After 3 delightful months of running around with family and friends from Arkansas to Florida to India to Tennesee to Missouri, I'm happy to be back in my northern home on the tundra and getting all settled in for a long winter's nap. (Just kidding about the nap. But I am glad to be back.)
Today, we had a very good first day of school. It was wonderful seeing all my students again! My, how they've grown. And since the blustery, rainy weather cleared up enough for a couple of planes to come and go, I'm chalking the day up as a success!
It's been just a little over a year since I flew low above the Western Alaska tundra in a little bush plane and got my first look at this part of God's gorgeous creation. It's fascinating to me because I've always thought of the tundra as a vast, frozen, treeless wasteland. I'm not sure where I first learned that about the tundra but it's only partially correct. It is vast. It is treeless. It is frozen for much of the year. But it is not a wasteland. The tundra that covers a big portion of Alaska is very beautiful and very productive. It provides sustenance to both animals and people. So I want to share some photos taken over the course of the past year. You may be surprised by the beautiful, bountiful tundra!
Salmon Berries (photo taken by J. Sundown)
The salmon berry harvest was a good one! Nothing has been cultivated in anyway. All these plants are wild.
And let me just say, "Picking berries on the squishy tundra is hard work."
Fireweed flowers
The tundra is also a place for lots of fun, work and travel in both winter and summer time!
Fireweed closeup. My aunt Tootsie, who moved to Alaska in the 1940's before it was a state, told me a story that the fireweed flowers were used by the old-time prospectors to gauge when it was time to come down out of the mountains for the winter. The little blooms at the top fall off first and gradually the lower blooms wither and fall off. When the fireweed is down to it's last row of little blooms it was time to pack up and head down the mountain.
Tundra flowers
A good wild blueberry season too!
Late summertime tundra (taken from plane)
Edible greens from the tundra
Salmon hanging to dry at fish camp. Most Eskimo families will spend a few weeks at fish camp during the summertime. The men do the fishing and the women clean, cut and dry the fish.
Wild Blackberries
Wild cranberry (I think)
Mushroom
Fern
Basket woven of tundra grasses
Wintery tundra from the airplane
Aerial of Scammon Bay in January
Ptarmigans do not migrate. They weather the cold winters here.
In addition to plants and food, the tundra is home to many kinds of fur bearing animals such as beaver, bear, lynx and fox that provide warm winter clothing.
( I'm not sure what types of animal furs are in the photos. They are displayed in our school)
Snow-goes pulling sleds.
Fishing boats at low tide. (late summer)
So, I hope you've enjoyed a brief tour of my little corner of Western Alaska--the beautiful, bountiful tundra.
