New fur parkas

This is picture from Carrie's first day on the island. I wanted to get her something special so I had a wolf fur ruff sewn on her parka. My parka ruff is polar bear. Fur from the polar bear and wolf are often used out here for the obvious reason that it's very warm. The polar bear usually comes around here by December or so when the pack ice closes in on the island. Last year, Gambell residents shot 13 Nanook (as they are refered to in Yupik and Inupiak)last year. Wolves have been found on the island as well often accidently hitching a ride on an ice floe from Siberia. The peoples of modern day Gambell are decendents of some of the first migrants to the new world via the Bering Land Bridge some 10,000 years ago. During the Pliestocene Era, the western tip of St. Lawrence Island was connected to the southeastern tip of the Chucki penninsula (see map) allowing peoples from Asia to come over to present-day Alaska. Some of those people arrived and stayed here on Sivuqaq some 2,000 years ago. Many people heere in Gambell have relatives who still reside west across the Bering Straits in Russia. Though separated by national borders, these peoples are stilll united in a common language and culutral identity, Siberian Yupik. Gambell is almost exclusively Siberian Yupik Eskimo with the exception of us teachers and transient missionaries who come for brief stays at the Presbyterian church. Carrie and I live in the old BIA school that was convereted into teacher housing in 1995 when the extant school was built a mile on the other end of the village. we live in a converted two bedrrom unit in a six-plex that houses about eight other teachers. Ours has been a real experience in improvisation, patience and a lot of learning.