Trip 3 - Day 8

-Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

My day was uneventful again, I slept in because there is no reason to waking up before anyone else. Then I went off to discover if there was a young guy in the village who spoke the language as I had been told. I eventually found him in a somewhat run down house at the back of a maze of boardwalks, hanging partially off of the river bank, it was a pretty cool place to live. He dos in fact speak Yup'ik and might even speak the Kotlik dialect... So... exciting! He agreed to meet with me later this week after he's gone wood collecting, so I'm looking forward to that.

As we are out in the tundra, there are no trees. None. There are four species of willow shrub along the banks of the river, but those won't last long for firewood. So every year people have to go out on the rivers searching for the wood that is brought in by the tides or ice break up. And what wood you get has to last the year: fish camps and ice-fishing, mukeqs and smoke-houses, or if you still don't have electricity then everything else too.

Afterwards I went and tried to talk to some other elders, with no success (I think they're out collecting wood before the big freeze up). I talked to the tribal administration about putting together a dinner for the elders. I read a bit. Then went to the school to do my internet chores and talk to J. I revised and finished my grant drafts. And such.

My host made roast moose for dinner with rice and green beans and the staple pilot bread and butter. Roast moose is surprisingly fatty and its sticky-liquid-y fatty which was weird. So the fat is marbled through the meat, like a half inch of meat then a strip of fat and so on. So the meat was delicious, the fat not so much. But it was a great thanksgiving meal feast either way and definitely the most unique. (Kujo got my fatty left overs so he was excited too).

Then some TV, reading, and coloring and off to bed. So until I start working with the elders (fingers crossed soon) my day has pretty much worked itself out to: walk, talk, read, write, walk, internet, dinner, read/write/color, bed. I'm going to throw transcription n there tomorrow to, so a bit of interactive linguistics work. Yep.

Piurra!