Teacher In-Service: Year 2

Last year, I wrote about my very first in-service in the bush. I introduced my wonderful readers to the joys of flying to another village, sleeping on a classroom floor, and not having to cook for myself for two days (yay!).

This year, instead of being sorted geographically, all teachers were assigned to a site based on what level we teach. For all of us secondary teachers it was off to Mountain Village!

207 Time! Sittin' in the
back like a boss...

When we left on Wednesday afternoon it was incredibly windy, the kind of windy where you know it's not going to be a smooth ride at all. But work is work, and not wanting to fly in turbulence is not an acceptable reason to miss two days of training. So I jumped into a 207 with four other teachers and prepared for the bumpy 45 minute flight (meaning I buckled my seat belt and put in my headphones).

The flight got off to a rough start, complete with the classic 207 "lean forward for take off and hope we have enough runway." Oh dear. We swung into the air and thanked our lucky stars that it wasn't too bumpy around Scammon.

Flying by Kuzi. Starting to get
rough out there. 

Of course, that all change when we flew passed Kuzelvak, the mountains that mark the almost-halfway point between us and Mountain Village. The plain began to pitch and swing back and forth, giving it an almost boat-on-rough-seas feel.

Did I mention I get sea sick easily?

Turning away from Kuzi
toward Mountain

By the time we were in sight of Mountain, I was searching frantically for an air sickness bag and hoping I could hold my lunch until we got on the ground.

Thankfully, the flight was the worst part of the in-service. The rest of the week was spent in the cafeteria with all of the secondary teachers in the district, learning about our new ELL curriculum (that I'm totally psyched about!)

Brushing up on Dominant
Language Functions. Woo!

Mountain Village also gave a lot of us down time to hang out and explore town. Many of us took the opportunity to head down to the Alaska Commercial to stock up on much needed things that have been hard to find here in town (plain m&m's, dog bones, light bulbs, fruit, and eggs just to name a few).

I also got to go out 4-wheeling with another teacher and explore areas of Mountain I'd never seen (we navigated our way from store to school making only left turns. No idea why). We also walked down to the beach where many boats are anchored on the Yukon River. It's a skinny beach, nothing like Hooper Bay last year. I guess it's more of a river bank than a beach... I digress. In any case, it was a great walk after a LONG day of learning.

Oh! The best part? I got to sleep at a teacher's house in a bed instead of on the floor. Thanks Doug and Barb!!!!

M. gives training a thumbs up!

We landed home on Friday afternoon to a village covered in Snow. Here comes winter! I'm not sure if I'm ready.