Adventures into the Last Frontier
"Upiter?" proposed Harold, a fourth grader in the northwest and rural Alaskan village of Buckland (pop. 450), as an answer to our trip leader Dylan Watt's question, "What is the seventh planet in the solar system? Hint: it starts with a 'U'."
Harold may not have had a perfect grasp of the final frontier in that moment (although the kids can be pretty sharp: another class impressed us by performing a "planets of the solar system" song), but more than likely his thoughts were elsewhere. I'd say in a better place. After a week with Harold I have no doubts that the repetition running through his mind was something like, when can I ski I want to ski c'mon let's ski I want to ski I love skiing I want to ski and ski really fast please can we please ski right now and for ever and ever!!!
After racing the 50km freestyle at US Distance National Championships in Fairbanks, I stayed up in Alaska to hang out and ski with kids or all ages in two northwest Alaskan villages with the Skiku/NANA Nordic program (NANA Nordic is the program name specifically for the NANA region, where the program began, while Skiku is the program name for the rest of the state). The first week I joined Brian and Caitlin Gregg, as well as the legendary Chad Gregg and Aaron Tooyak in Point Hope (pop. 700), a tiny, flat, snow-white projection of Northwest Alaska into the Chukchi Sea. Aaron is from Point Hope and having him there to teach us about local history and culture was invaluable. The second week I traveled roughly 250 miles southeast to Buckland, a smaller inland riverside village, where I joined APU coach Dylan Watts as well as Anchorage-based skiers Savannah and Zanden. Both sites were unique in their own way: different cultures, different levels of ski experience, different levels of school involvement, and very different terrain. But in both places, the excitement to have the "ski team" in town was palpable; the kids love skiing, and basketball.
The experience was pretty unreal and unlike anything I have experienced before. The biggest excitement for me was seeing kids like Harold who had an uncontrollable passion for skiing. It was actually unreal: kids in Point Hope were all-out sprinting through the gym to put their ski-boots on to go ski on the gravel-scattered street, and kids in Buckland were running, sliding, and flying on their skis from after school until curfew at 10pm and even later on weekends, and then skiing to school in the mornings. We even had one girl who hadn't worn shoes for the past 4 weeks but only ski boots, everywhere (Buckland had been checking the skis out to the kids the month prior to our arrival). You couldn't walk around town in Buckland without seeing clusters of kids on Skiku/NANA Nordic skis.
In Point Hope, day one. Point Hope is the english name for the town, but many schools go by the Inupiaq name. Here, that's Tikigaq. Point Hope is a whaling town, and starting each spring a large fraction of the villagers can be found on the edge of the sea ice supporting and camping with the whalers who venture among the ice in umiaks, boats made traditionally from driftwood and seal skins, to harpoon whales (hence the school name, "Tikigaq Harpooners". Whaling began midway through our week in Point Hope and in our final two days the town had caught two whales (one beluga and one bowhead).
More whale themes: Whale jaw bones stand in clusters on the outskirts and also outline the village cemetery.
Muktuk: a tasty and chewy delicacy of whale skin and blubber. This is black muktuk, which comes from the bowhead whale (white muktuk is beluga).
Sprint into the gym and then put on your boots!
A plane re-commissioned as a home in Point Hope
Ripping around town with the Greggs for more skiing after coaching 10 hours, we couldn't get enough of it.
Aaron and the kids Moose-It!
Beautiful ski on the "snow highway" between Kotzebue and Noorvik with Team Gregg during the between-weeks layover in Kotz. The dry arctic snow on the snow-machine track skis remarkably well.
Coach Zanden lit up the energy in Buckland with some aggressive "flying" (jumping), throwing 360s left and right. Here, skiing up the hill across the river from Buckland.
Savannah getting mobbed by the first graders.
I discovered this is a big thing in Buckland...
Kids know how to have fun...
NANA Nordic sponsors and third grade skiers
Dylan can't escape race-prepping skis
Adam, a fourth grade teacher, pulled us up to a beautiful hillside overlook of the sunset beyond Buckland.
Having never been to space, I can't say one way or another is skiing fits with the landscape and culture of the final frontier (Satellites, extreme temperatures, gaseous surfaces - these things may cause minor obstacles). But skiing in the last frontier, that is a no-brainer! Not only are the landscapes and snow-conditions in Alaska great for skiing much of the year, but so too could the lifestyle of the rural Alaskan village mesh with skiing. Using skis around town is easy with snow-packed streets and, with the price of gasoline quite high in rural Alaska, skiing should be a favorable substitution for snow-go (AKA snow-mobile AKA snow-machine). Systems of ample snow-go tracks are perfect for using skis on an approach during a caribou hunt or when heading out for a she-fishing trip. Unfortunately, skiing has not been a part of the traditional Alaskan native way of life in past years. With the passionate response to skiing with SkiKu/NANA Nordic from so many of the kids, here's to hoping for a bright and healthy future of skiing (and, as always, basketball, since ball is life in the villages) in rural Alaska. We know the many benefits to skiing (a healthy lifestyle and well-being, mitigating health-risks, increased productivity, purpose, a sense of community, great ski wax, cool brands, lots of carbon fiber, etc.), but to these kids, skiing = fun, and that's the bottom line.
Rewind to the end of March: after US Biathlon Nationals wrapped up in Jericho, VT I began the journey to Alaska! I got a ride to Boston with Paul Schommer where we crashed for a night with my cousin Shannon and her husband Pete. Paul headed off to road trip around the country and make the Bjorn Bakken Ski Championships of America the spectacle it is, while I bought a Metro Card in Boston, walked the freedom trail, and rode around on public transportation with my ski gear. With Shannon and Pete's help I successfully navigated to the airport and boarded a plane set for Seattle, en route to Fairbanks. I finally arrived at my destination in Fairbanks around 3 am Alaska time, and was surprised to be met at the door at such an hour by Jim Gillis' welcoming handshake. That set the tone for my time in Fairbanks: the Gillis family was incredibly welcoming to me, even celebrating my birthday with pointy hats and a cake!
With the legs feeling a bit shot from the three days of US Biathlon Nationals plus my freedom trail walk and ski-bag-hauling public transit trek, I took a few days of easier training at Birch Hill in Fairbanks to prep for the long, hard 50km effort awaiting me on Sunday, April 3. Birch Hill is aptly named, and, with the races held near the golden hours of dusk, the scenes of racers speeding through sun-draped birch was striking. Although as a competitor it's not as fun to watch skiing from the sidelines, it was motivating for me to watch all the Nordic guys really going for it in the sprints and relays. We don't have the same quantity of athletes going for it in biathlon, so it's encouraging to see such large numbers of skiers dedicating their efforts toward training and racing in a similar way. To see them skiing so fast now, it's really neat to see that improvement. Sidelining in Fairbanks also gave me a chance to catch up with my teammates and coaches from NMU!
My race story begins with nutrition. Six days out I would've liked to do a traditional carbo-loading strategy by minimizing carbohydrates for three days, then carbo-loading for three days prior to race day, but because I was already glycogen-depleted from racing Nats I stuck to my standard diet and simply tried to up carb content toward the end of the week. Come race day I felt relatively energized and ready, despite some lingering long-term fatigue (which is understandable for all athletes at season's end- the trick is to manage that fatigue and perform optimally despite it). I toed the line with positive nervous energy, poised for a good go at a good result.
A usual slow starter, I positioned myself relatively well for the first 3km and did not lose ground on my 20th starting position. Just after 3km I dangerously dipped the tip of ski into a snowbank around a tight lefthander. I sprawled and came up with two broken poles, but I was equally frustrated that I'd tripped two other athletes who had crashed over me. Nothing sucks more than crashing when it's not your fault; the last thing I want in a crash is to bring others down and be the cause of that frustration. If they're going to beat me, it should be by no fault of mine. Post-crash I was fortunate to receive two 155cm (I race with 157-158cm) about a half of a kilometer later, and began a surge to regain the lead pack. I burnt a match in the effort, but reconnected with the lead 25 or so guys by 6km. Just when I started to relax in the back of the pack, the pace at the front accelerated and I found myself desperate to pass the bulk of the pack. I could tell the effort was slightly beyond me however, and ended up skiing in no-man's land, around 10th place, in pursuit of the chase pack. For the next 20km I, with the help of friend and CXC skier Kyle Bratrud and later APU's Thomas O'Harra, struggled to real in the chase pack. I was consistently operating between 25 - 50 seconds back from the pack of places 3-8. Around 30km I failed to keep with O'Harra's increasing pace- while he went on to join the chase pack, my wheels came off and so began a slow and painful death march to the finish line. I couldn't respond to being overtaken by other racers, and dropped minutes each successive lap until I crossed the finish line in a stupor, 14th place and 8 full minutes out of a podium position.
The result was a bit underwhelming, but at the same time, considering the way the race played out, I felt I proved to myself that I hadn't lost too much steady-state fitness this year while focusing my training on the intermittent and transitional style of biathlon racing. Hopefully in the future I can figure out how to race both the shorter and longer distances successfully all the way through the end of the season and not croak after 25-30km.
I have a lot of people to thank for making the trip to the Last Frontier possible. Special thanks to Bryan Cook and Salomon Nordic for help with ski selection and waxing up a pair of fast skis for the 50km (I skied on a brand new pair of the new Salomon Blue-mold skis Bryan had in his fleet to test - the Blue feels quite different than the last year's molds as it's much free-er in the tip yet more stable. And the aesthetics are on point (aka cool graphics). I'm planning on using them in cold and/or soft conditions next year). Thanks to the Gillis family, Stacey and Cheryl Moon, and the Van Klaverens, who went out of their way to host me in Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Boston, respectively. They are incredibly generous, and provide examples of how I want to live. Thanks also to Paul Schommer for the ride to Boston. Thanks to Nordic Journeys (the parent organization for Skiku and NANA Nordic) for what they're doing in rural Alaska and for letting me be a part of it!
Instilled deep within me is an awe of and respect for Alaska and it's total wilderness. I love that skiing and biathlon are sports that bring me to places like Alaska, places in such close proximity to wilderness. Racing is a bit of a different entity than something wild like arctic exploration, but there's no doubt that when racing in the cold outdoors we get a taste of something wild, like the primordial beast within Buck from Jack London's Call of the Wild.
