Two Whales on April 16, 2012

Beautiful Sunset- this was at 11:30 at night!
Our days are getting longer and longer again.  

Congrats to John Apassingok and his son Chris for getting the first whale!

This is the first whale in the water upside down. 

Whale still in the water.

The whaling crew tying the whale in order to pull it onto the land.  

This is Chris the boy that speared and killed to whale.
He is in Ty's fifth grade class!

As you can see they have already cut the tail fins off.. not sure why.

When I asked Chris why the belly was already cut open he replied matter of fact-ly, "We got hungry!" 

Hole in the fins to put rope through

People were slowly showing up to see the whale and help bring it in.
The CAT in the background is what they used to pull in the whale.

Here they are getting all the rope attached from the whale to the machines. 

This was me taking a nap while we were waiting...  

Finally we got the rope untangled and hooked it up! Ty is the big guy in Carhartts! 

Working as a community! 

This is one of my students jumping off ice chucks saying "picture me!"

Chris Apassingok- he killed the 42ft whale and brought his community literally a ton of food! 

The whale wasn't out of the water until 10pm so when we got back they finally were cutting sections of the whale apart for families to put in bags and bring home. This is the Apassingok family haling away a section of Mungtuk or Muktuk.

Here is the WHALE!

You can see just how big it is!

The man on top helps to cut the blubber when they are cutting different sections for the community members.

The kids climbed all over the poor whale's head

This is the whale's mouth and nose

That is Baleen which is the filter feeder system the whales use to eat.
Natives collect and then carve the baleen. 

This is the second whale another crew brought in. It is significantly smaller but just as cool!

This is where community members waited to get their Mungtuk.
I was told it depends on your family as to how much whale you get. 

Up close look at Mungtuk and extra blubber!

I LOVE this picture. This picture shows the culture of Gambell and the community coming together in celebration! 

This was my piece of Mungtuk to enjoy at home... It's still in the Freezer! :)  

Did Someone Say Snow?

Can we say fire hazard!!

Unfortunately this happens every time the wind changes directions!  

Ty getting ready to shovel us out again!

This the 20ft high 35ft long snow drift outside our house!

Our door is under all that.... somewhere...

Snow drift to the top of our unit!!

Ty after shoveling for about an hour and a half!!

This was the view outside our other exit!

School Days

It was so fun having Ty's mom in our classrooms to talk pictures of us actually teaching.

Homework!! YAY!!

Pictures are a little out of order but this is me just making some tea before we leave for school..

Here is Ty all geared up.. any exposed skin freezes so fast and hurts!

Ty's parents brought their foreign exchange student Jay. He is teaching a lesson on China and Calligraphy.

My kids loved it when they got to try it out!

Ty and his dad chating during gym class..

This is our school and the parking lot! Once again this picture is from late fall...

Here comes the SNOW!

This picture was taken in about October or November but I have been horrible about posting over the holiday season so here is a few pictures to update you a bit on the weather!

This is more of a benchmark picture if you look at the posts they are about 5 feet high and easy to walk under. Now we walk over them! (Pictures below)

Snow blows into massive snow drifts all over the village this surprised us after school one night... notice the darkness! We have about 5 hours of light around lunch time now.

This is a welcoming sight every morning... this is nothing too!

I LOVE my husband for shoveling us out everyday!

Told you! This is not uncommon...luckily it was the neighbors door not ours!

Here are where the posts are that we once walked under, and now walk over.

You can see the ice coming in on the ocean.

And this is my very FROZEN husband...

It feels so good to BLOG again!!