Happy Thanksgiving...Err...Native American Heritage Day!

The last couple of days have been interesting ones. On Thursday, we had Thanksgiving with the village in the school gym. The teachers and a few others from the community had baked up more than 20 turkeys and a lot of hams that the Native Village (a local business) provided. At first, we were trying to decide whether or not to even go, because the temperature was right around 0 F, then the wind was blowing at around 30-40 mph. After windchill, the temperature was at best -50 F. We finally decided to put the girls under our coats (like the natives do) and do our best to break the wind on the way over. It worked out well.

At the celebration, we were greeted by many handshakes and the smell of raw fish. We brought rolls, because it was a potluck meal. We were expecting it to be served buffet style because all the food was on a long table on one side of the gym. After the Episcopal choir sang some songs of praise and a couple preachers got up and gave mini-sermons, they began to hand out food to each family to put into ziplock bags, starting with muktuk (the outer part of the whale that is half skin/half blubber) and whale meat. It was "fermented" (you and I might say "rancid") and the smell got to us, so we stepped out for a little bit. They then handed out large crackers called "Sailor Boy Crackers" that the natives like, soup, and drinks the same way as they had the whale meat. This way of doing things is a holdover from the old days when they would share their meat communally with each other so that those who didn't get anything in the hunts didn't starve. They had cut up salmon and other fish with hatchets and bow saws to be passed around and eaten frozen and raw, also. By this point, two hours had passed and Chalyse was hungry and tired and they hadn't even started handing out the rest of the meal. We found out that they were going to hand out all of the food the same way. So, we decided to go home and eat our own food.

While we were there, we found out that Friday was Native American Heritage Day (not sure if that was new or not because they said something about President Obama in relation to it). We had already arranged to have a private Thanksgiving meal with some other teachers in our building on Friday, so we decided that we had just swapped the two days.

So, Friday was our normal Thanksgiving. Two single guys who live in our building and were supposed to bring the drinks and dessert forgot about it, so we had to make up some Kool-Aid and get out a salmonberry pie that didn't turn out amazing that we had put in the freezer and half forgotten about. Besides that, it was a very big meal with all of the stuff that makes Thanksgiving dinner what it is. Regina, the lady that had put it all together, had also invited another teacher that morning. When she called, he said that he was with his son, so she told him to bring his son with him. As we were waiting for them to get there, we decided to call and see where they were at. He had no idea what we were talking about and his son was not even up here. He has a cell phone from Texas, so Regina probably called and invited some random person down in Texas to our meal. Needless to say, they didn't make it, either.