Dancing on the Tundra

This memoir is based on fact, however, some names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals.

First published 2017

by Emzel Books

PO Box 3669

Richmond, Nelson 7020

New Zealand

www.emzelbooks.com

Epub ISBN 978-0-473-38966-6

Kindle ISBN 978-0-473-38967-3

© Emma Stevens 2016

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted. Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Visit us at www.emzelbooks.com

Dedicated to the memories of two special friends Paratai Noble of Karaka, New Zealand Nick Wonhola of New Stuyahok, Alaska and to Kotzman Without whom none of this would be written.

Chapter 1

B

A Dillingham Home

I tried to drum up some enthusiasm as I stood in the master bedroom of our unfamiliar connex apartment. The connex was constructed from two large metal storage containers placed end to end, modified with insulation, small windows and a sloping roof. This narrow residence was designed to house visitors to the Southwest District Office in Dillingham. It had been Gary’s temporary apartment while he was acting superintendent during the last eight weeks of the previous school year.

As I gazed through the window on the end wall, l was looking directly at the large two-storeyed administration building belonging to the Southwest Region School District. I was close enough to see people moving about in their offices. Our quiet sprawling apartment in New Stuyahok that looked out across the banks of the Nushagak River to the vast wild landscape beyond was a mere forty-minute flight away northeast upriver. It was hard to believe that this fawn-coloured connex sitting on the edge of the Southwest Region’s parking lot was our new home.

My skills as homemaker had not yet percolated to the surface, and with my current feeling of loss over New Stuyahok, our wonderfully tranquil nest on the Nushagak, I wondered if they ever would.

‘The whole place reminds me of a railway carriage,’ I complained to Gary as I wandered out to the kitchen. Gary was lugging in large plastic tubs of our goods he had collected from the airport.

‘Well, honey, with your ability to transform rooms, I reckon it’ll soon feel just like home.’

‘Humph,’ was all I could manage. He was much less worried by our new accommodation than I was. I knew Gary loved trains; his father had been a railroader, so my concerns were probably falling on deaf ears.

Our new home was entered via an enclosed porch that opened into a small kitchen and lounge. The kitchen was very seventies—mostly wood veneer, brightly patterned lino flooring, dirty cream venetian blinds with darker cream paint spackles dotted over the lower slats, and a large mustard-coloured fridge/freezer tucked in one corner. I stared at the fridge/freezer. It was hard to believe that I only needed one fridge now. After two and a half years of living in bush Alaska, I was used to having two or more fridges and freezers to store our food for the long isolated winter months. I had to remind myself that there was no need to do so any more. There were shops here. We were living in the hub ‘city’ of Dillingham.

Dillingham, a city in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, boasted a population of over two thousand people.

‘The Bristol Bay region has some of the richest natural resources in Alaska,’ Gary had told me excitedly when he landed the job.

‘Like what?’ I rejoined. Gary had not picked up on my less-than-enthusiastic tone.

‘All five species of salmon, honey!’ Gary’s fishing eyes gleamed, but I doubted he would be doing any fishing while we were here. He’d be far too busy for that. ‘Chinook, Sockeye, Chum, Coho and Pink Salmon spawn in the region.’ He looked to see if that information lit my fire of delight. I raised my eyebrows in a semblance of interest. ‘World’s largest run of Sockeye Salmon!’ he coaxed. I had written songs for my first grade class about the salmon runs.

‘Ten salmon strips in the smoking shed, a Sockeye and a Chum and a Silver and a Red …’ I warbled. Gary nodded, pleased he now was engaging my interest.

‘Dillingham’s got one of the largest herring fisheries,’ he continued. ‘But much of the work is seasonal, so schools provide most of the permanent employment.’ I nodded. ‘There are a couple of restaurants, Kanakanak Native Hospital, Bristol Bay campus for the University of Alaska Fairbanks as well as the Dillingham airport hub with its direct flights to Anchorage.’ He was starting to sound like a tourist brochure. ‘Dillingham also gets large freight delivered on barges from Seattle,’ he added.

‘Yeah, it’ll be great to be able to fly straight out on a large plane to Anchorage,’ I replied, thinking about some of the urgent flights on bush planes we’d had to coordinate in the past. ‘That’ll be pure luxury.’

‘You want this in here, babe?’ Gary called, interrupting my reverie and keeping me on task. I wandered over to the pile of boxes, and saw the one he was gesturing to. It was labelled ‘Canner’.

‘No, I guess we could store that in the office.’ I shrugged. ‘Can’t see me needing to do any canning any time soon.’

Gary stepped around the tubs to hug me. ‘You’ll love it here, honey,’ he said. ‘Your new job is just so right for you.’

I nodded into his chest, my eyes welling with tears. I knew I’d be fine, but acting cross was helping me pass through my feelings of loss.

Gary and I had decided to live in the connex permanently rather than rent a house in Dillingham for two reasons: time and money. Living here would mean no need to drive to the office each day. With Gary’s long hours as superintendent and my various comings and goings from the airport as cultural coordinator to the nine village schools, we wanted to keep transport worries to a minimum. Living here would mean we would not need a car; we could both walk the few steps to work, and take the district van to the airport.

The compromise was, of course, this connex living.

I picked up one of the tubs from the living room floor and made my way through the kitchen and along the narrow corridor to our bedroom.

‘This feels like a train’s corridor,’ I called back to Gary. I passed the two small rooms on the left—a tiny bedroom, then a narrow bathroom, before walking through the door ahead that led back into our bedroom. Even though it lay widthwise at the end, I could see that with our queen-sized bed up in this room, our bedroom was going to be difficult to move around in. I dumped the tub on the floor and opened it, searching for the three paintings of New Zealand birds my aunt had given me to remind me of home.

‘Put these up, dear,’ Aunty Gwen had told me, passing me three pen drawings of native birds when I first left New Zealand. ‘Then you will always think of home.’ She’d been right; the paintings of piwakawaka (fantail), kereru (wood pigeon) and tui had decorated every bedroom wall since my arrival in Alaska over two years before. Looking at them every day kept New Zealand close to my heart.

I had met Gary almost three years earlier, through the internet. At first we simply emailed each other, amazed at our polar-opposite lives; he was in Kotzebue in the northwest Arctic of Alaska, I was in Balclutha, located in the southeast Otago region of New Zealand. At that time he was a high school principal, while I was a resource teacher. We had both so enjoyed writing about our daily lives that were a mirror image of each other’s.

If I had never suggested he join me to see in the new millennium during his short Christmas break, I would probably never have been in Alaska at all. The whole sequence of events that happened so quickly after our initial emails and ended in our marriage still amazed me.

‘Shall we make our bed up now?’ Gary asked, walking into our bedroom.

‘Yeah, good idea,’ I agreed. ‘I’m already feeling totally exhausted.’

‘Well, I’ll pick up some hot food for a treat tonight,’ my husband replied, placing a head-and-shoulders photo of me on the bedside cabinet on his side of the bed. It was the photo I had sent him before he met me, the worst one I could find. I’d wondered if, after seeing it, he’d bother to show up at all. If he did still come, then hopefully he’d be pleasantly surprised and not disappointed when he saw the reality.

But the photo had come back to mock me. Gary loved it and always had it sitting there, right next to him by the bed, where I had to look at it every day. ‘Remember,’ he said, turning and smiling at me. ‘This is city living now, honey, we can have take-out food here.’

Chapter 2

B

Railroad to Fairbanks

My summer holidays had officially begun in New Stuyahok in late May, with the summer school reading programme. ‘New Stu’, as it was more commonly known, had been our home for the past two years. This small Yup’ik Eskimo village on the upper reaches of the Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska was where Gary and I had started our teaching life together. Gary had been appointed principal of the K-12 school and I became first grade teacher.

My first grade class had its challenges, and stretched my teaching abilities to exhausting limits, but my teaching success with the class had subsequently earned me a position as reading specialist in the elementary school. That had been in our second year in New Stu.

Gary had been seconded as acting superintendent of schools during the last few weeks of the previous school year. He then worked out of Dillingham, a forty-minute flight away downriver from me. Gary had continued to manage his New Stu principal responsibilities with support from his deputy principal, Chuck, and me.

‘Chuck and Sue along with baby Adam are moving permanently out to Wassilla at the end of the year,’ Gary told me at the time. I nodded, knowing they were building a home near Anchorage on the much coveted road system.

‘I really didn’t believe them when they talked about renting their brand new house out,’ I said. ‘With Sol and Shena leaving, the writing was on the wall.’

Sol and Shena, their close teaching friends, had also decided to move back to Dillingham to be close to family. Shena had recently discovered she was pregnant.

‘New Stu is being vacated by excellent teaching faculty,’ Gary said at the time. ‘I know the locals are understandably concerned.’

‘If you gain the superintendent’s permanent appointment, we’ll be the next to leave,’ I reproached him. Gary looked thoughtful.

‘We need to make sure New Stu has some outstanding replacements then,’ he said emphatically.

We had been flown into Anchorage and interviewed for the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project late April. Both our interviews had gone very well.

‘I’d love to become an itinerant resource teacher like I was in New Zealand, only this time flying to bush schools,’ I told Gary. ‘And that new programme for mentoring new principals, you’d be great at that.’ Gary nodded enthusiastically, his interest piqued.

Later, when asked by the interviewing panel if he was available for the mentoring position, Gary responded, ‘Yes, but should the permanent superintendent’s position be offered to me at the Southwest Regional School District, I would take that ahead of mentorship.’ The panel, though disappointed, had understood.

‘Superintendency is a far more lucrative deal, honey,’ Gary explained to me, checking I wasn’t getting my hopes up for the mentoring position. We had already decided we would be staying together no matter what. ‘It’s one that will stand us in excellent stead for my retirement. You retire on the top three years of your income,’ he added. I knew that well, and it seemed to be Gary’s mantra.

Shortly afterwards, Gary was appointed superintendent. He called me in New Stuyahok.

‘I got the appointment, honey!’

‘Wonderful!’ I responded, surprised that I actually did feel a little pleased. I didn’t want to ever leave New Stu, but I knew Gary deserved recognition for his administration skills. The increase in salary would be a welcome addition to our savings. ‘I’ll start packing today!’

Each day in the early afternoon after summer school finished, I began packing up our things ready for our permanent move to Dillingham. Gary flew home to New Stu at the weekends to help me pack and clean, and to say our final farewells to our friends. We decided to arrange time off together to take a short break once we’d finished. Gary booked us on a train trip up to Fairbanks from Anchorage, travelling on the Alaskan railway.

‘I’m totally exhausted,’ I told Gary. Our last box had been packed, my last hug given before finally flying out of New Stu. ‘At least this train trip gives me something else to focus on.’

‘Saying goodbye to Nick was the hardest,’ Gary commented as we sat side by side on the train heading out of Anchorage. Nick, a local, had been the school’s maintenance man and a supportive friend throughout our stay in New Stuyahok. ‘You know he told me once, When you leave Doc, I retire.’

‘Do you think he actually will, now that you are leaving?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure, honey. Saying it is a different matter from doing it.’

‘He’s going to be lost without you,’ I said thoughtfully.

‘And I will be lost without him. What a friend he’s been to us.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, thinking about all Nick had done for us. ‘His care represents all that is great about New Stu and its people.’

Our Fairbanks train trip included a stop off at Denali National Park where we stayed in a log cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

‘Fancy actually seeing Denali,’ Gary commented. He chose to call the mountain by its traditional name rather than the political and more common one, Mt McKinley. ‘It’s unusual as it’s often hidden, shrouded by the clouds it builds around itself.’

‘It’s overawing to view this spectacular state that I now call home,’ I replied. Gary and I were sitting on the small wooden bench outside our cabin, sipping wine and gazing at the huge mountain that lay before us. ‘The scenery it reveals to the tourist is jaw dropping.’ I took a sip of wine. ‘I love Alaska,’ I repeated to Gary. ‘It’s just so stunningly beautiful. I absolutely love the remoteness and peacefulness of it.’

‘Yup babe, remember I told you people either love it or hate it.’ I thought about that long-ago time when Alaska had still been a foreign country to me and Gary had told me of its impact on first-time visitors. ‘I know that you’ve loved it from the start.’ Gary looked at me fondly.

My first flight into the Alaskan wilderness had completely changed my imaginary picture of Alaska.

‘I remember thinking it was just like a giant iceberg with swirling mists and snow, uninhabitable. Remember when I told you at Pilot Station just after I’d landed, "Oh I could live here!"’

Gary laughed. ‘Yup honey, you got me worried that I might never get to go back home to New Zealand.’ He had loved New Zealand at first sight, and wanted badly to settle there.

‘Yeah, you said to me, "We will go home again?" in such a plaintive voice!’ I laughed at the memory. He had asked that question when I told him I wanted to join him in bush Alaska. ‘You know, after two years of remote living, I’m still nowhere near ready to contemplate a move back Down Under. There’s still too much to see and experience of Alaska.’

‘Yeah, honey, it’s ideal,’ Gary retorted. ‘I have a beautiful wife, stunning views and I’m spending my hours on a train looking at both of them. Doesn’t get any better than this!’ We laughed, clinking our glasses in a toast. We both knew that trains were Gary’s happy place.

We reached Fairbanks feeling totally relaxed. We’d been lulled by the swaying of the train’s cars while watching the land gradually change from flat to mountainous. However Fairbanks, the largest city in interior Alaska and the second largest in the state, was much hotter than I’d expected.

‘Blimey, it’s stinking hot here!’ I exclaimed. ‘Imagine gold mining in this heat,’ I muttered. I had read that Fairbanks had been a huge gold-mining town in the early 1900s.

‘Yep, temperatures are in the nineties,’ Gary commented as we checked into our Fairbanks motel.

In the middle of the night, I awoke smelling smoke.

‘Sweetheart,’ I nudged Gary trying to awaken him, maybe the motel was on fire. ‘Sweetheart?’ A little push.

‘Huh?’

‘I can smell smoke, maybe the place is on fire!’

Gary gave a half-hearted sniff. ‘No babe, someone must be smoking in the next room.’ He wrapped his arms around me and immediately fell back asleep. The following morning when I opened the window I smelled pungent smoke. Thick grey smoke clung to the road, blurring my view of the houses beyond.

‘Something’s definitely been on fire!’ I yelled. Gary clambered out of bed and took a quick look.

‘Bushfires. It must be bushfires, babe. Fairbanks is famous for them.’

Over breakfast we had this conclusion confirmed by the motel owners.

‘Happens all summer up here. They surround us, so you get to enjoy summer along with the added aroma of smoke,’ they joked.

We only had time for a cursory look around Fairbanks.

‘We must definitely return during a break when we have more time to explore,’ I said, as we headed back to Fairbanks airport. We were flying back to Anchorage that day.

‘Great idea, honey! Maybe we could do a summer tour through here in an RV one day.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ I agreed, thinking that my phrases were starting to sound very American.

Chapter 3

A Visit Down Under

We flew back to Anchorage from Fairbanks, where I was booked on a connecting flight to Sydney to stay with my twenty-five-year-old daughter, Ella.

‘I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, honey,’ Gary said, trotting off to catch his return flight to Dillingham at the other end of the large airport. He would join me in Sydney at the end of June. It was winter Down Under, but Sydney’s weather was very mild.

‘Listening to your stories about the Fairbanks trip,’ Ella announced one evening shortly after Gary had joined us in Sydney, ‘I think we should travel up to Katoomba by train, and stay a night in the Blue Mountains. It’s magical up there.’

‘Great idea, D2.’ Gary grinned. As stepfather and stepdaughter, Gary and Ella had come up with a name for each other, both agreeing D2 was the best. ‘D2 means Daughter 2 and Dad 2, perfect,’ they decided.

After a two-and-a-half-hour train trip west out of Sydney, it was starting to feel very cold.

‘We need to go buy a hat and gloves,’ I told Ella once we arrived at Katoomba. ‘I’m freezing!’

‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing,’ she responded. ‘You live in Alaska, I’d think you’d be used to it!’

‘Alaska or not, I need a hat and gloves!’

After we dropped our bags off at the Katoomba motel, we decided to take a ride on an old mining tram. The track had been constructed to pass through sandstone cliffs and out into a rain forest.

‘It’s supposed to be the steepest incline railway in the world!’ Gary declared with glee. ‘It’s in the Guinness Book of Records! ’

The tram ran at a steep gradient down the slope, travelling at four metres per second. Once the frightening ride was over I announced, ‘That was just like being in a bush plane in Alaska!’ Gary and Ella laughed. Ella had flown to New Stuyahok after we first moved there, so both she and Gary knew about bush planes and the unexpected plunges they sometimes took.

After returning to the city, and Ella to work, we met up with Paratai, my close Māori friend and elder at Te Wairua Tapu, the Māori Anglican church in Redfern. Te Wairua Tapu had been the scene of my previous social life, an old stamping ground during the last five years of my life in Sydney before I moved home to New Zealand.

Paratai was excited to see us. It was the first time since our wedding in New Zealand, where she had played an important role as kuia, elder, teaching Gary a mihi, a formal greeting to surprise me with during our wedding reception.

‘Ae, tino pai—that’s very good,’ she told Gary when he shared the news about his new position as superintendent. ‘And what about you, e kare? What are you going to be doing in this new place?’

‘In Dillingham?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘I’ve been offered a job as the cultural coordinator for the nine village schools but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it.’ I spoke timorously. I wanted Paratai to hear about my qualms. She had always been a close friend, confidante and supporter, so I trusted her opinion. I knew Paratai would not hesitate to caution me if she felt it was needed.

‘Kōrero mai, tell me more,’ she said.

‘I’ll be visiting villages to try to encourage the local people to share more of their culture and learning in the school,’ I explained. Paratai nodded for me to continue. ‘This means helping them integrate their beliefs and values into the curriculum. I’m not Yup’ik Eskimo, and I don’t want to presume I know anything, I’m only there to help facilitate the process.’

‘A coordinator, not an expert,’ chimed in Gary.

‘Good,’ she said, giving Gary a perfunctory nod. Then she turned to me. ‘Ae, you do it darling, I couldn’t think of a better person. You have such aroha and wairua. Just do it.’ I smiled at the impact of her words and hugged her.

I knew Paratai would never agree to something for me if she thought I couldn’t manage it. Her words gave me the confidence to begin to seriously contemplate my new work.

‘I’m also helping to set up reading programmes in the village schools,’ I explained. ‘Something I’ve been doing in New Stu, so it’s more familiar territory,’ I added.

‘Tino pai tēnā,’ she said in approval, smiling proudly at me. ‘This is all good.’

Her words replayed in my mind as I flew back to Anchorage.

‘Maybe I will be okay in this new job,’ I told Gary.

‘Oh, babe, I know you’ll be great,’ he replied, squeezing my hand.

On our return to Anchorage, Gary spent two days helping settle me into the university dorm where I was scheduled to work in a three-week reading internship at the University of Alaska.

‘It’s stinking hot in here!’ I complained to my husband as we entered the small dorm room. Anchorage was in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures soaring day after day.

‘Well, every store has sold out of fans,’ he declared on his return to the dorm, smiling happily and carrying a very large box. ‘So I convinced one store owner to sell me the model he had on display in the window!’ Gary pulled a very large industrial-style fan