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On Monday evening I uploaded the first of some files I’ve been working on with flight sim to a couple of the major flight sim sites that provide file libraries to collect resources like that together. The first was a complete package for Grant Aviation including repaints of the Cessna 207 and 208′s that fly in + out of the village, along with AI flight plans I’d worked out so that you get the planes flying around in flight simulator as you would do in real life. This area of Alaska is pretty much devoid of anything in flight sim (not unlike in real life I guess!), but the addition of some traffic makes such a difference and is pretty cool seeing them moving around Bethel and out to the villages. I wasn’t expecting many people to pay much attention to them, but there’s been over 1000 downloads within the first 72 hours Probably taper off after they move out the latest uploads pages, but nice to see. I’ve already got planes and flight plans pretty much worked out for Hageland Aviation and good ol’ Yute Air (just wish I could figure out a ‘randomness’ factor so sometimes the planes simply don’t turn up…) which I’ll be uploading in the new few days too. The files are available from my flight sim section, and here’s an idea of what some of the Grant planes look like:

Yesterday afternoon I went out for a while jigging (short retirement, I know…) on the Galic River. Got three hooks ripped off whilst trying to haul fish in as the hole wasn’t cut properly at the bottom and was catching the line so headed home, but did have a bit of fun riding out there – this is Pam bundled up in the sled behind Nick + Dana, Mott leading us, then a couple of guys obviously nervous the river was liable to break up

I’d guess they were just moving downriver to be able to get out seal hunting shortly, but was still funny seeing a boat being towed along the frozen river by a snowmobile!

This afternoon, moose foot and me wandered along to the airport and saw a Hageland 207 struggling to come in to land with the wind. Even the pilots have been joking on the radio about how windy it is when coming in to land. Barely seems like they’ve moving sometimes as they’re on final to land.

Least this guy took a little more time on his takeoff run-up – look at how much movement he got out the airplane whilst checking the elevator:

Kat’s feeling a lot better now, I’m blaming it on the broccoli she had on the Sunday evening with dinner The snow does seem to be slowly melting away, and there’s a lot of standing water and cracks forming on the rivers. Riding out to the Galic river yesterday the area looked so different to just a couple of weeks ago with patches of exposed tundra, so the ice may well start to break up in the next couple of weeks. Seems unlikely given how much snow and ice there’s still down (well over 5 foot thick ice yesterday), but the temperature has been slowly rising and due to carry on over the next week up to 40F. Maybe spring is here!

On Saturday morning, Carl McIntyre called to let me know he was going jigging way up on the Johnston River if I wanted to join him. Sounded like fun, and although the day was a little overcast, it was around 25F so not too cold to be standing around for hours. The ride up there was pretty good, even for Carl’s sister bundled in the back of the sled, and when we stopped along the trail at the Kuskokwim to stretch our legs Carl said he’d been going slow as he had precious cargo in the back – if the auger fell out and broke then we couldn’t fish He also joked that he was going to leave some bait in the sled with his sister so she could throw it at the bears as we rode up giving him time to unhook the sled and make a speedy getaway! On Friday night some people had gone out around the village after what turned out to be a musk ox – some kids had seen it and thought it was a bear from a distance, but pretty sure no-one shot it as they’re just trying to build up the numbers of musk ox round this area so hunting is off-limits.

Anyway, other than Carl pretending he was a grizzly bear himself by sticking his hand into the water and grabbing a pike out that squirmed off Carie’s hook within minutes of starting fishing, there wasn’t much more excitement! There were stacks of people fishing round there, but no-one was really pulling out any great numbers, and I still came home with nowt At least it kept Carl happy as he joked there was someone worse than him this time as he’s not a big fisherman, highlighted by the two or three naps he took in the back of the sled through the afternoon, after which he’d calmly walk over to check his holes and find fish on the end of the line!

Coming back was a bit dodgy as the weather started closing in around 4.30p.m and by the time we left around 5.15p.m it was a whiteout all the way back to Tunt. Given that everything is so flat and devoid of anything out here, it was pretty hairy, though thankfully Carl knew exactly where he was going. Looking all around you and seeing nothing, or even being able to tell the ground from the sky in front of you, was a little different and made for slow going (around 2 hours) but we all got back okay. Once off the Kuskokwim river at least the trail markers every couple of hundred yards made it a little easier once you could see them, but I wouldn’t want to try it again in a hurry!

But, Kat was up in the middle of the night being sick so is off work today which isn’t too good. I made a run to the store to get some stuff for her and took a (little…) detour by the airport to see a plane come in. Since the weather was so overcast whilst fishing it wasn’t worth taking photos, but by chance that’s Carl winging his way up to Bethel just after taking off with a Grant 207 on the ramp:

Yesterday afternoon Nick, Dana and I went fishing up to the Gallic River where the locals ‘apparently’ go fishing. I say ‘apparently’, as we saw no fishing holes and could barely keep on the trail up there as it’s not widely used! We had the auger so cut a few holes within 5-10 minutes (damn sight easier than using an ice pick to break through existing holes!) and started fishing, but had about as much luck as fishing downriver from Tunt. It was a nice afternoon though, around 5F without much wind, and the ride was pretty cool through the soft snow and across bare tundra without following a trail. I’ll see if Dana had any good photos I can post. Some of Dana’s family are coming up here tomorrow so Nick wanted to check he could get out to the fishing holes and see if there were some holes already cut, but I don’t think I could find my way back there without getting lost as the wind covers the trail pretty quick

I got my PC up and running over the weekend too – genius that I am brought over a bunch of game CD’s and applications for photo + video editing, but not the driver CD for the system board, so that took a while to download them off the internet. My graphics card (256Mb ATI Radeon 9550) seems to have gone belly up though, probably with bouncing around on airplanes when I moved over here. Works fine just on the desktop, but get all sorts of tearing, streaking and artifacts on screen at low-level (such as BIOS or OS splash screen is loaded) and anytime it kicks into a game. Tried different drivers, flashing BIOS, etc. but simply putting in a basic 32Mb don’t-ask-me-to-do-3D card works without problems so it’s not the system board. Annoying as it would still run at 50-60fps, just can’t make out what the hell it’s trying to display on screen! But, Amazon have a $30 mail-in rebate on a GeForce 8600GT with 256Mb DDR3 bringing it down to $65 delivered which is daft considering they were $150 a few months ago, and will kick the pants off the 9550 I paid the same for a couple of years back. That’s PC technology though, especially graphics cards.

Running a couple of fishing holes down river this afternoon. Pretty warm (25F) but a strong, cold wind. Didn’t catch anything, but was glad just to be outside for an hour or two.

Our Juneau kids seem to be enjoying themselves, having recovered from a long day of traveling out here on Sunday. When I picked them up at the airport they couldn’t believe how small their plane was and how scared they were – they flew in on a Cessna 208 Caravan which is almost three times the size of the normal Cessna 207′s that serve the village but figured I’d keep my mouth shut and let them see what they fly out on! We had Veronica with us from the Sunday night, then Monday lunchtime we realised one of the other girls, Angel, was staying with Greg next door along with the teacher, so offered to house her as well to give the teacher a bit of a break and maybe make it a bit more comfortable for them both here as they’d at least feel a bit more relaxed with a friend in the house. Ever tried putting up a bunkbed by hand with a single screwdriver and an assortment of screws from three years ago when the houses were initially furnished that don’t match up to the pointless instructions ? But, they haven’t collapsed and that’s the main thing.

Today has been a bit frustrating as I’d asked Carl at the gas station yesterday about open fishing holes as Greg was hoping to get the Juneau kids out ice fishing, so I headed off downriver as Carl suggested and sure enough found owld Grandad Pavilla (can never remember his first name!) jigging with a good half dozen open holes in the ice. Should have taken my gear as all day today it’s been rained in. Snowed in I don’t mind. Cold-ed (even a word?!) in I don’t mind. But rained in, at the start of March, in Alaska?! Nuts to that, I tried it anyway but by the time I got to the mouth of the river it was just whiteout and said nuts again and came home. It’s right around 30-32F (0C) and the top snow on the river is turning to mush so will need a good freeze to make it safe again, but it’s forecast to stay warm and rainy for a few days. Of course, now it’s 4.30p.m the rain/sleet/snow has cleared up, but after all afternoon of soaking the river it’s not worth trying to go out again.

Mark also called me in to work tomorrow which kinda figures given the weather. It always seems to be -20F, howling winds or just plain miserable when he calls over the last couple of months! I wanted to know what I was letting myself in for, to which he simply replied “ceilings”. “Ceilings?” I asked, “Yup, bring your shorts + sandals” he joked (I didn’t get it).

What do I know about ceilings – so long as they as they don’t fail on me head I don’t see what there is to them…

With the temperature up to a sweltering -10F (-23C) but very little wind, I headed out to try ice fishing this afternoon. I kinda figured I may as well just bash my hands against a dry wall as they would end up the same way, and sure enough all the holes were frozen solid from the constant cold the last few days I got a couple of feet down in a few different holes, but after an hour blistering my hands in my mittens from the ice pick figured I’d just leave it and head back with the gas-powered auger from school next time to cut straight down.

But, without any wind down in the river it was actually a lot warmer than it seemed. I’d bought a new (i.e ‘proper’) pair of goggles from the store a few days ago and they worked wonders – covered everything + more and stayed clear the whole time. Not bad for $44 as I couldn’t have got anything decent shipped in for that price. Weird how sometimes the prices are ridiculous and other times seem like a right bargain!

The locals should be starting to drill proper jigging holes downriver in the next couple of weeks, and chatting with Jason yesterday he’s looking forward to getting his snowmobile back from Bethel to go hunting too, so I figured I should get all legal and purchase a hunting & fishing licence:

Never had a hunting licence before Not sure whether I’ll get to use it, but at least riding out with people hunting covers me in case the jobs worths arrive in the middle of no-where to check up on us (highly unlikely after the last time they turned up in Tunt a few years ago…). Was only $48 for the combined hunting & fishing licence for 2008 since I’m now officially an Alaskan resident, and could go king or silver salmon fishing around Kenai next summer too if I got a chance!

After getting my snowmobile home a couple of days ago and checking everything over, it’s now running fine again. Still not sure why it was originally losing power, but I’ve put IsoHeet into the gas tank to stop any water in there freezing and causing fuel blockages again. We’ve had a bunch of snow through yesterday and last night so there’s a good 6-8 inches of power snow down, and I was out for 30-40 minutes this afternoon without any problems. It was fun going onto the river as I got from the little dock by the school to where the river splits upstream in about 3 minutes – took over half an hour in the canoe! Yesterday I’d tracked down the speedometer problem to the key in the driveshaft having broken, but at 4+ hours work (and not having the foggiest how to even take the driven clutch off, let alone take it apart!) to fix it, I’ve decided I can live without it. It’s not a more serious problem of a bearing failure on the driveshaft, and I borrowed Frank’s grease gun to add low temperature grease on a bunch of areas.

Later this afternoon Kat + I took the dogs out for a walk on the river and they both seemed to enjoy it:

Mia was full of energy and kept running around, even if she did keep loosing her footing on the ice underneath the snow at the edges of the river! Kept coming back and having a lie down next to us to catch her breath before running off again:

Kat tried to make a snow angel in the fresh snow, but didn’t get very far with all the dogs clambering over her – I did eventually help her out by calling the dogs away so she could get up:

My snowmobile tracks are somewhere in here from earlier – was so much nicer riding in the powder snow across the tundra and then on the river rather than the compacted snow:

Coming back off the river by the airport was fun – even close up it looks like standing water:

It is all frozen solid, but the wind and snowmobiles have blown the snow away. Still pretty dodgy walking over it and looking down to see yourself seemingly walking on water!

But, when we got home, the power was still out, having gone off around noon. Frank + Mark were dragging out extension cords to our duplexes and moving around inside the heater rooms, as they were hooking the heating units up the school’s generator. Didn’t sound encouraging, and turns out the frequent power cuts in the village have been due to only one generator actually working which had then frozen today and broken. There’s meant to be a smaller generator they can hook up, but it would only give out enough juice for each house in the village to run their heater and a single light bulb. That said, it’s now 7.30p.m and no power at all to the houses. Thankfully we at least have the heater still going at home otherwise it would be seriously cold, but it’s meant to be at least a couple of days before the power will be fully restored, and that’s “village” 2 days, which is likely to mean a week. No power, no water (electric pump), and nothing to stop the pipes from freezing for whenever power does come back and the water comes back on. The school’s generators are running fine, but they eat fuel at the best of times so things are being conserved here too. Hopefully something will come back on soon otherwise there’s an awful lot of food in the freezers going to waste, and it’s not like we can cook any of it either! A lot of the houses in the village can use wood burning stoves since they can’t get their mains heater going, and thankfully it’s around 15F today, as at the beginning of the week it was -20F and then people would really have had problems staying warm.

But, eyed up some ice fishing spots today just around the village, so might head out tomorrow and freeze my butt off catching nothing but a cold like over the summer! Apparently some people have been catching white fish and pike using nets and pots, but not sure about just using a line. Not like there’s going to be anything to do at home anyways!

Rocky decided to investigate why I was lying in bed earlier and figured the best way to wake me up + make me feel better was to jump up onto the bed with me:

After heading over to the grocery store, Alice from the post office caught me on the way back home to let me know there was a stack of boxes for school. By the time I got to school, Frank was already unloading them and one of them turned out to be my ice fishing stuff

Hopefully this weather will hold for another few days and I’ll be able to head out this weekend. It feels very warm again even though it’s around -10C, and so long as the snow doesn’t become too soft + sticky, should be fun riding out on the snowmobiles to the fishing holes.

But, also in amongst the mail were two letters of receipt from the USCIS for my forms for adjustment of status application. Helpfully shows the receipt date as being March 16th, so if anyone checks my passport over the summer, it will show the visa expiring on March 21st but USCIS receiving my application of adjustment of status before this date Also says they’ll arrange a date + time for me to provide my biometrics (fingerprints + photos), which hopefully will be in Bethel. I reckon it will be in Anchorage, so could be fun trying to arrange it for when we’re actually going to be around in the summer. Means the work permit is unlikely to be sorted by the summer to arrange social security though.

So, we let the pike thaw out this afternoon and then tried cooking them Turns out they were both females so I kept the eggs to freeze and use as bait next time – worth a try since they’ll eat pretty much anything and we’d used salmon eggs yesterday. After we (or rather Kat, since I’ve got a nice cut on the top of my thumb she doesn’t want to get infected like Josh before Christmas!) gutted them, I wasn’t sure how much meat we’d actually get off them as they didn’t seem all that impressive once cleaned out. But, they seemed to soak up the little sauce I smeared over the inside before cooking them and we ended up with quite a bit from the one fish:

That was more than enough for the two of us! It wasn’t quite as bony as I expected other than down towards the tail, and much like when cooking trout the scales peel right off after cooking and you can easily separate the actual meat off the spine. Was pretty tasty, nothing all that special, though will look at making a proper sauce for next time since it was still a little try just on it’s own.