About a month ago, our good friends Charity and her husband took us on a trip on the ice river to see a village, something I was especially excited about since I have never been to a village. We drove on the river to the village of Napakiak. The road was only one lane plowed, barely wide enough to drive one car on. The road is used for both directions o traffic, so if there's another vehicle, both kind of scoot around to the side in order to pass by each other. About half an hour into our trip, we came across two women in a small suv who had gotten stuck, high-centered on the snow.
We spent probably an hour, pushing and spinning around, and finally managed to get the car turned around in a full 180 so she couldl go back the other direction. We all gave her a running start and she was able to drie. Then as we were walking to our friend's car, I glanced over and saw that she had again gotten stuck because she went off the plowed part too far. We drove down to them again to help, but they waved us on because they didn't want to keep us.
The above is the village of Napaskiak in the distance. The road there wasn't well plowed so we didn't go there.
This is where the two women got stuck...
We turned that vehicle all the way around, just using manpower because the tired weren't appropriate for driving on ice and snow. The 4 wheel drive was also broken which also didn't help.
The first store we went to in Napakiak.
This is their post office.
And the second store we went to.
The ship graveyard
On the river, the etiquette is if a person is stuck, you help them, or get them help because it's easy for people to freeze to death in the winter here. But they let us go on!
We continued on to the village where we drove on their two roads to see the village. We also checked out the store to see what they had. They were fairly well stocked, and had alot of the items that the stores do in Bethel, but more of the basics and less of the extras. People in the villages make hats and jewelry to sell at the stores for a bit more of an income. They're quite talented!
