Greetings from Nome.
I flew all night Thursday and arrived in Nome on Friday at 8:40 a.m. My trip was already getting interesting before I left Seattle. The guy I sat next to on the flight into Anchorage looked about 60 years old, gray, medium-length beard, weathered face and hands, winked whenever he caught someone's eye. Other than mumbling to himself, the only thing I heard was his name: "Just Bill." Dirt under the fingernails and an old denim jacket. He struck me as being somewhere between a street person and a mountain madman. Like looking into a mirror 40 years from now.
During the four-hour layover in Anchorage, I met the parents of a bush pilot from Nome. They were on my flight with their grandson, Mikey, who spent the summer with them in Montana. Apparently their son, the pilot, is also a master bow hunter who gets invited all over the world to go on promotional hunts -- places like Africa, hunting wild pigs. Figures.
Also at the airport I overheard the Montana couple talking to a 57-year-old man who travels around the world doing extreme sports. The guy cracked his ribs and tore his shoulder skiing, white-water kayaking, snowboarding, doing the luge, and biking on multiple continents. Name's Butch, which seems a little unbelievable, I know, but he said he started traveling a few years back and went to Costa Rica for two weeks, then ended up staying for a year and a half. He lived and biked in New Zealand, Thailand and just about everywhere else.
He also said he was "partying with some Cricket players in the Himalayas" when they asked him to be their coach. He didn't know how to play, but he stood there and looked serious and ended up traveling with the team to Singapore, then meeting the governor of the state on television when they won the championship.
Basically I met Alaska's Forest Gump.
After Anchorage, everyone on the plane seemed to be hunters. Camoflage baseball caps were the norm. We stopped in Kotzebue (north of Nome), then made it to Nome as the sun was rising.
I had a welcome party waiting for me at the "gate" with a "Welcome to KNOM" banner. I got the tour of western Alaska's "urban growth area" (Nome), then unpacked in my room at the volunteer house.
Nome is a small town, not unlike what you'd find in rural Whatcom County: small houses, seven streets, four places to eat, two grocery stores, pretty basic stuff. In those ways, it's not unlike other places I've been, but there's something completely different about this town and the community. I've sensed but haven't seen it yet. I'll let you know what it is when I figure it out.
Laura and Dave, two fellow volunteers, found out about KNOM and the volunteer opportunity from a book called, "Delaying the Real World." Apparently it has a bunch of ideas for things to do after college before you instead of getting a steady job and settling down. That sounded like something some of my Western friends might be interested in checking out, so I figured I'd give a plug for the book...
Friday night Kristina, Laura and Dave gave me the tour of Nome's outskirts using the company 4runner. We went out to eat and then to a birthday party for some people across the street.
There were 15 people at the birthday party, and (no joke) I counted six guitars, one mandolin, one acoustic bass, a keyboard and a guy using what looked like a violin bow on the back of a saw blade. They were all going at one time. Just whatever song someone felt like playing, and they all joined in.
So we had humus, bread, goat cheese, pie, cookies, wine, beer, and then everybody just started playing the closest instrument they could find. You'd never know it, but a lot of very talented people end up here in Nome.
A lot of the folks up here are former volunteers, or so I hear. Just about everybody knows and loves Bellingham. I met one Western grad from 1998: Sarah, who is Phil's (the birthday boy) wife. Sarah owns a guitar shop, and Laura and I went over on Friday afternoon and played some tunes. Sarah is hosting a night of songs about the moon on Oct. 26 because it's a full moon that night, so I agreed to play Harvest Moon if no one else signs up for it.
The guy fixing our water heater (yeah, it's busted...), Marty, is from Sprague, Wash. and knows the Harders: no doubt relatives of my fellow Western Front copy and news editor from Sprague, Amy Harder.
Marty came up to Nome 15 years ago after an engagement-gone-wrong and has loved it here. Married a native woman and raises a family. Works, hunts, fishes, boats. He said his 13-year-old daughter killed her first moose recently.
Tyler was at the birthday party. He's from Anchorage and manages the advertisements for the local newspaper, the Nome Nugget. He plays mandolin, and his girlfriend, Erica teaches Spanish at the local high school. I told her if I have an opening in my schedule I wouldn't mind doing a little tutoring in my free time. It turns out they both went to college in Tacoma. PLU, I think.
Saturday morning at 4 a.m. I got a call from Kristina, who had rushed next door to the station when Nome's power went out. Yeah, that's right. The city of Nome had a power outage. When was the last time the city of Bellingham's power went out? Fortunately, generators keep KNOM's signal going even when we lose power, so everything was fine and we went back to bed.
I would have posted my blog earlier, but the internet connection isn't the most reliable here. Logging on is an experience somewhere between the flow of molasses and sharing an old car with 12 other people: sometimes it doesn't start, and sometimes it's just not there.
On Saturday I went to the Vigil Mass and met Father Sean Thompson, again. He's from Edmonds, Wash. and was ordained four years ago for the Fairbanks Diocese. Now he's the priest in Nome and the surrounding villages. He was a deacon at Mt. Angel in Oregon during my year at seminary, so we'd met before and I knew who he was, but it took him a few minutes to place me. As far as I could tell from what he said, he spends two weeks here each month and two weeks in another village that he flies to by plane. Sunday Mass is transmitted over the radio from Nome.
Kristina, David, Laura and I saw The Bourne Ultimatum on Saturday afternoon. Movies come here one at a time about two months late and stay for one week, playing at the single-screen movie theater that doubles as a Subway sandwich shop. Later on we went to Hanson's, one of the two grocery stores and then played Balderdash until midnight or so before shuffling off to bed.
Other than that, we've been listening to copious amounts of Bob Dylan on the record player downstairs. Sweet.
The power went out briefly again on Saturday night while we were sleeping.
The equinox is today, so I haven't really noticed the change in daylight, but I hear that we'll start losing 5 to 7 minutes of sun every day from now until January. That's almost an hour difference every week. Today the sun came up at about 9:00 a.m. and went down at about 9:00 p.m.
Local time here is one hour behind Seattle, but geographically, we're about three hours behind. Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas, but it's all one time zone, and we're out on the western tip.
I start my two weeks of training tomorrow morning, then I'll begin news reporting and announcing.
I was doing fine being away from home, until I logged on to facebook last night and saw the news feed with everything going on in everyone's lives. I'll admit it was tough to go because I'm missing some big events in the lives of people I care about, and pieces of my heart are certainly spread across the great state of Washington (and now portions of DC as well). Those pieces will remain there, and so I'll still be with you all. Since I have arrived, I haven't doubted that God has led me here for a reason. I'm confident that I'm where I should be. This is going to be an awesome experience, and I already feel it beginning to change me.
Take care and God bless. Thank you once again for your prayers, which support me and on which I rely each day. Stay in touch, I'll write more soon.
Jacob.
