Living outside the mainland

Waqaa (Hello)!

It’s been longer in between emails than I’ve done in the past. I’m sure you’ve all been just dying for an update! ;)

Life has been good in Sitka, Alaska. More than anything though, life has been… well, life. I feel like Sitka is my home now. I know where everything is, the best spots for certain things, the names of mountains and trails and outlying islands, a large number of people, the nicknames for the island and tourists and fish, and the politics of the community. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t go somewhere without seeing someone I know. The biggest reason I now feel like a local is because I’m staying the winter. Sitka clears out in the winter. Even the lifelong residents tend to leave for a month or two. Despite feeling like a local, I will never be one. The politics of Sitka only really count people as locals if they’re the third generation in Sitka. Of course this is an informal rule, but it holds pretty true. Little island communities are pretty exclusive. I’ll go with that as the big theme for my email – the community.

Little island communities are also very active locally. We have had so many events in town.

• · It started with the Running of the Boots – where everyone dresses in goofy outfits and Xtratuf boots and parades through town. This is the celebration of the last cruise ship coming in and the end of tourist season. After the “run”, there is a bunch of free food on the street and everyone hangs out on the main street. I felt a little like I was in the TV show Northern Exposure - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9CngpLaDDc.
• · Halloween is huge in Sitka. The main event is the Stardust Ball. Hundreds of community members dress up in costumes they’ve worked on all year long and come together for a ball. The ball consisted of a lip sync contest, a costume contest, and a dance to a band. The band that came was The Gourds. They sing that well-known adaptation of Gin and Juice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hGSR5njZE). The event was quite a spectacle. Our very own mayor was dressed up as Fidel Castro and my boss, the principal of the school, was the pope. Trick-or-treating is different in Sitka. The big trick-or-treat is in town. All of the businesses buy candy and the kids go there. There is no assigned time for residential trick-or-treating and not a lot of kids go around to houses.
• · Then we had Alaska Day. Alaska Day is celebrated throughout Alaska, but the main celebration is in Sitka. The governor comes (no, not Sarah Palin…) and everything. There is a HUGE parade – I felt like I was in a big city! It was awesome too… not like in the mainland where the parade is just a bunch of fire trucks and ambulances. There are a ton of other events including a recreation of Alaska being handed over from Russia to the U.S., musical performances, dance performances, dinners, and most notably the Alaska Day Ball. At the ball, everyone dresses up in old-fashioned regalia. They pull out all the stops. I went to see what the fuss was all about. I was one of maybe ten people not all dressed up. I felt like I was at a prom for mid-aged and senior citizens. It was a site to be seen. All weekend there are bagpipers that walk around town. They go in and out of bars and everyone dances and hoots and hollers. Why bagpipes? No one knows. Also walking around are the Keystone Kops. They give everyone big kisses in exchange for two dollars. They're dressed up in crazy clothes and walk all around town two weeks prior to Alaska Day.
• · Next we had WhaleFest. WhaleFest attracts visitors from all over the country and maybe even internationally. Marine scientists of sorts get together and give talks. All weekend there were lectures that somehow related to whales. There were also concerts and dinners and whale watching cruises and a big market. It’s held because the big migration of whales from Alaska to Hawaii (sounds like the people migration too!) happens in November and Sitka gets a good sight of this migration.
• · The Grind is a monthly community talent show. Starting in November and going through April there is a talent show once a month. Every month is themed, but you can do whatever you like that fits inside the theme. They’re always full of talents and the show is always sold out. I’ve volunteered every month running the dessert table. You either pay $5 or bring a dessert. Everyone enjoys dessert during intermission and there’s a contest for the best. How is this for small town?! I’ll be in the show in January doing a dance with a fellow dancer friend who also works at Mt. Edgecumbe High School as a rec staff. The best thing about the girl I’m dancing with – I’ve convinced her to apply to OSU to get her PhD in dance! Hopefully she gets in and goes!
• · How about a spin on the traditional holiday favorite The Nutcracker?! Sitka had a showing of the Nutcracker this year, but it was absolutely not the typical show. It was the Sitka, Alaska version! We had mosquitoes as the rats, dances with fish and bears, and instead of the dances of the world in the second act, there were the dances of Alaska. We had tap dancing in Xtratuf boots, a scene of tourists dancing around, a boat mosey across the stage, and much more that was traditionally Sitkan.

Speaking of whales, I’ve had some fantastic whale excitement lately. I have seen whales swimming as I stand on the shore, I’ve been on two boats where whales came right up to the boat, and I’ve gotten to be hands on – literally – with a baby whale as the kids at school dissected it. I learned a very… interesting tid bit about whales from the scientist who helped with the dissection. This is a little PG-13 – R-rated, but he said it to the kids so I’ll share with all of you. Ready? Female whales are selective about who they will mate with. Groups of males will follow a single female around but if the female isn’t interested in any of them, she will prevent them from mating with her. Female whales have been known to create a barrier by using a boat. Yes… they suction their vagina to the bottom of a boat so a male cannot get in. But males, being as determined as they are, have been known to reach up into the boat with their… and still try to mate with the female. Imagine being on that boat!!

In other news, I am in the airport on my way back to Ohio from Hawaii. I took a week vacation to Hawaii with the guy that I’m dating now. He’s from Maui and invited me to come when he went back for a visit, so I figured there would be no better way to visit Hawaii than with a local. I definitely got to see a different side of Hawaii than what a lot of tourists see. I’ll give some random facts about Hawaii instead of Alaska in this email.

• · “Pigeon” is the combination of English and Hawaiian. There are a lot of Hawaiian words that are used frequently but often in combination with English. The Hawaiian language is definitely more alive than I realized!
• · There is a plant called “silversword” that is found exclusively on the top of Mt. Haleakala. This plant cannot grow anywhere else but on the top of that volcano. It looks like a bunch of shining silver swords but it is incredibly soft.
• · Speaking of Mt. Haleakala, it is still an active volcano although it hasn’t erupted in 1000 years. It looks like another world on top of it. NASA thought it looked like what the moon might look like… so they did training up there before the moon expedition!
• · The volcanoes on the Big Island blow over smoke to Maui – they call it “vog” (volcano fog). It covers the island with a fog until the tradewinds come and blow it away. I found “vog” funny because of how literal it is, but nearly everything there is pretty literal. For example, there is “Big Beach” right next to “Little Beach” (their sizes are as their name suggests), “Plenty Kiawe” is a grove where there are a lot of kiawe trees, and on a certain beach the sections are labeled for what they’re in front of – pavilions, middles, trees.
• · The last sugar cane plant in the United States is in Maui.
• · Flip flops are called “rubba slippas” and that’s all anyone wears.

As I said, I am in the airport on my way back to Ohio now. I’ll be in Ohio until January 10. I hope to see as many people as possible. Give me a call, text, or send me an email if you are available to get together. I’ve thoroughly been enjoying my time outside the lower 48, but I’m excited to get back to Buckeyeland and see everyone!

Aloha!
Katie