Kotzebue winter fades, as time to run along to college beckons

REID MAGDANZ

March 07, 2008 at 11:13AM AKST

For The Arctic Sounder

I turn onto Front Street and into a strong wind blowing off the Arctic Ocean, cooling the September air in my hometown of Kotzebue in northwest Alaska. I exult in the freedom of running, the freedom to push myself as hard as I want.

A small boat cruises past on Kotzebue Sound, caribou antlers protruding over its gunwale, its motor’s whine oscillating in response to the strain.

It reminds me how I, too, go hunting every fall with friends and family, returning home with fresh game to share.

I’m running second, with only Gerald, a fleet-footed Inupiaq, ahead.

I’ve grown up in rural Alaska for all my 17 years, unconsciously picking up subtle cultural traits, such as raising my eyebrows to indicate "yes."

I feel I have the best of both worlds: I live in an Eskimo community, learning to subsist off the land and survive harsh conditions.

Yet due to my parents’ Lower 48 roots, I have tasted the rush and bustle of modern cities.

I challenge myself to catch Gerald throughout the cross-country season.

Too soon, the evanescent autumn fades. Temperatures drop from the 40s of fall to the sub-zeros of winter.

Daylight disappears faster than degrees, the number of hours shrinking from substantial to meager to miniscule.

Willows flash from yellow to brown as fall departs. The Arctic Ocean freezes. Snow coats the fish-drying racks lining Kotzebue’s shoreline.

Northern Alaska’s long frigid winter, with all its immutable strength, calls up my fondest childhood memories, including sitting in a dark house in early morning, snow sifting through the orange glow of street lights outside, Beethoven’s Ninth floating out of the stereo.

Darkness isn’t depressing for me; instead, it brings tranquility.

Nothing calms me more than reading beside the family woodstove on a December evening, the wind whipping snow into towering drifts outside.

As midwinter surrenders to early spring, the increasing daylight and temperatures invariably prompt my Dad and me to head for our wall-tent camp 20 miles out of town. Under five layers of clothing, I resemble the Michelin Man as we drive our Sno-Gos off Kotzebue’s Front Street and onto the region’s biggest "highway," a 50-yard-wide swath of hard-packed snow laced with fresh snowmachine tracks.

With no roads connecting communities here, snowmachines instead link Kotzebue to its surrounding villages and camps via an extensive network of trails.

In front of the post office on this day, dog mushers line up their four-legged racers, laboring to control high-strung teams of lunging, yelping canines.

Dad and I pause to watch. As always, the instant the dogs take off, pure power suddenly and silently replaces cacophony as relative quiet envelopes the land.

That moment always evokes for me a feeling of connection to the country and the past I seldom feel elsewhere.

I press the throttle; my machine roars and leaps after Dad’s, eager to cover the miles to camp, where silence and a slowed pace of life will allow some welcome relaxation after a hectic week at school.

Though a white teenager in the United States, I grew up a minority, learning about and from the outdoors and the Inupiat while missing out on mainstream America and my parents’ culture.

Armed with knowledge and experience from northwest Alaska, I now wish to reach out to the broader world. I hope to acquire tools necessary to help shape the world, in a small or large way, both here and elsewhere.

When fall arrives again, it will be time for college.

Reid Magdanz is a Kotzebue High School senior. He wrote this piece in an honors class at Chukchi College, the local branch of the University of Alaska.

This piece is distributed by Chukchi News and Information Service, winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Alaska Press Club’s Public Service Award.