Volunteers turn Northwest villages into skiing playground

TAMAR BEN-YOSEF

May 02, 2008 at 10:12AM AKST

The bell at the Kiana School rang at 3:30 p.m. sharp, announcing the end of another day at school.

For some students the bell was their cue to hurriedly line up in front of a classroom where ski equipment was being checked out for another day on the Kiana slopes.

Some older students favored an afternoon of thrill rides on their family’s Sno-gos.

That left the grounds around school open for the middle and elementary school students to zoom up and down the snow as their hearts desired.

Skis are available all winter for students in most Northwest Arctic Borough schools, but the activity gained popularity especially during the month of April when a group of eight ski instructors returned to five villages to teach and play during and after school.

This is the fifth year that groups of volunteers lead by Jennifer Johnston, an Anchorage-based outdoor educator and enthusiast, head north to bring cross-country skiing to rural schools in the region.

Every morning, separate groups of elementary, middle and high school students clipped into their skis and headed out for two hours of games, contests and skiing in the nearby hills.

In Kiana, the snow was plentiful but also deep and wet. Falling was part of the game, and it was quite common to see a child lying almost completely buried in the powdery snow. The struggle to get upright was not an easy task with those long extensions hooked to their feet.

On one excursion out to a hill called Old Village, the snow was particularly deep, and children happily fell face first into the snow – their version of snow angels.

Even Sebastian, a local dog who followed the group, dove nose first into the snow, only his tail wagging above as proof he was there.

During their 2008 round, RurAL CAP Ski Go Club, the official name of this urban-rural exchange program founded by Johnston, visited Kobuk, Shungnak, Ambler, Selawik and Kiana, spending about three days in each village.

Originally, the instructors skied from village to village, accumulating hundreds of miles. However, the group now flies between most villages to allow more time with the students, according to Johnston.

"It’s all about the kids," she said one evening in Kiana, while winding down at a local teacher’s home from a full day of skiing.

The ski lessons are met with excitement in all the stops, but instructor Marcy Baker said she knows from experience to expect the most eagerness from Kiana.

Baker and her 16-year-old daughter, Megan, have joined Johnston every year since the program started. The name Ski Go club, an offshoot from the local name for snowmachines, was Megan’s idea.

Marcy Baker was instrumental in fundraising and gathering equipment for the skiers from the get-go. Many students mistook the high-spirited and fit 48-year-old to be a sister rather than a mother to her daughter.

Other volunteer instructors this year were Brook Kintz, Mandy Kaempf, Michael Mumm, Matt Raferty and Alex Wilson, a former Olympian and member of the U.S. national ski team.

The idea for the program originated in Johnston’s mind in 2003 after a skiing trip from Kotzebue to Ambler and back with her daughter, Merrick Johnston.

As part of her college thesis at Dartmouth, Merrick had to measure metallic contaminants from storms in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

Along with her mother and a support team of dogs and Sno-gos, the duo – which already had a McKinley summit under its belt – stopped in every village and dug pits with the help of local students.

Merrick’s idea to get students interested in the science proved only slightly successful, as the students had something else in mind.

"My daughter would talk to kids about science, and the kids were real excited about skis," Johnston said.

"We wanted to see if there was interest in skiing. It was serendipity," she said.

Since then the program took on a life of its own as grants from Maniilaq Association and the Rasmussen Foundation, in addition to help from local airline companies, allowed Johnston and Baker to purchase equipment that was in turn given to the villages for use outside of the program.

This year, the program received additional sponsorships from Nova Gold and the Charlotte Martin Foundation.

While funding is crucial to the success of the program, even more crucial is willingness of the volunteers who pay half their fare to Kotzebue and must contribute one meal and one dessert for the whole group. The trip also requires a long period of time off work.

But mostly it takes energy and a love for children.

It seems that this year’s group lacked neither. There was rarely a moment when a child was not hooked by the hand to one instructor or another.

On Wednesday, April 23, as the group prepared to leave Kiana, students from the elementary school sang them a farewell song. It was so moving a gesture it made one instructor cry.

Alex DeMarban contributed to this article.

 

Tamar Ben-Yosef can be reached at (907) 348-2419 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 419.