Port Protection, Alaska is a community of about fifty souls, many of whom are ex-patriots of urban living, who migrated to the end of the road and a little further. Port P, as it is often known, is almost to the very northern end of Prince of Wales Island. To get there from the rest […]
Category: Mostly Alaska: Life as an educator and citizen
Stories about teaching and living in Alaska
Where’s Calvin?
The seventh graders and I were setting up for a bingo fundraiser. During class I took them out in the school van. First, we went around town collecting food donations from families. Then we took the donations to the bingo hall, which was very close to the school. While we were there, we stayed to […]
In which I share pictures of a dear friend
A few months after I bought this car that I keep rattling on about, I walked into the Alaska Gifts store in Craig and spotted a perfectly color-coded mascot: Notice that in certain light she creates a disco-ball effect: She rides with me everywhere I go, and I like to think she has a sense […]
In the days of sideways rain
Sixty-something, partly cloudy, with a light breeze. While this phrase could arguably be used to describe me, this time it is, in fact, a description of recent weather here in Craig, on the outskirts of the Southeast Alaskan rainforest. I am fond of saying that there are two kinds of weather in Craig: straight-down rain […]
Armed and maybe dangerous
Alaska has a regulation that says a student who brings a gun to school must be suspended for a minimum of one year. While I was principal in Kake, Alaska ,there was at least one school board member who had missed that memo. I know this because one day he drove up to the elementary […]
Teeter totter
Stop tipping your chair. You’re going to fall. If you fall, you will disrupt class. If you’re going to tip your chair, could you at least keep it on two legs? One leg looks really dangerous. How do you keep it balanced like that? I’ve really never seen a kid keep a chair balanced on […]
Golf, Southeast Alaska style
These two pictures represent Craig, Alaska’s answer to a driving range. We are crammed onto two tiny islands joined by man-made causeways (see the picture in my right-hand widget column), and there is no flat ground anywhere to be had. There was a time when I laughed at golf, declaring smugly that it couldn’t possibly […]
A-gardening we will go
Recently I started growing lettuce in window boxes. Now, of course I could put together a garden box or a greenhouse, or both, and grow my lettuce that way. But here’s the thing. I am too lazy to go outside to pick my lettuce. Actually, I am trying to set things up so that I […]
“I gave you the grouse!”
Soon after my husband and I met, he brought me a feisty calico kitten, who grew up to be a feisty calico cat. One summer, we worked at a tree nursery/landscaping business, and we stayed on site in a small pickup bed camper. More than once I found birds in various stages of disassembly. One […]