Gus Brown

I traveled to the village of St. Michael recently.  While I was there I borrowed a friends ATV and went out exploring.  Out on the tundra near the edge of town I spotted this marble monument. 

I don't know anything about Gus Brown but I do know a little bit about St Michael's history.  Back in the gold rush days (around 1900) St Michael Alaska was a busy town with as many as 10,000 people.  Prospectors coming up to Alaska to look for gold would take a sailing ship up from the west coast of the USA, then to travel into the interior of Alaska they would get on a paddle wheel type steamboat and head up the Yukon river.  St Michael was the place where everyone changed boats.   It has a natural harbour to provide protection from the ocean and it is close to the mouth of the Yukon.

C.O.

St. Michael's In-Service

This year's Bering Strait School District in-service was held at the village of Stebbins for some sites and at St. Michael for the rest of us. I was really hoping my brother's school, Elim, would be at St. Mikes, I was glad to find out we were at the same location and I got to see quite a bit of him.

In-services are a bit different for bush teachers. We stay at a school, sleep on the floor with co-workers and shower in locker rooms for four days. Some parts stink, but for the most part it's quite a bit of fun. Who else gets to do this with their coworkers?

Like last year, the organizers of the in-service week had some evening activities for all of us. This year's feature was the band, Landbridge Tollbooth, from Nome and a "caller" from Fairbanks to teach us how to Contradance and Square Dance. It was a blast!

I think this picture of John and my co-worker friend, Amy, learning some new dance moves sure turned out cute.

The following night we were treated to the performances of the Stebbins dance group. (Stebbins and St. Michael are only a few miles apart and are connected by road so they just drove on over.) Eskimo dancing is a lot of fun to watch. I enjoy seeing the ladies sport their colorful kuspuks and dancing in unison.

Brevig Mission Staff getting cozy.

Oh, and we did attend professional develpoment sessions as well. But that's just details. =)

--AnnMarie