I’m leaving Nome tonight.
No, not for good.
Stop that! I see you. I am emotional and feeling too much pre-nostalgia to think about leaving right now. I am going on vacation this evening—leaving Nome (for a weekend!) for that faraway, mystical land they call “Anchor-Town” … Southcentral … the “BIG CITY” … Land of Costco and (goodness help me) Wendy’s.
Putting our personal days and some skillfully acquired Alaska Airlines miles to good use, Caitlin and I are popping down south for a bit of musical fun. Driving all together along the Teller Road, we’ve rolled down the windows and belted “Rivers and Roads” many times. Soon, The Head and the Heart will serenade us!
And in fact, Caitlin and I will be hopping on the jet right after our first new volunteer, Laura, disembarks. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I felt this time last year, and while I’m sad we’ll miss her first weekend in town, I’m excited to get to know this new member of our community who will continue building upon what everyone at KNOM has helped create.
Here in Nome, the rivers are flowing again and the roads are opening up. Over Memorial Day weekend, a few of us took a drive down the Council Road to see how the world is shaking off its winter coat. While there was still plenty of ice floating in Safety Sound, the land was speckled with people out and about.
Spring subsistence activities have been in full swing, and thanks to some generous teachers, we’ve gotten to join in a bit. As Kristin mentioned in her post, “What To Do, How To Be,” our friend Vanessa and her family taught us how to cut seal blubber to make seal oil. It was a lot of fun and well worth my sweatshirt smelling like seal forever. Plus, the black meat her dad barbequed was delicious. A huge thank you to the Tahbones for teaching us and letting us help!
On Memorial Day, we celebrated the consistently above-50-degree weather by jumping into the Bering Sea. We swam a few times last summer—even plunging with the “polar bears” on solstice weekend—but this was far more intense. A full month earlier, the sea ice only floated away a couple of weeks ago. A few degrees make a big difference. But my everlasting love of the ocean kept me in the water for about five minutes before I couldn’t feel my toes.
After the plunge and some time warming up by the bonfire, Vanessa showed us how to pick tukaiyuk—a fragrant beach green that would be soaked in seal oil and eaten as a side dish. Several of the beach greens are similar in appearance, so we learned how to look closely and sometimes smell our way to the correct one, filling sacks with the green while leaving plenty behind for future gatherers. On the walk back, we narrowly avoided splinters as we see-sawed on large chunks of driftwood.
Amid all this summer fun, we have spent some time busy here at the station. We just wrapped up coverage of Kawerak’s Rural Providers’ Conference today, and I’m definitely going to be unpacking this week for a long time. It has been an honor to be engaged and involved in some of the really important conversations in our region this year. We volunteers frequently question our role in the media—how we can be responsible story-crafters and information-distributors—how we can understand the context of a place we’ve only lived in for a short time and tell the stories that matter, ideally giving voice to all who can utilize this station for the community resource it is.
These are not the kinds of questions that can be answered overnight, or even over a year…nor should they be. But I’m excited to have been a part of this journey, living our way slowly toward some answers. It’s good to remember what Donna Barr, this morning’s keynote speaker, said—you don’t have to get caught up trying to become perfect, trying to heal and fix everything right now, frustrated by the time it takes. You just have to learn to sit with it, love it as it is, and engage even when it’s painful. Growing pain means growth, and that’s certainly something we can work on together.
