eagles

      

The entrance to Scammon Bay School has a 

Superman logo over the doorway. 

Here the S stands for Scammon Bay Students are Super!

The Yupik name for our school is Keggatmuit Elicarvik.

Our playground in front of our school. Our building has

2 floors. The first floor is the Elementary and the second

floor is the Jr./Sr. High.

Lunch line. The photos on the wall at the top are of 

respected elders who have passed away.

Rose, our head cook.

This is our Commons area were kids eat breakfast and lunch.

The tables can be cleared for other things like meetings and dances.

Our school parking lot looks a lot different than Arkansas 

school parking lots! Only 1 pickup truck in town and it's the school vehicle.

The rest are 4-wheelers. In the winter it will be snow-machines!

Upper hallway with John Boy. One of our seniors.

Harley Sundown, our assistant principal giving his motivational speech

to our Wednesday awards assembly. We have this 

every Wednesday at 2:15. Harley recognizes kids for

good work in class and athletics. He encourages them

to work hard, stay away from drugs and alcohol,

and dream BIG! 

Harley shooting a basketball backwards from half court. He can 

actually make these shots pretty often.

Students working on computers.

Jackson, shooting champ in my 7th grade PE class.

Basketball is king here. Fine with me :)

My Health class hard at work! Aren't they cute?

Biology students hard at work. They're cute too.

Helen, another Senior, having a healthy snack. Almost every day

we have a fresh produce snack at 2:00. We've had apples,

melons, oranges, pears, cheese, kiwi, broccoli and cauliflower. Most

of the kids enjoy fresh fruits and veggies. They are in short

supply around here.

Eskimo dancing and drumming in the Commons.

I've only seen the men drum and sing, but both men, women and sometimes

children dance. The dancing always tells a story--some are humorous, 

some are about hunting or fishing. The elders sit near the front

and when the dance is over, if they say "again" then the dancers/drummers must

perform it again. Sometimes they will do the same dance 7-8 times in a row!  The dances

can be quite strenuous---so performing back to back can really work up a sweat!

I do enjoy watching but I've got a lot to learn about the history and meaning of Eskimo drumming and dancing.

The traditional garb is a kuspuk. It is a long hooded  smock-shirt with pockets in the front. 

These are worn by both men and women. The dancers often wear gloves or hold fans made

of fur or feathers. 

The drums look like big embroidery hoops with skins/cloth stretched tight. You can

see 3 of the drums being held up in the background. They are LOUD! I hope to do a blog solely on Eskimo dancing/drumming later.

A few weeks ago the military guys flew in on a Black Hawk.

That was exciting!

They spoke to our High Schoolers.

Some of my 7th graders having fun outside.

Our view from school looking out toward the 

Askinuk Mountains this morning at around 10 am.