There are a lot of experiences in childhood that can define who you become. High up on my list would be an adventurous move to Nome, Alaska in 1969. It certainly required a huge leap of faith on the part of my parents to uproot our family from the calm and predictable environment we lived in, with extended family all around, to a small town on the edge of the Bering Sea. I believe the biggest lesson I learned from this event is that following a dream can often bring very interesting results that continue to enrich your life for years to come.
Sitting on top of the world, or nearly.
{the sea frozen into pressure ridges}
Arriving in Nome that first day to walk down main street, a dusty dirt road lined with frontier style false front buildings, I thought it was odd that it looked like an old western town from a show like Bonanza! Wow, where have I landed?
Nome is approximately 500 miles from Anchorage and the only way to get there is by air. (Okay, or by dog sled, if you happen to be a musher and want to run the Iditarod.) The few roads leading out of Nome go to virtually nowhere, except one which will get you to the small village of Teller. Because of this isolation, prior to making the move my mom had to place an order for our first years' supply of groceries and toiletries, which would arrive by barge from Seattle soon after our arrival. I can barely plan for a week without finding myself taking multiply trips to the store, how she planned for a year I can't imagine. The house had one room designated for holding all these items, it was like having our own little store in the house.
Ironically, when our first container of possessions arrived on a barge my mom was hoping for her pots and pans and dad was hoping for his tools (he ended up building and renovating several structures while we lived there, with my siblings and I providing free child labor). Of course my brothers and I were wishing for our toys. So what came, in June? Christmas decorations. How that happened and why everything didn't come all at once on the first ship I have no idea!
A barren land of ice and snow for months each year.
When I look back, one thing that made this move unlike any other is how absolutely remote and isolated this part of the world was over forty years ago. No TV, and of course no internet or cell phones. The cost to make a long distance call was astronomical, which lead my parents to actually learn morse code before leaving Oregon as an alternate means of communicating with family. (The few who chose to learn it as well, that is.) To this day I can still call out my name in morse code if anyone should ask. It was like moving to another planet nearly, with the only connection to the outside world being the local radio stations. As a result, if you play a game of Trivia with me you will win hands down, very few updates on popular culture reached us and the only source of news was what the radio announcers shared.
What I was exposed to, however, was the remnants of an intriguing ancient culture that was very much alive and well. Full of arts, crafts, dance, music and a subsistence way of life, I was amazed and inspired by this very foreign (to a young girl from the city) way of living. It was also a very impressionable experience to live life for a time as a minority, that doesn't happen very often for a white child in this country. I do believe it taught me a few things.
I hoped you've enjoyed reading a bit about this adventure, there are many additional tidbits and pictures I could share, perhaps with another post. But back to decorating, I'm starting a new project in the house today. More on that tomorrow!
Post Title → An Adventure
