Permafrost outreach 2009

Another two lecture day for Kenji. Just like it was in Russian Mission, there were a lot of students in this school. It's good to know that they are working on building a new school here.




Marshal was windy with very icy roads. Moving around in the village in snow machines pulling heavy sleds was a nightmare, but the kids were having a great time playing and sliding on the slippery roads.

People were very friendly, and many of the men, no matter where we go, were curious about the big snow machines we were riding.


Thanks to Woody we found a good location for the bore hole. What was interesting was that Woody met Kenji at UAF a few years ago, and then I also met him while he was going to UAF almost ten years ago.







A little ways out of the village, we saw some Lush fish (burbot) traps, and people digging them out. We heard that the trail from Marshal to Saint Mary's is easy to find and good conditions with lots of snow. That was generally true. But again, it took us much longer than expected.




This part of the Yukon River has many cracks with occasional thin ice, and the trail threads through a lot of the sloughs and islands. When the trail crossed the section of river with just ice, the trail disappeared into the clear ice.



After a few wrong turns and a couple of extra hours we made it to Saint Mary's.
St. Mary's is one of the larger villages in this area. Like many other villages the school was located on top of the hill, and we couldn't find our way there without some help.





We met with Craig, the science teacher and Dave, the superintendent as soon as we got there. It was a busy day at the school with teacher and parents conference.

Dave invited us over for some Yukon King for dinner.