Colleen T. Weber

Three Years: in the Alaskan Bush Colleen T. Weber

Stillness surrounds filling your soul and calming your mind Numbing, icy cold seeps in. A snowy, white world encircles. The frozen river below creaks with the movement of the tides. Intense darkness envelopes as you sit alone on the frigid bank of the Knak River. This is life in the frozen wilderness of the winter Arctic Tundra. Three Years chronicles my three years of teaching in the Lower Kuskokwim School District Eskimo villages of Tuntutuliak and Napakiak. It explains what daily life was like in the village. The prologue also explains the events that led to my children and I being there. One of the things I observed during those three years is that we who don't live there and haven't experienced the changes in the elements become somewhat cocky. Looking back at a trip to Bethel, which turned into a traumatic experience, I see there was no excuse for my risking the lives of my children and myself because of an impatience to do what we wanted to do. The natives run on their own time and it is closely related to "ifs" and "maybes". They didin't plan and execute. They went "if" the tide came in or "if" the planes flew. Then "maybe" they would go to Bethel. Their patience and slower lifestyle must be what allows them to continue to exist in the harsh environment of the tundra.