Overview of my madness

We live in very rural Alaska in a small town of about 7,000. Bethel is not on the road system and you can only get here by plane. Barges come in the summer when the river is not frozen and in general it is the wackiest place I have ever lived. I have lived all over the world. You can check us out on pretty much every "wacky", "Tough", "strange" place show on TV.

While we are located at the heart of a region the size of the state of Illinois, we have only 27,000 people in the whole area living in small villages. Most of the people, including my hubby and children, are Yup'ik Eskimos. Out here Yup'ik is a common first language and you hear it spoken on the street. I love it. Subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering are the activities that bind our families and communities together. We hunt moose, caribou, ducks, geese, rabbits, beavers, seals & walrus (on the coast), bears and pretty much anything else that wanders out here. There is a lot of ice fishing and in summer salmon takes over our lives. There are a myriad of wild plants and greens that can be gathered but the berries are the most abundant and delicious. We pick five or six different varieties in summer.

We have some scrub spruce, willows and a few stray alders, but for the most part there are no trees and you can see hundreds of miles off into the distance. It is weird to leave and suddenly have your view obstructed all the time. Tundra smells good. Don't knock it until you have sniffed it.

We eat what we shoot. We wear fur, because it is warm. Seal oil is a traditional condiment. People eat dry fish and pilot bread for breakfast. In a nation of hyper-consumerism it astounds me how many people who have no idea where their hamburger comes from are quick to trash the traditions of this region. Seals are eaten and every bit is used from the fur to the meat to the oil. No one "clubs" them. I will save that rant for another day.

I live in a place ruled by the wild. The weather is extreme to say the least. "Summer" is June-early September. Temperatures are usually 50-60's with a couple days in the 70's. People think about the dark of winter when they think Alaska. The summer sun is what really gets you. Dark does not bother me in the least. Sun at 1 am makes me nutty. It does help with our short growing season. There are usually 2 spells every summer when it rains until I start to think we should start building an arc. When it rains, it usually rains sideways and pelts into your ear canal. We get a couple hurricane force storms each year. Spring is about a two weeks long and is just muddy. Fall is about a week or so long. Winter is cold. You get used to it. We are not as cold as the interior, but we get wind. I mock the "wind chills" I see reported on the news down states. 42 degrees...but it feels like 36. Seriously?? Wind chill is -4 but it FEELS like -27.

Our houses are built on piling that is on top of sand pads so all buildings are off the ground. We live on soft permafrost. I tell people we live on squish. Everything shifts and moves with the seasons. In spring people will sell buildings and houses and move them to new locations. There are two basements in town. Kids play under buildings here.

Bethel is located on the second largest river in Alaska, the mighty Kuskokwim. We get four different kinds of salmon that run each summer plus a fifth that comes every couple years. We also have pike, lush, turbit, white and shee fish. We get a quick run of smelts right after break-up in late May. In winter we drive on the river and use lakes as short cuts to get around town faster.

Bethel sits in the middle of the largest wildlife refuge in the US (maybe second largest...either way it is larger than most states). So we are surrounded by wilderness. In town, however, we are all piled on top of each other. Most of the homes are built on subdivided native allotments. My lot at 10,000 square feet is probably an average size. 25,000 would be a huge lot. One guy has 5 acres and he has the only farm in our region and he makes use of every square inch. While surrounded by land, it is actually still really hard to come by.

My gardening and "farming" activities are a source of fascination for everyone. For people outside it seems insane that we do it all with the crazy weather conditions and constraints. For locals who are much more accustomed to harvesting wild resources it is equally fascinating.

I am going to start posting all the different things we have tried over the years. Chickens have become all the rage around here and apparently down states too. I will post all I have learned. I have also tried goats, pigs, turkeys, and have my first water birds in a pen in my yard as I type. I find a lot of people put a LOT of money into their ventures. I do it as inexpensively as possible.

Take it all with a grain of salt. Keep in mind the info I just provided about where I live. This is what has (or has not) worked for us. I hope the info helps someone out there. If not, at least I will finally have it all written for myself somewhere.

Enjoy.