Flight back to Kotzebue, are we coming back??

9am flight back to Kotzebue.  30 minutes to enjoy the scenery at 6,500ft.  After dropping our bags at the hotel we walked to the dental clinic to debrief with the other dentists, DHAT's and the clinic director Kirk.  We also met a doc who just arrived from Arizona and was on the way out to Selawik for another week.  And, we talked to Monica, Gloria's initial contact for this adventure.

Lots of freight coming in on our flight including 6 pizzas!

Our final view of Selawik.

Aboard the Cessna Caravan 208B

Coming into Kotzebue.  The large green-roofed building
is the hospital. On the top, the airport runway.

We celebrated our success by eating out in the hotel restaurant. After dinner, we headed out over the ice-covered channel to watch people ice fish, learned the ice on the Chukchi Sea is still 4 feet thick.  They were jigging little Pacific Tomcod for fun.  The big Sheefish are further out in the channel, most people wait till summer to head out to catch them.  We did talk to one of the fishermen.  Friendly guy.  He owns a local shipping company, flies everything in and out of Kotzebue.  Busy with freight and mail for Kotzebue as well as the military and mining industry.  He also told us that his uncle, John Baker, won the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 2011.  The first native Alaskan to win the race in 45 years. He retired a couple of years ago selling his 152 dogs!

So, we committed to returning in July for another 2-week rotation in Selawik.  The people, both colleagues and patients, are great.  The dentistry is challenging but it does keep our skills sharp.  It is a good gig.  Summer will be a whole new experience.  The ice will be gone but the '747' mosquitoes will be the next challenge.  We work indoors so that helps.  Alaska will cool us down from a hot California summer.  And, maybe some Sheefish fishing!

4th and last clinic day in Selawik

Our team!  Shelby and Hannah between Gloria and me.

Another good day.  The staff has been great getting patients in to see us.  We stayed busy all day from 9-6,  No real surprises.  Routine extractions, fillings and cleanings.  When Gloria did ask a couple of kids if they brush their teeth every day and they respond no, she asks them why not.  They will say they don't want to, and leave it at that.  If asked if they drink soda every day, they nod yes, and when we tell them not to, they look at us, like, 'right'.

So, a little tour of Selawik.  Temperatures in the 30's now, the ice and snow are melting.  Spring is swampy, summer is buggy, fall comes early and winter is long, hard and dark. 

The medical/dental clinic

Another 'vehicle' waiting for the spring thaw

At the airport

One of the three rivers that bisect Selawik

Another sewer system view

One of the many boardwalks that stitch the community together

We fly back to Kotzebue tomorrow for debriefing and home on Saturday.

Springtime in Selawik!

 A good day today.  Both Gloria and I were very busy, with a total of 14 patients plus the mountains of paperwork.  Extractions, fillings and cleanings.  We got our second assistant this afternoon.  Shelby.  Great to have another assistant to maximize our patient flow.  Tomorrow is already booked to finish out our clinical week.

One of the two operatories

Sterilization

Our sewer has held up.  Toilet works, after skipping showers last night, we're going for it tonight.  Kinda, maybe getting back to normal.  After work, actually, at 9pm, we went for another village walk.  Beautiful sunshine, no wind, and it warmed up 20 degrees!  Above freezing now, very pleasant.  Fun to talk to all the people out and about since it is warmer.

Yep, the 'honey pot'.

Finaly, I have mentioned the 'administration' in my blog.  His name is Augustus L. Kirkland, Kirk for short.  We learned he is also a pastor in a local church.  The Living Word Water of Life Church.  He is one busy guy.  

Kirk is Samuel L. Jackson's lost, little brother!

First clinic day but the sewer is frozen!

 Busy, busy clinic today for both Gloria and me.  Many needs, one can only chip away and hope to reduce pain and infection.  The challenges we see are similar to what we have seen in the past in developing countries.  But, outside of the US, we do the work, clean up and move on to the next patient.  Here, working for the Department of Indian Affairs, our paperwork has paperwork.  Gloria and I are much better at the dentistry then we are with paperwork!

Hannah, our assistant is great, but we all realize she can't chairside assist, do sterilization plus all the paperwork that is required for government reimbursement.  They are flying in another assistant tomorrow from Kotzebue to do the 'admin' work.

Now, some comments on the meals!  Breakfast for the medical-side employees was caribou liver and pancakes.  They offered all I could eat but I demurred.  For lunch, our maintenance man cooked up Spam soup.  Another variation I hadn't thought of.  I did have a bowl, not bad really.  I fear, though, that the 'non-Spam' meat in the soup was leftover liver.......

Frozen sewer?  A story and a picture.  As Gloria and I walked around town after clinic yesterday, we saw what looked like AC ductwork going from house to house, the village is laced with it.  We thought, how odd to heat that way.  When we asked, we were told that this is their sewage system!  Again, due to permafrost, it, like the houses on stilts are above ground.  They are insulated and they don't depend on 'flow'.  The answer?  Suction.  They have huge suction pumps to draw the sewage.  Problems arise if it is too cold for the pumps to work.  Hence no suction and no flushing toilets!

So, without any more graphic descriptions, with all the toilets in the medical/dental clinic not flushing we finally ended up with one bucket to use.  What we used to call a 'honey pot'.  Not ideal for around 10 of us working at the clinic.  Fortunately by 6pm today, the suction was sucking again and we could flush.  Oh my.

Bush flight to Selawik and caribou for dinner!

                                

An 8:30am flight to Selawik.  5 seater plane, more room for cargo than humans!  Uneventful 30-minute flight over the frozen tundra.  We were greeted at the gravel airstrip by snowmobiles, quads and cargo sleds!  It is a bit of a walk to town over a bridge, or, since everything is still frozen, over the river!  So we walked over the river, a snowmobile trailing a dog sled took our suitcases and supplies to the clinic.

A large, modern medical/dental clinic, fully staffed on the medical side, dental has been closed due to covid.  We spent the morning organizing and cleaning the two-chair dental suite and saw our first patient at 2pm.  I relieved him of two infected molars, he was grateful for the care, I was pleased to start doing what we came up here to do!  Two more patients followed.  A good start.

Hannah, our assistant is calling a long list of locals who have indicated an interest in dental care hoping to fill our next three days.

Now, the dinner menu.  Actually, Gloria made Thai curry in the kitchen tonight.  But, after dinner we decided to walk around town.  Just outside the clinic an older gentleman invited us in to the community center for caribou!  He went on to explain that someone just died so they were having a potluck.  So, we went in and found the bar-b-qued caribou ribs, a few other parts, yet to be cooked, and the casket!  Caribou is chewy.

Raw caribou in front, Gloria in the middle, casket in the back

The Kotzebue 10K, well 14K

We've been told about the 8 mile walk around Kotzebue by the dental staff, so today was the day.  You start by the hospital and it ends at the airport.  Much of the walk is in caribou country, (when caribou are around and hunters aren't).  Not much to see, frozen tundra and snow, but good exercise.  Turns out to be just over 9 miles door to door.  4 hours.

On the loop was Cemetary Hill.  Winter burial is a challenge due to permafrost.

I mentioned the numberous abandoned snowmachines, quads, cars, truck, etc.
 all over town.  Same applies to airplanes! Probably 6-8 abandoned planes
beside the runway.

Last night was a real treat.  Stephanie, one of the DHAT's (dental mid-level provider) invited us over to her house for dinner.  Stephanie is from Texas but she married a native Alaskan, Raymond.  Retired military who now teaches cultural awareness to the high school students at Kotzebue High.  Specifically, he is teaching them the Inuit language and also takes them on 250-mile snowmachine campouts in the winter!  They learn how to hunt, survive and thrive in -30 degree weather.

Raymond has stories!  His best, though, was on a good day of hunting he bagged 3 caribou, 3 wolves, a wolverine and a moose.  Why so many animals?  Well, they had to fill their freezers for the year AND they, at that time had 58 huskies they were training for 'mushing'.  What a guy!

Also, their son, Spencer is a world-class Greco-Roman wrestler!  In fact, yesterday he won the Nationals for his class.   He is in the Army who pays him to play and sends him all over the world to compete.  He barely missed a spot on the Olympic team but should be competitive until the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.  Two links below.  First, his news conference yesterday, then a very neat background on living in the Alaskan tundra in preparation for his career in wrestling.  Check them out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC4BC1tyUXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqvN5HivuOo

BTW, we met Raymond on our hike today.  He was running, training for his next marathon.  He is amazing!

We left Stephanie and Raymond's house at 11pm, the sun still not set.

A grim postscript to the restaurant that burned down a few weeks ago. They evacuated our hotel at 3am, many of the windows shattered from the heat, note the scorch marks that remain.  After the fire was put out the owner was missing.  Due to the below zero temperatures, the water used to fight the fire turned to ice and they were unable to search the ruins.  They had to bring in cadaver dogs to locate the remains of the owner, they then removed the ice and wreckage to recover his body.  

Tomorrow we fly to Selawik.  Hoping for adequate bandwidth to post.  If you don't hear from me, we didn't.

A Parade!?

After a relaxing 4 mile stroll through Kotzebue in, still, rather frigid temperatures, we relaxed in the hotel room until we heard police sirens.  Surprised, since little that exciting happens in Kotzebue, we looked out the window and saw the Homecoming queen in the back of a pickup doing the 'queen's wave'.  Following her were the rest of the senior class of Kotzebue High in their graduation regalia!  Fun to see.

Other interesting sites in town.

We are now used to seeing half-buried snowmachines, quads, cars
trucks, etc.  Not sure if they are really used anymore.  Just sitting in front yards.

No problem wearing a mask outdoors, it keeps you warm.  All flights
come and go out of this airport.  Alaska Airlines, Bering Air, that takes you
to the villages and a couple of bush flying companies that take out
hunters and fishermen, they typically land on gravel roads, glaciers,etc.

If you look closely, there are four boats here.  Waiting for the thaw.