Tundra Times

I love this time of the year on the tundra!  Blueberries dot the ground cover and brilliant red cranberries are ripening.  The bugs are pretty active.  I always have to laugh about the BUGS!  We live in a pretty windy place. Until you want to pick berries, "What wind you will say?" as there is usually none this time of the year!  Like one elder told me years ago, "If you don't like the bugs just wait for winter!" Reassuring when you are swatting black flies and mosquitos and trying to pick berries.  Yesterday we were out picking berries in between all the small rain squalls that were blowing across the tundra.  All rather dramatic as you would be able to watch the squall build in the distance and then see it approach your spot on the tundra.  We would get a good healthy dose of rain.  The rain would move on and things would clear for a bit.

The tundra is green and lush as can be right now.  Fishing for silvers (salmon Coho)is supposed to be fantastic.  Early fall on the tundra is a time of abundance.  This morning the temperature at about 5:25 a.m. was +38ºF which is a wonderful sign of things to come.  The air is now cool and crisp just like it should be as fall starts to approach on the tundra. Changes happen fast and can be very dramatic in the northern latitudes.

Water just isn't always clear but with the help of a filter, it is drinkable.

Water is always a bit of an issue for us out here.  We are in a village which has water for the most part.  This time of the year with a lot of people coming through for sport-fishing, the cannery is up and running processing fish, and the school district has new teachers coming in for training.

All of this places extra demands on the village water system and supply.  Then there can be issues with old pipes, pumps, electricity.  Presently our water looks like this with a nice golden yellow hue.  This means we are on a boil notice and I am hauling water from a friends house that lives up the road who is on a well.  Yesterday as I was heading up the road I thought, "Well the winds are not blowing 40+mph, and it is not -20ºF or colder!"  I am grateful!

Looking south across the tundra to Nulato Hills.

End of summer Fire Weed gone to seed.

Water Water Water

Water is a rather big topic this last week in the village and will be for some time to come.  There are about 725 people who live here and for the most part, we have potable water year around.  We get our water north of the village from a creek called Powers Creek.  To the best of my knowledge, there is a tank up there and it fills with water and then the water comes to us through underground pipes.  How old are these pipes? Oh, good question. We have had on and off leakage and repairs at different times over our 12 years in the village.  Low water levels mean we conserve water or even go on boil notice if the water level is too low.  Sometimes pumps break or cause issues, sometimes it is the leaks that cause problems.  The village sits on a peninsula surrounded by water and you would think we would have water.  In August when the cannery is running, and the school district brings in all the new teachers often water level is low.  Winter brings along its own set of issues for the city workers who deal with the water problems.

This past week we have gone from conserving water as the levels were becoming low, to turning off the water overnight to help fill the tank, city workers trying to find leaks, bring in some outside help with equipment to help locate leaks, to a boil notice, to mostly no running water in the part of the village we live in, to watching the con-ex pump being hauled down to slough, to digging out in front of our place, to almost no water in the tank, and no answer to the leak(s) location(s), to hauling drinking water, and the weather has gone from +20s to minus teens making all of this water extra demanding!

If you are a weather person at all you will notice that clear crisp blue sky and think it is really cold up there and you would be right! It is in the negative teens.  The beginning of a big hole int he middle of the road in front of our place.

Yesterday after ski practice and grooming, Christian loads up the 4-wheeler to head up the road to friends who are on a well to get us drinking water. He will drop off trash and drive about 1.5 miles up the road.  He has already been out in -22ºF wind chill grooming.  Now he will drive up the road into a -22ºF on the 4-wheeler which means the wind chill is even colder to get us potable water!

Brrrr . . . Christian is off to run these tedious errands of hauling trash and filling up our water coolers in the bitter evening cold!

Pretty much the state of the road now.  I have not talked to anyone to see what they are hoping to find down there or what the next plan of attack will be with the water.

We are forever grateful to the village workers who are trying their best to solve the water issues.  They are working in really cold conditions with equipment that is cold metal, and not starting up easily.  Grateful to friends who are on wells, who open their homes to all of us and share their potable water.