He is in village called Pilot Station located on the east side of the state along the Yukon river. For the summer he is one of only 3 white men in the town. The rest of town is mostly Yupik Eskimo. He was asked if he was a preacher since most of the white men they see are. This past week the teachers have all come back for the school year and so he is not the only white man around.
Basically he is there to supervise road building. He has hired the locals with and without experience. Most have none. The ones that have CDLs are limited in their experience. He is doing a lot of training.
He is learning a tremendous amount about the Yupik culture. It is quite fascinating. I learned quite a bit from Alaskan history when I lived in Anchorage and on the Kenai Peninsula. So he is sharing things with me from his first hand experience. In the picture above is a wedding reception. He is invited to everything that takes place there. I don't even think he was there very long when he was invited to this wedding. They are wearing what Eskimos wear in the summer. It is basically their lightwieight summer parka. When we lived in Alaska I bought a summer parka that was made for cabbage patch dolls back in the day.
There is a high mortality rate there. Considering how few people are there, he has been to or watched the entire town depart to attend funerals about 4 or 5 times in 2 1/2 months . When he first got there everyone went to the funeral of a man that committed suicide. Then not long there was a feast for an elderly person that passed away. Then he attended a funeral for a 17-year-old boy that drowned accidentally. He said it was interesting. The boy's body was on the floor in the middle of the main living area of the home. Everyone visited or said their goodbyes and the body laid there for several days as people came from the small towns around the area. In the meantime the family members closest to the boy built a coffin for him.
One thing he noticed right away is there are lots of children everywhere all over the town and they just play and play. Since the sun wasn't going down until long after midnight, kids were coming to his door at 11pm asking him to fly his remote control airplane I sent him for his birthday. They practically mobbed him when he showed up and that happened for a few days where they asked him his name and what he was doing constantly. Then he realized he would probably need to hire people just to keep an eye on the kids to keep them out of the way of the equipment. They don't supervise the kids the way we do. Little 2 and 3 year old wander around. Just the fact that the Yukon river running next to the town makes me freak out and I'm not there. But the real tragedy was when one of his employees lost their 22 month old in a horrific accident. The little one was run over by an uncle in a pickup truck coming around the corner. He couldn't see the little one and it happened so fast. I was spared the gruesome details but I can only imagine. It was just a couple of weeks later Lee Joe was invited to go down the river on a boat ride to go on picnic with the employee, his family and the uncle with his family were all together. Lee Joe said it was a little uncomfortable for him but everyone got on well enough.
Life is hard there. There is no economy really. They have a store and a gas station. You can just imagine the cost of food. There is no bank. Just one of those store ATMs. When he got there people in town were pulling downed trees from the river and dragging them to the other side of town to gather firewood in the spring to prepare for winter. The fish and game department count fish and they leave the ones that die in buckets and leave them for the town people to claim. Lee Joe has had several different kinds of salmon. Right now it is berry picking season and there are blueberries in abundance and the town has also been out berry picking for days now. Whipped cream was hard to find though. He has to let his crew off for commercial fishing days. He has been able to sample moose meat and says it's not that bad. He's been given quite a bit since he's been there and is trying to figure out how to get a hold of a moose and send it home. He says Eskimo ice cream is interesting. He sampled some. I wouldn't have been so brave to try Crisco (in the old days is was whale blubber or seal fat), ground up fish, and berries mixed together.
They get around on 4 wheelers mostly and they pile everyone on to ride around town. But it's rainy season right now so that's a rough way to get around. Cars and trucks are in short supply there.
The ones that have vehicles like that don't necessarily know how to fix them. He's been helping where he can.
It is like progress only went so far there. They are still living lives rich with their culture but struggle with the remoteness of where they live and harsh climate. The suicide rate is high. They give what they can. That is how they find value in their lives by how much they give in this life. Not by how much they get.
I have a hard time getting to talk to him on the phone partly because we are 2 hours later here. But he is always talking to someone, asked to visit, or has visitors.
He will be there until Oct. Maybe I'll have a few more stories to tell. If the work isn't done before he leaves, he may return in the spring.
