Friends,

First, the weather.  After September was very cold, October has been very warm.  This will probably be the third warmest October on record.  And if there is no snow before Halloween it will be the first time since 1938 that there has been a "brown" Halloween.  The river started to freeze last week.  Everybody said it would soon be frozen over.  But then it warmed up and now there is very little ice remaining.

Ducks can walk on water!

Last week I mentioned the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN).  Thursday evening we volunteered to help with "Quyana."  That is pronounced coo-ya' na.  It means "Thanks" in one of the Native languages.  It is a festival of Native dances.  The different tribes have their own regalia and dances.  When they sang all tribes sounded the same to me.  Some groups had children as young as two dancing.  Many groups had people in their 80's.  

The tan outfits were often leather.

I liked these drums.

Most groups closed their time with a "group dance."  All people in the audience were invited to come up and join the group.  Sometimes about 100 people joined the performers.

Here are children having a part in the dance.

I liked this groups headdress best.

Half the groups performed Thursday and the other half Friday evening.  There were seven groups each evening.

I sat in on the AFN convention session for a little while one afternoon.  They were applauding gains in Native rights and considering other issues to pursue.  Some things they discussed while I was there was use of migratory bird feathers in regalia, the right to hunt sea lions for use in arts and crafts, and laws to protect subsistence living.  The Alaskan Federation of Natives is the main group working for Native rights. 

While I was doing that Elva was looking at the arts and crafts.  Furs were probably the most expensive items.  A wolf hide would sell for around $800.  There were many carved figurines.  These were well done and probably took a lot of time to finish.  But they were expensive.  If a carved wolf a couple inches long was made of walrus ivory it might cost $200 to $300.  They had some things made of moose ivory, or moose bone.  They also had silver, a few gold things, dresses or tops, fur coats, jewelry, billfolds, shoes, muskox knitted into neck warmers, paintings, etc.  

Thanks for reading.

God's blessing to all.

Larry and Elva

People interested in Alaska   ----

There is much happening here.

Friday evening we went to a University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) hockey game.  The opponents were from Denver University.  Fairbanks won with 20 seconds lift in over time by a score of 3 to 2.  This is the first time we have ever been to a hockey game.  It would have been nice to have Nathan Luitjens with us to explain what was happening.  We could, of course, watch the puck (most of the time) and see scores, but there was much we did not understand.

The mascot of UAF is Nanook, or a polar bear.  The Native Alaskans considered the polar bear to be almost human and if hunters would show proper respect to a bear they had killed that bear would allow the hunters to have success when hunting another polar bear.  If they did not show proper respect to the dead bear then he would not allow the hunters to come near any more bears.

Between the first and second periods kids 4-6 years old played a bit of a game.

Saturday afternoon we went to Fairbanks Friendship Day.  Any of the various cultures in Fairbanks could present something of their homeland.  We saw Moroccan dancers, Argentine Tango, Mandarin duet, break dancers, Cuban dance and many others.  They also had food for sale from some of those places.  Can you tell which ones we took pictures of?

Saturday evening the Fairbanks Community band gave a performance.  One of the things Elva and I try to notice is whether or not we see anyone that we know as we are out and about.  There were actually three people at the band performance that we knew.  They were from the Presbyterian Church.

One nice thing here is that if you wish to see the sunrise you don't have to get up early!  This was about 9:15 Monday morning while we were volunteering (below).

In Fairbanks this week the Alaskan Federation of Natives (AFN) is having their convention.  Actually, that is the second half of the week and the first half is Elders and Youth Convention.  Elva and I volunteered for that Monday morning.  I was surprised at the Christian emphasis.  They had an opening prayer.  The men who presented the flags prayed together before their presentation.  One of the speakers spoke through Skype.  He is the first Native Alaskan to be a pro basketball player.  He plays for the Boston Celtics and called from Boston.  

This man drummed and together he and his uncle did a native Athabascan dance.  There are about twenty language groups in Alaska.  The Athabascans are native to the area around Fairbanks.

The purpose of the Elders and Youth Convention is to have the opportunity for the youth to hear the wisdom of the Elders.  Of course, in times past is was essential for the wisdom of the elders to be passed to those younger so they could survive the harsh conditions of Alaska.  So at the convention they had about 90 minutes to do what the picture above says.  All around the convention floor (actually the same floor where we had seen the hockey game a few evenings earlier) were groups of youth gathered around an elder.

In each of the table groups above there are several girls listening to an elder.  Elder is not necessarily real old but older than the youth.  In the picture just above this paragraph it appears that the elder is in her 40's.

In this picture you cannot see the elder because he is surrounded by so many youth.  The kids listened very attentively.  They seemed eager to hear what the Elder had to say.

To volunteer at this event we had to become "Golden Heart Greeters."  Fairbanks claims to be the Golden Heart of Alaska.  Various of us were stationed at entrances and welcomed those coming to the convention

Each greeter was loaned one of these to identify ourselves as official greeters.

Thanks for your interest.  If you have any questions please ask.

From Alaska

The far north Evers

Friends,

Looking north, south, and west from Fairbanks we see mountains.  The mountains to the north are the White Mountains.  They are more like big rolling hills.  They are just next to Fairbanks.  Driving north one goes directly from town to the White Mountains.  The White Mountains curve around to the west of town also.  Going west also takes one directly into these rolling mountains.  The Alaska Range is to the south.  But this is a hundred miles or so to mountains.  Denali or Mt. Rushmore is in this range.  There are many other very high peaks in this range.  These are a part of the Rocky Mountains that extend north of Colorado through Canada and end up being the Alaska Range.  These same mountains extend south through Central America and become the Andes Mountains in South America.  To the east and south east we see no mountains.  One cannot be in Alaska and not be aware of mountains.

Yesterday (Monday, October 14) we drove northeast into the White mountains.  Our apartment is just across the street from the Chena River and where we stopped to walk was just across the road from the same river.  The thought occurred to us to wonder how long it would take to go by canoe from that spot to our apartment.  But the cold water soon banished that thought and we went on our walk.

The higher nearby mountains were covered with snow

The path we were on was going up Mastodon Dome.  (Generally the very rounded mountains are called domes.)  It is a new path, not yet finished.  So there was mud, rocks, and trees across the path.  We ran out of time before we reached the top of Mastodon Dome and had to turn around to get back to the van to return home.

There were still gobs of blueberries.  Within sight of where this picture was taken there were probably a couple thousand berries.  By now they had frozen and thawed many times so their texture was like little sacks with a few drops of juice inside.  But they were very sweet, better than the ones we picked when they are supposed to be picked.  The bears have missed a lot of good food here.

Trees grow EVERYWHERE.  As we walk around town trees grow in the cracks of the sidewalks, between the sidewalks and streets, and along walking paths.  These little black spruce trees were near the Chena River.  Those in the top picture are about two inches tall.  In a three-foot square area there were 20 or 30 trees.  The bottom picture is more close-up.  These were about one inch tall and we think they were little trees but not sure.  Nearer Christmas we hope to go out someplace and just clip a Christmas tree for the house.

The weather does not seem like winter is getting very close.  The temperatures have stayed about the same for a month or so.  The highs are in the low to mid forties and the lows close to thirty.  Most of the days are cloudy.  The sun, however, does look like winter is rapidly approaching.  The highest it gets in the sky is only about 16 degrees.  Week by week the morning sun is slower and the evening sun is gone more quickly.  For comparison I used the same website to find some of this information for Des Moines, it did not have Wayland or even Iowa City.  At noon in Des Moines the sun is 39 degrees from the horizon.  Here the sun rise and sun set times are 8:45 a.m. and 6:27 p.m.  In Des Moines they are 7:27 a.m. and 6:33 p.m.  The reason the sunset times are so close is that Des Moines is near the middle of its time zone.  All of Alaska is in the same time zone, except the Aleutian Islands.  Fairbanks is not near the middle of its time zone.

God's  creation continues  to astound me.  Creation certainly shows the wisdom and love of God.

Larry and Elva

Friends   ===

Well, here we are getting close to the middle of October.  If this turns out to be a normal winter the snow will start to stick around the 15th of this month and stay until April sometime.  Of course, no matter where one lives few years have "normal" weather.  This  year has not been normal here in Fairbanks.  This was one of the shortest summers.  Here they measure summer from the last snowfall in the spring to the first snowfall in the fall.  That was May 17 and September 18.  I don't know how they figure spring and fall in that scenario.  We have had some nice fall days since the first snow.  But the days are getting shorter.  Elva goes to volunteer at 8:30 and that is about when the sun comes up.  Soon it will be dark when she leaves.  There is daylight savings time here too so the evenings are not dark so soon.

Last Saturday we went to the "Farthest North Forest Sports Festival."  As far as they know it is the one that is farthest north.  It is just a fun thing the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources sponsors each year.  They organize and set it up but anyone can participate.  I could have but I knew better.  It was just a fun wholesome thing, far better than Iowa State's Veishea.  Of course the purpose of those two things are quite different.  Here are pictures  of most of the events with a short comment.

This is the ax toss

One of the better throws.

Ladies participated in most events too.

Ax still in flight.

Log rolling - the log was tapered but it had to be rolled straight.  Most teams did not go straight enough and then had to move the log sideways.  That used a lot of extra time.  It had to be rolled about 30 feet and then back again.

You can see a stake.  There were actually two stakes about closer together than the log was long.  It was not so easy to arrive at the correct place at the other end.  (No, I did not do this, that is just how it looked.)

Two person cross-cut saw.  This wood was about 15 in by 15 in.  Some teams could do this in about 20 seconds, others in a couple minutes.

Single person saw.  This wood was 6 x 6 inches.  This man was by far the best.  His time was 11 seconds if I remember correctly.

This is the log toss.

Each team member tried to get the logs to land between two posts like these at the other end.  The team kept tossing until they had ten that stayed between the posts.  The object was to have the shortest time getting your 10 logs between the posts.

The above events were all at one site in the morning.  There were two events in the afternoon at a nearby lake.

Campfire starting, which team could get the water in the can to boil first.  They added a squirt of dish washing soap so that it was easy to see when the water boiled.  They started with the can of water, five matches, an ax, a one-foot hunk of wood, a flat 15 x 15 hunk of wood.  This team was by far the best by far.  The man with his back to the camera was 56 (he said that) and the other man perhaps 40.

There were six teams at a time.

Nearing success.

That is mostly steam because it is boiling.

Burling or birling we could not find the word in the computer dictionary.

Carrying to log to the water.

Women too.

On the left was a boy of about 11 years.  He tried most events.

People dressed many different ways.

We did not stay to the very end.  The boy won the first round and lost in the second round.  We want him to win.

We have started attending "life group" through the Presbyterian Church.  The associate pastor hosts the group we meet with.  He gave us a red salmon.  It was about 20 inches long.  It was caught and frozen, still had head, tail, fins, and guts.  Elva had the pleasure of preparing it.

We think these were eggs.

Around town are some of these trees.  They are tamaracks, conifers that loose their needles each fall.

These are across the river from our apartment.  The closer shorter building beyond the tamaracks is the Adult Learning Center where I help with GED math.

As at most places there are better kept yards and less well kept yards.  These two pictures show part of the yard of one house just north of Fairbanks.  Some people here say they need to keep things because one never knows when they might need it.  This place must think they will need a lot of things sometime.

Thanks for keeping track of us.  We welcome questions and comments.

Larry and Elva

Amen, come Lord Jesus