Old Crow

  Here I am in Old Crow, Yukon at latitude 67 degrees or above the Arctic Circle. I am officially teaching in the Arctic. It’s crazy to think, even as I am right here.  I was asked to take a two week supply teaching stint up here last Monday and by Tuesday I knew that I would be packing my bags to leave on Sunday morning. It has been a bit of a whirlwind, but how could I pass up such an incredible opportunity?

   I’ve been here almost a week and I will be staying for the remainder of the school year teaching Gr. 1-3. I have 11 students that are quite wiggily, but very fun. The teacher I am replacing is due to have her first child in one month and so on doctor’s orders she had to leave to go to Whitehorse. She has left me very organized plans and activities so it is making my job pretty easy (besides just trying to keep up with these highly energized kids!)

 

Figure 1 Chief Zzeh Gittlit School- Try pronoucing that name!

 

  The flight here is a bit of a milk run. We stopped in Dawson City to drop off and pick up people and cargo as well as fuel up. We made it to Old Crow in three hours including the stopover. Next the plane goes to Inuvik, NWT then back to Dawson City and finally completes it circle in Whitehorse. On the way home I will catch the plane here and then complete the loop meaning I’ll be able to stop in the North West Territories too. Pretty cool.

 

 

Figure 2 The plane I left on. No security checks for this flight and choose your own seat. I highly recommend Air North- great snacks and hospitality!

 

 

Figure 3 Old Crow Airport. Pretty small.

 

 

Some Old Crow Facts:

 

Population: about 300

 

Distance: About 70 km north of the Arctic Circle and 100 km south of the Beaufort Sea.

 

Old Crow is located at the meeting of the Old Crow and Porcupine Rivers.

 

 

Figure 4 Porcupine River

 

The Gwitch’in people traditional territory of approximately 50,000 square miles that is located mostly in Northern Yukon region west of the border of USA and Canada to the Peel River and Richardson Mountains, and from northern Ivvavik National Park (NWT) to the Ogilvie Mountains. This is because they rely heavily on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for food and other resources and this is the migration region of the Caribou.

 

Old Crow is the only village in the Yukon that cannot be reached by car- only by plane.  It is also the only community in Yukon north of the Arctic Circle. It also claims to be a dry community (no alcohol)- however, I already had some wine during communion at church on Sunday and unfortunately have seen some drunks around town.

 

Old Crow is a periglacial community which means it sits on permafrost. As a result, all the houses are propped up on stacks of wood or complex steel systems. The sewage system also needs to be modified for this reason and so each house has a large sewage container beside it. This morning I was woken up by my tank being emptied :(

 

 

Figure 5 Houses are lifted off the ground to prevent shifting structures when the permafrost melts (contracts) and then refreezes (expands)

 

 

Figure 6 Bigger Scale view of house lifted.

 

 

 

Figure 7 Most houses are a duplex and each duplex has its own oil tank, water tank, septic tank, and usually ATV. Again, due to permafrost, the septic tank can't be underground. There is a community well and each water tank gets filled every two days. If you use too much one day, you may have none the next. This only seems to happen with overuse.

 

 

Figure 8 Most houses are propped up on wooden blocks (like the jenga pile to the right), rather than expensive steel systems. The extra space is used to store all kinds of things!

 

The sun has not set since I’ve arrived or since the middle of May. It will not set until late July. The polar darkness lasts a bit less time, but unfortunately for the whole month of December the community sits in darkness. I’m thankful for the thick blinds that are in my room, although since Monday the weather took a turn from hot and 25 degrees (at all times- even when I went to bed at 10:30 pm) to wintery and cold. One member of the community told me it snows every June during calving season because the snow helps clean the newborn calf. The cooler weather also keeps away the dense mosquito population that arrives in the summer which can actually suck enough blood from a newborn calf that it could die. The mother could also overwork herself by swishing her tail to keep the mosquitoes away that she isn’t strong enough to protect her calf from prey. It sounds like they get A LOT of mosquitoes up here—hopefully not until I’m gone!

 

 

Figure 9 This is out my window on Wednesday morning. It continued to snow all day long, but is now all melted again. It was definitely strange and I had to remind myself it was June while staring out my windows at school!

 

There is so much information and so many pictures for me to post, but I’ll have to take a break now and organize my thoughts a bit more before my next post.  Hopefully this gives a bit of a picture as to life north of the Arctic Circle! It is quite the adventure!

 

  I heard there is a grizzly bear in town tonight so I’m going to walk home from school carefully and stay inside for the rest of the night! (It’s also raining!)