August 13, 2014

Last week had to be the best week of the year, culture wise!! Akutan just finished their Annual Culture Camp - hosted by the Tribal Council. There were a lot of activities to do last week, and I know a lot of people had fun joining in the festivities!! I went up and started to make a beaded headdress, others were making drums, bent wood hats, weaving grass baskets, making Aleut butterflies, making regalia, learning how to dance and sing, along with a handful of other activities!! They made a 2 man kayak (Uludax) completely by hand, carving, bending and assembling all the pieces until they finally wrapped it in a nylon skin then took it out in the water!! It is awesome to see in person, words can't describe the beauty in the wood work that everyone did on it!! The best part was the last day where they did a dance presentation, potluck and our first ever live auction!! The dance group (mostly kids between 13-19) even did a dance presentation on the dock for the state ferry Tustemena!! Boy did they get a great show when they docked up!! My baby girl was down there with her cousin Aaliyah all decked out in beaded headdresses holding up the dancers name sign and donation box!!! All in all Culture Camp was a blast this year and I can't not wait until next year! I wish I was able to do more than what I did but I've been busy at work and can't make it between 9-5.. but at least they had classes from 7-9 that I could attend!!

The weather is cooling off.. the fish are all going up the creeks and the salmonberries are ripe and ready for picking before they fall off the bushes their selves!! I walked to the head of the bay on Sunday to get myself some humpies for drying... ended up snagging 2, lost my hook on the 3rd fish.. then realized I lost all my hooks on the walk up.... so I was sitting there on the beach with nothing to do because I had no other way to catch fish so I just cleaned up my two humpies I did catch and walked my happy ass back home. Not bad I guess 2 hours and I got 2 fish :p  It was low tide when I walked up and I never realized how many dead clams and mussles are on parts of the beach, I was literately walking on nothing but crushed clam shells on a small stretch of the beach. I dont' remember the last time I actually walked up the bay, I enjoyed it! Just me and my blk lab Tug. I was a little sore from hiking up and back but I need to exercise anyways. I'm just happy that at least I didn't get "skunked" and I got 2 fish at least!! When I got home I hung my two little fish up on my drying rack! I might be putting those fish inside here today or tomorrow to finish drying, humpies only take 5-7 days to completely dry! I'm happy that at least I tried and got 2 fish... LMAO!! Hey I tried that's what matters!!

Tomorrow I will have been married in court to the love of my life for 6 years! We quietly eloped without telling anyone but my sister-in-law Amanda, her bf at the time, and my brother-in-law Don John. We went to Amanda's house, she and her bf were our witnesses and we had Don John commissioned by the Unalaska Court to be our wedding commissioner!! So we quietly said our vows, kissed and signed our paperwork and mailed it back to the court house in Dutch. About a month later I think people noticed I changed my FaceBook status to married, and we started to get questioned by everyone. Finally when it came to our parents asking we told them yes we got married but we figured we wouldn't share the info until we can have a big Church wedding because that's the one that is more important to me. Not the paperwork to get married (you have to be legally married in court before getting married in our Orthodox Church), so we figured we would get the paperwork part out of the way then work on a church wedding to share with everyone. I guess many people didn't understand and we got called selfish for not letting people know right away. We made it up tho by having a beautiful church wedding here in Akutan in 2010 that everyone could attend. LMAO I still remember people pocketing the jello shots I made for the reception, Akutan's first time really having jello shots!!! It was a great time and even better memories!! I was thinking maybe on our 10 or 15th anniversary to renew our vows so our kids can be involved! :)

We had a lot of people come and go this summer including some Japanese tourists, and the Alaska Volcano Observatory with the USGS (US Geological Surveyors) to name a couple. The AVO ppl checked on all their monitoring systems they have installed on the island to watch our volcano Mt Akutan. They have also fixed their web cam that is located across the bay (which monitors the volcano also but you can see town and trident in the camera, search AVO cams and look up Akutan to view). It's pretty interesting to meet the people who come out this way just to say they've been here or because they saw it on TV and wanted to come out here (like the Japanese tourists who saw a show in Japan on Akutan and whales). I guess I take for granted the beauty and serenity that we get out here, life is at a slower pace and not so rushed and you get to enjoy the little things that you would probably look over when you lived in the rushed city life. Here we can enjoy life and sit back and relax in the beauty of the islands. Fresh air, clean water, refreshingly cold rain showers, and the smell of the ocean - I'll take that over car exhaust any day!!

Well bloggers... until I get on again... I'll see you again next time!!! Take care and we'll be posting again here soon hopefully!!

Much luv from me to you!
April Dawn