Dipnetting on the Kasilof

On July 19th I headed down to the Kasilof River with a friend, Rudy Howard, to go dipnetting for red salmon. Dipnetting you say- what is that? Alaska has a personal-use subsistence fishery which allows residents to net their catch. Dipnets come in all shapes and sizes but most have a hoop, which cannot be larger than 5' in diameter, and are on poles ranging from 5-20 feet long. The picture above shows a person entering the river with their net.
Basically you stand in the river, at times up to your chest and wait for a fish to swim into your net!

On the right is a photo of Rudy (middle) waiting for the fish. You need to wear neoprene waders if you want to seriously fish, the water is very cold. Rudy was in the water for quite a while.
Dipnetting is not a solitary sport... at times it gets quite crowded once the fish start running as you can see in the following pictures. You also tend to fish with the tides. The incoming tides seems to be the best.
Unfortunately for us while we were there the Dept. of Fish and Game decided to have an emergency commercial opening so many boats were setting their nets just outside the mouth of the river which made it hard for the fish to get to us.

These were taken about midnight as the sun was setting! We fished until 2 am. We decided that my legs wouldn't do well with the current and in the muddy bottom so Rudy did the dipping while my job was to bonk the fish and gut them. As well as make the coffee. We took the Westphalia down so we spent the night. The next day we dipped some more but the commercial nets were back in the water, it was raining and it was crowded (many people went to the Kasilof because the Kenai was having a weak run of reds) so we headed home. The fifteen fish we got are being smoked for us and we look forward to doing it again next summer!!
Another look at the shapes of dipnets.

Summer Barbeque in Talkeetna

On Sunday the 9th of July we traveled to Talkeetna to visit our friends the Yocum's for a barbeque. The weather was gorgeous and the drive went just fine (95 min). Louise Simon was with us, having arrived into Anchorage from White Mountain just that morning. Cheri was our school counselor for four years.







They have a wonderful spot right off of the spur road with a really neat little cabin/house. Cheri's sister and dad were also there. Her dad is 93
years old and just a delight. Ken took care fo the grill and made some delicious burgers.

White Mountain

White Mountain, Alaska 99784

The Haviland's have lived in White Mountain for the past 8 years. White Mountain is a village of about 195 people with a school population of 54 k-12. The village is on the banks of the Fish River about 18 miles in from the coast. We are about 70 miles south east of Nome.
Andy and Becca are there during the school year while Holly is in Anchorage for part of year working for Everts Air Cargo as a cargo agent. Denise also lives in Anchorage and works for the same company as a customer service agent. During the summer Andy and Becca join Holly and Denise in Anchorage. The village name comes from the hill you see in the picture below which is White Mountain hill and is made of very white rock.

The new school will be built above the city garage which is the large roof you see in the trees towards the upper left of the picture. This picture is about 3 years old.










The picture qbove is taken from the top of White Mountain hill looking over towards the airport which is up above the village. The elem school and the other school buildings are the farthest buildings you can see on the left of the picture.



The picture below shows the lodge. Our school cafeteria is the right side of the building. Our house is the first floor and left side of the building with another apartment up above us which is used for itinerants.

School As We Are Today

What we have now are three buildings that we are using for 2 high school classrooms and the jr high classroom. Luckily for us all three buildings have running water and bathrooms and are very adequate for our needs. In the photo to the right you can see the two high school classrooms: the gray building is called the bingo building. It is owned by the IRA (the local trible govt.) and they immediately leased it to the district. We use it for the science and math classroom. The light blue building is owned by the City. They had leased it to the University system but they all agreed to end the lease so we could use it. This is our language arts and social studies classroom. This view is taken from the front of the Lodge building which has the cafeteria and two apts. in it, one of which is where we live.
A single wide trailer is our third building. The trailer sits right above the gymansium and is owned by the District. It had been the principal's quarters for many many years and in recent years was used for teacher housing. Just last year it had a music studio in it and our video conferencing equipment. It now houses the junior high classroom and my office. Here are some views of the inside of the trailer.
There are two entrances to the tailer so we do not interrupt each others daily business (much)!
In the picture below you can see down the narrow hallway to my office.











Looking into my office from the hallway.
The data closet is to the right behind the Kronos clock and when you turn all the way back to the left you see the filing cabinet closet. This room used to be a bedroom...

















All of our buildings are in the same general area so we now have a campus with 6 buildings (within 150' of each other) which includes our cafeteria which was always a separate building.


I spent 4 days at the end of June in White Mountain going through orders and inventorying materials that had arrived. I worked 3 of those days with jack Adams and made a lot of progress with our new science materials.

February 15th... the Fire

As I said in an earlier post our school burned down. The image on the right shows the gym with the high school going up in flames. The fire department worked very hard and kept the fire fronm spreading to the gymnasium. We had clay murals that the students had made a number of years ago on the outside which depicted the four seasons of White Mountain. We pawed around in the frozen ash and searched in the rubble. We were able to find a lot of the pieces and are trying to put it back together. It is like a jig saw puzzle.


To the left you see the roofline and attic right where the furnace was. The image below shows the left side of our high school... the fire started in the attic and progressed from there. The cause of the fire was not truly identified but thought to of been a furnace gone awry.

It was about 6:30 am and a large number of residents, adults and students, had woken up and gathered as the fire raged on.

We had a plane load of folks from the District Office arrive about 10:30 am and by that time the fire was only smoldering ruins.


















The losses that we dealt with were large: we not only lost our classroom space but the majority of our school supplies were in the attic: our sports uniforms (xc running, volleyball, cheerleading, wrestling, boys basketball, xc skiing, native youth olympics, camping gear, etc...) and ski were stored in the attic, texts for curriculum taught every other year, science equipment, school records for past graduates, and art supplies to name a bit. In addition to that were all the personal items that the students had in their lockers as well as all of our personal teaching resources and the school records in the office. The spring was spent not only teaching our current classes but also spent ordering replacement materials. What we have now are three buildings that we are using as 2 high school classrooms and the jr high classroom.

White Mountain School As it Was...

The picture to the left was the White Mountain high school building. The stairs to the right lead up to the gymnasium. The school burned to the ground the morning of Feb. 15th, 2006.
As I woke up and looked out my front window and saw smoke coming from the roof at 5:40 am. Yikes. The building was soon engulfed in flames. due to the valiant efforts of the volunteer fire dept. the gym was saved and left intact.
By noon we were left with smoldering ruins.
Fortunately we were able to find alternative classrooms which will fit our needs until our new school is built.
The bulldozers have begun clearing trees and we should be in a new k-12 building sometime in the spring of 2008!

The picture to the right shows the elementary school which houses k-6. This building is still here and was a saving grace in that half of our student population could continue on as before. There are three classrooms downstairs on the main level with a library and small classroom upstairs in the attic.

Okay- I guess I might be able to get the hang of this. I hope this message finds people in a good frame of mind as I think I will obviously ramble just a bit.
Last fall in SeptemberI went fishing with Mike and Fred. We had a great day with good fishing.









On the way home the sun was behind the clouds and the temps were getting colder.
But the fishing had been great!

Okay- this is my first time- no joke...

I am trying to learn how to do this. I can already feel the pressure as I enter the curve and it is looking steep. We will see how it goes.