Get a ‘moo’ve on rodeo season — Annual cattle drive turns heads on K-Beach Road

Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Cowboys and cowgirls on horseback drive cattle down College Road on Sunday, during their trek from Diamond M Ranch to the Soldotna Rodeo Grounds.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Some amount of unusual is to be expected these days along Kalifornsky Beach Road between Kenai and Soldotna — the orange signs, cones and flagging of the ongoing road resurfacing project, the bright yellow trash bags awaiting pickup from the annual spring cleanup week, and the sudden proliferation of walkers, runners and bike riders along the paved pedestrian Unity Trail, now that it’s finally free of snow and mud.

But on Sunday there was an oddity that still caused heads to turn, speeds to slow and notice to be taken:

Cows.

As in mooing, grazing, milk-producing, beef-steak-generating bovines flanked by cowboys and cowgirls mounted on horseback, being herded along the road like a scene from “Bonanza,” only with motor vehicles, rather than tumbleweeds, passing by.

Even this unusual scene is becoming a traditional one for those who happen to be on K-Beach during the annual Soldotna Equestrian Association cattle drive, held since 2011 to kick off the rodeo season.

Mike Ashwell accompanies a cow and her weeks-old calf across an intersection along Kalifornsky Beach Road on Saturday during the Soldotna Equestrian Association’s annual cattle drive held to kick off rodeo season.

“It’s kind of fun because there’s lots of people that stop and take pictures and honk, and there’s a lot of people that are interested in watching it along K-Beach because it’s not something you see every day. In fact, you only see it once a year. It’s a fun event for the riders, and I hope it’s a fun event for the community that gets to see it. And it hopefully raises some awareness for what SEA is and does, and for our rodeo,” said Mike Ashwell, vice president of SEA.

There are five rodeo events held on the Kenai Peninsula during the spring and summer, three at the Soldotna Rodeo Grounds behind the ball fields by the Soldotna Sports Center, and two in Ninilchik, with the first rodeo set to begin at 2 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday in Soldotna. The kickoff has felt like it’s come sooner than usual this year, because winter has taken longer than usual to melt into spring.

“This spring has been such a problem for everybody, and for us, as well. We’re two to three weeks behind on arena projects,” Ashwell said, as workers hurry to hook up water and electricity, complete dirt work and get the riding arena in shape for practices and events. “There’s all sorts of things — getting the arena prepared and cleaned up and in the condition we want it to be so that everybody can get in there and be safe while riding and doing their events. Ordinarily right now we would just be prepping for rodeo, so we’re a little behind the eight ball because of the weather.”

Despite the last-minute hurry to finish spring chores, SEA is set to swing into its usual busy schedule — with bucking on Mondays, roping on Tuesdays, barrel racing and pole bending on Wednesdays, team penning on Thursdays, and jackpot events on Fridays before the weekend rodeos, as well as other organizations holding events, including a pony club and dog herding practice. Information and schedules can be found at www.soldotnaequestrianassociation.com.

Common Ground: Third eye duck blind

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham. Duck-hunting success comes from patient peace and quiet. Just don’t crow too loudly about it.

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

Conversations in the duck blind are the most profound conversations a person can have in life. If the topic is not pertinent or amusing, it doesn’t get talked about in the duck blind. Sound is too precious. If it has to be said in a whisper, it’s got to be relevant or hilarious.

Nothing else rises to the level of communication. If ducks are coming in or over, all idle chatter must cease. It doesn’t matter if you were about to present the punch line to the funniest joke you’d heard all year. It doesn’t matter if you were about to reveal a secret that could cure the ails of all mankind. If ducks are coming in and you’re in a duck blind, the ducks have to take precedence.

For a while, when duck hunting was new to me, it was impossible for me to know that the appearance of ducks in the sky, the sound of ducks on a pond nearby, or even the random thought of ducks that might arise was cause for instant pause. The ducks “have the floor,” is what my fifth-grade teacher would say. Whoever is running the show is the one that gets to talk.

So, if you’re hunting ducks, they have your attention. You’re supposed to be scanning the sky. You’re supposed to be listening. You’re supposed to be using your duck call. And if a duck wants to join the conversation, that’s the best kind of talk.

But I didn’t know this when I started. It seemed like, if the story was good enough, it wouldn’t matter if a few flocks of ducks failed to land on the pond. I was wrong. Those could be the only ducks that fly by all day. In my case, they were.

When the measure of my conversational ability is how well I can stop talking at the mere suggestion of ducks, I had a long way to go. I had to learn to talk in shorter sentences. I had to learn to pick up where the story left off after a 45-minute duck interruption. This not only helped me in the duck blind, it could possibly help me in life.

Inlet trek in the family — Seldovia couple brings toddlers on beach walk around Cook Inlet

Photos courtesy of Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Ground Truth Trekking, of Seldovia. Seldovia’s Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Ground Truth Trekking, are navigating around Cook Inlet with their two kids, seeing some interesting sights along the way. Here a bald eagle snatches a tasty meal, a squid, from the waters of Cook Inlet.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

For some people the idea of even taking their kids to the grocery store is daunting, so imagine trying to take a 2- and 4-year-old on an 800-mile trek around Cook Inlet.

That’s exactly what Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Seldovia, are doing, joined by their kids, Lituya and Katmai, in an effort to find out what people they encounter along the way think about the future of Cook Inlet 50 to 100 years from now.

Why Cook Inlet? According to Higman, because it’s a place where all the diverse issues of Alaska’s future collide with the diversity of all its people.

“Cook Inlet is the heart of modern Alaska. It has Native villages and Russian villages, hippie towns and tourist traps and Alaska’s biggest city. Cook Inlet is our home. It’s home to oil rigs and natural gas plants, coal mine proposals, wind turbines and tidal power proposals, endangered whales and abundant bears, salmon and melting glaciers. It’s home to most of Alaska’s population, and hundreds of miles of nearly unpeopled wilderness,” he said.

They began this expedition March 27, starting from Dogfish Bay just south of Nanwalek, and while this is a huge undertaking with two small children, it is not the couple’s first big trip. Higman, who has a doctorate in geology, and McKittrick, with a master’s degree in molecular biology, have taken 10 walks, starting with their first trek in 2001 from Drift River to Chignik.

After graduating from the University of Washington, they launched their biggest effort by walking and paddling their way from Seattle to False Pass in 2007-08. McKittrick’s book, “A Long Trip Home,” details that epic wilderness adventure and all they discovered and learned along the way. They took their oldest child, Katmai, on an expedition around northwest Alaska’s Chukchi Sea in 2010, when he was still a baby. The next year, the family set off for Malaspina Glacier for a two-month trek with Katmai and Lituya, when she was 1. McKittrick’s second book, “Small Feet, Big Land,” coming out this fall, will detail some of those adventures.

Even though they have practice, walking and occasionally pack rafting Cook Inlet with two small kids is a lot with which to contend. Slogging through soft beach sand, leaning into biting cold north winds and toughing out the discomfort of seemingly incessant rain. But Higman said that they’re a family and that’s how they roll, and walk, and paddle.

4-year-old Katmai toddles along chunks of ice brought in by the tide.

“Well, we have kids, and we couldn’t very well leave them behind. But, of course, we chose to do this particular trip, and considering how that would work with kids was a huge part of that. They’re very adaptable, and I think 80 percent of the time it’s a great environment for them to learn and explore. The other 20 percent of the time it’s hard to be in the wilderness, but we hope that in the long run there are things to learn from that, too.”

For those who prefer to only experience the environment on nice days, or limit it to walking from their car to their home or the office, it may be tough to comprehend how this family is dealing with the weather along the way, particularly in as long-lingering a winter as this has been.

“Does driving rain build character? I’m not sure, but I guess that’s the experiment we’re trying. Engaging Katmai as he walks, and Lituya as she rides and sometimes walks, is certainly a challenge. But we take lots of long breaks, look at interesting things along the way, and it’s been working out really well. In many ways, parenting in the wilderness isn’t really that much different from parenting a 2- and 4-year-old anywhere. Our kids are just regular kids, and have their share of unreasonable tantrums, sibling squabbles, take forever to get dressed in all their gear and out of the tent. But overall, I think we have a more engaging environment in what we’re doing, and a more relaxed schedule,” Higman said.

They had planned to walk Cook Inlet, but bringing the kids meant doing it at the pace of those little legs, so they created their plan with an intended average of only eight miles a day. Last week they passed through Kasilof, Kenai and Nikiski, and are currently on the long stretch to Hope, but they said the kids are still faring well.

“Lately we’ve been rafting about half a day out of every four days or so, mostly controlled by weather. In that half day we’ll go a full-day’s walking, so in distance it’s about one-quarter to one-third,” Higman said.

“The big picture is good,” he added, “and there are myriad details and specifics in that. One thing that’s been harder than expected is we didn’t realize how consistently we’d get north winds walking up the coast here. Headwinds make paddling hard, and when it’s cold or wet that can be tough for the kids.

Outdoors curriculum housed in new school

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

Growing up in Alaska is not like growing up in Florida, Texas, California or any other place in the Lower 48. It is a unique experience to live and mature in the 49th state, so why shouldn’t the educational experience of this area be as individualized and specific?

That is a question that Greatland Adventure Academy, a new charter school opening in Soldotna in the fall 2013, hopes to address. Its aim is to enhance middle school-aged children’s learning though “experimental learning,” which includes more emphasis on place-based education, and more focus on movement, music and time outdoors.

“What we are hoping to do here is not new; it’s being done elsewhere. We just want to open another opportunity for a different learning model than what our district currently offers for seventh and eighth grades,” said Teresa Moyer, a GAA academic board policy member.

Enrollment for the charter school was held earlier this month and 42 students signed up, near the maximum capacity before rolling into a sign-up lottery. There is also potential for the school to expand to encompass grades six through 12 in the future.

GAA will provide concentrated academics in the four core areas of math, science, language arts and history during the morning hours of operation. The school will be staffed with full-time certified teacher/facilitators and GAA will focus on differentiated learning.

The primary component of this, Moyer said, is in planning an educational program that will be most efficient to maximize each student’s potential, providing learning experiences using research-based models to promote integrated learning for all students, providing time to pursue excellence.

“It’s setting them on a course that meets exactly where they are,” Moyer said. “Students will be assisted in determining their interests and skills, and provided opportunity to be exposed to, and enriched in, those components as they emerge. This model will also allow them to explore a subject or interest deeper, rather than the stop-and-go, stop-and-go of going through classes based on when the bell rings.”

Path to a parks plan — Soldotna issues draft parks, trails master plan

File photo by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. A runner in the Kenai River Marathon heads down Bridge Access Road with the mountains flanking Cook Inlet behind her.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

If you live in the Soldotna area and are recreation- or activity-minded, chances are you’ve thought at least one of the following:

It’d sure be nice to have longer stretches to walk along the Kenai River.

It’s too bad the Unity Trail doesn’t continue through Soldotna, so we don’t have to walk, run or ride a bike right alongside the Sterling Highway.

I wish there were an indoor place to walk, or some turf on which to practice soccer before the snow melts.

It’d be great if teens had more maintained, supervised places to hang out and recreate.

Can’t someone do something to make the Sterling-Kenai Spur highways “Y” intersection less of a pain for pedestrians and bicyclists?

Or the big one — it would be so great to get back and forth from Kenai Peninsula College and downtown Soldotna without having to go all the way around Kalifornsky Beach Road to the Sterling Highway to the David Douthit Memorial Bridge over the Kenai River.

Well, Soldotna, that wishful thinking is on a path to being granted, with the Soldotna Parks and Trails planning process nearing completion. After reviewing past planning efforts, meeting with stakeholder and user groups, conferring with partner agencies and organizations, and soliciting input through a public survey, Casey Planning and Design has released a semifinal, 75 percent-complete draft Soldotna Parks and Trails Master Plan.

An open house will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Soldotna Sports Center, where the public can view the draft plan and its recommendations, ask questions and provide feedback. The draft plan, map and associated documents also will be available on the city of Soldotna’s website. The plan is open for review and public comment through May 10. Planners will contact season-specific recreational user groups over the summer — which might not have been thoroughly represented in the survey conducted this winter — for more input, then submit the plan to the city council for approval next fall.

“We want to keep it at a level of ‘What about?’ As opposed to, ‘Why didn’t they?’ At this point it’s still dynamic,” said Andrew Carmichael, city of Soldotna Parks and Recreation director.

Don’t rein in the fun — Running of the Reindeer delivers entertainment, if not excitement

Photo courtesy of Stephanie Wright. Reindeer trot up the street in the women’s heat of the annual Running of the Reindeer event of Fur Rondy on Saturday in Anchorage.

By Clark Fair

Redoubt Reporter

The woman with the giraffe head, the pale, diapered man from Arkansas and the running banana were among the highlights. The reindeer — the centerpiece of the Running of the Reindeer event at Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage on Saturday — were not.

The reindeer get the most prominent mention on the marquee, but they’re not the main attraction. It’s all about atmosphere, all about hoopla, all about participating in something big and noisy and full of promise.

It’s a lot like a carnival arcade.

Photos by Clark Fair, Redoubt Reporter. A handler corrals a reindeer for another trip up the street.

Carnival games promise big prizes but the odds are stacked against the players. Try to toss a tiny ring over the top of a glass soda bottle. Try to burst three balloons with three wobbly darts.

Try to knock down all the milk bottles with a single tennis ball. Mostly what participants harvest from such promise is a series of near misses and then, if they’re lucky, a cheap plastic runner-up prize for coming really close.

That’s sort of what it’s like to participate in the Running of the Reindeer. There’s plenty of buildup, plenty of bluster, plenty of pageantry and pizzazz — but the run itself is all anticlimax.

The announcer from KWHL’s “Bob & Mark Show” stirred up the onlookers by booming out the possibilities — a good goring, a shish kebab human on antler tines — danger, danger, danger! The crowd wanted blood, he said. The crowd wanted to see someone hurt, he claimed. He likened the milling throng, which packed both sides of Fourth Avenue from D Street to H Street, to the crowd at a NASCAR race:

Participants came in all manner of costumes, including this bug man.

Sure, they were fine with all the left turns, for a while, but what they really wanted was a good pileup.
As I stood among the hundreds of runners, waiting to be released on a sprint for life itself, I was reminded of bad small-town circuses. I recalled slick ringmasters who knew how to play to the crowd, who knew that the real thrill was not the limber woman performing backbends on a somber elephant stomping around a sawdust circle inside a big tent.

The real thrill lies in anticipation, in bits of unexpected humor, a delighted child, the antics of an obnoxious clown, a minor explosion and a shower of confetti. Besides, the circus was there to make money on tame rides, high-priced concessions and selling lucky-chance tickets.

Taking aim at biathlon revival — Ski group builds on youth interest

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Several youth take aim at targets 50 meters away during a biathlon event Saturday at Tsalteshi Trails in Soldotna. The event combines the athleticism of skiing with the controlled breathing and precision aiming and shooting of a .22-caliber rifle.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

With each visibly steaming exhale, May Bruno’s cheeks grew rosier. The 12-year-old was working hard in the cool morning air, but her mind was not on the single-digit temperatures. Just arriving from skiing the short, but hilly, Raven Loop on the Tsalteshi Trails system, the teen was focused on her breathing.

She glided in and quickly transitioned to lying in a prone position, then picked up a .22-caliber rifle, rotated the bolt in battery, and took aim with the iron sights on a small, 1 ¾-inch target 50 meters downrange.

As she concentrated and got her breathing under control, she moved her still-gloved index finger onto the trigger. Without jerking she smoothly squeezed off a shot. The rifle popped, and a “ding” of success could be heard even before Tim Bruno — her father and a level-one biathlon instructor staring at the target through a spotting scope — announced that she had hit her mark.

Her bluish lips formed a large smile, the kind that comes from success, but she continued working through her still-full clip. Pulling the bolt back, a small brass shell flew out, glinting in the morning light. Before the still-hot empty cartridge hissed into the snow, Bruno had already slammed the bolt forward and loaded another round. Over and over again she hit her mark, until finally her rifle ran silent. Only the sweet smell of gun-smoke emanated from its empty chamber.

“These are difficult targets to hit even without breathing hard, but when you add in the hard breathing and increased heart beating from skiing so fast, this can be daunting to kids,” Tim Bruno said.

Dog owners snap over traps — Conflict brews in recreation areas of Cooper Landing

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

As Cooper Landing musher Robert Bear headed up to a major mid-distance sled dog race in the Interior last weekend, he did so without two of his best dogs. Back at home were his two leads, sitting out this race, and others to come, due to injuries sustained after being caught in the bone-crushing clamp of a leg-hold trap early last month.

“One of the dogs lost its front right leg and the other part of its front paw,” Bear said.

This is the second time in two years he’s had a dog caught in a trap, although he was able to quickly release the dog the last time, he said. This time, however, was not so fortunate.

He was hooking up for a training run off of Snug Harbor Road. The dogs were amped to go, Bear explained, and as he was attaching dogs to the lines as quickly as he could, it wasn’t quick enough for one of the dogs just behind the leaders. It chewed through the mainline and set the two leaders free.

“They took off sprinting,” he said. “I immediately went out looking for them, and nothing. I continued looking for them for 48 hours before I finally heard one of them howl as I was going by.”

Bear followed the sound a short distance through the forest and found the two dogs, cold, dehydrated and hungry, but alive. They were clamped in side-by-side traps.

“This was less than 50 feet from the road and between the senior center and the Girl Scout camp. Baited with meat and feathers, so I think any loose dog could have been caught in them,” he said.

Equally concerning to Bear is that, while trapping season for many species opened Nov. 10, lynx season wasn’t set to begin until Jan. 1. Bear’s dogs were caught Dec 13. From the trappers he’s described the setup to, it seemed the traps was either legally targeting coyote or illegally targeting lynx.

Despite the accident, Bear said that he’s not against trappers or responsible trapping.

“I use ruffs and other fur for mushing, so I’m not anti-trapping,” he said, “but I do want to create an awareness of the dangers within our community. It’s not safe right now. We can’t hardly recreate on trails they call multiuse, because once those traps are set, they kind of become single-use in the mind of most dog owners.”

Ken and Kate Green, of Cooper Landing, have had their Labradors caught on multiple occasions, as well.

“Since trapping in this area is a significant problem for hikers, skiers and dog walkers, it would be very nice to get the word out. We have had our dogs caught in foothold traps and snares over the past three years. All traps were within 25 to 50 feet of the lake or roads and, to the best of our knowledge, unmarked,” Kate said.

Her husband, Ken, remembers each of the events clearly, since he was with their dogs. The first time was while recreating with his three Labradors — two of the younger ones off-leash — at a popular picnic site referred to by the locals as Five-Mile Beach or Waikiki.

“About 20 feet from Snug Harbor Road — up the embankment, on the beach just at tree line — the loose puppy got caught in a snap trap — jaws, but without teeth. Other than the howling and whining, she was unhurt. I released her easily enough. The trap was rusted, the bait seemed to have long deteriorated, and the only marking was a small piece of surveyor’s tape, which was faded. The trap appeared to have been there for some time,” he said.

Green wasn’t sure if the trap was deliberately deserted or just forgotten about by whoever set it, but either way he said it shouldn’t have been left behind since it could only have made the intended species unduly suffer since no one ever came to check it, but also because it could have caught a nontarget animal or even a small child recreating in the area.

The second time one of Green’s dogs was caught, he said it was again at a common recreation site for Copper Landing residents. This time it was along the shore of Kenai Lake.

“I was walking the same three dogs the next early spring, this time along the Quartz Creek side. The road ends at a small turnaround and a path leads to the beach which is wide and walkable at that time of year,” he said. “I noticed a DVD disc hanging on a branch just off the beach, and figured that some kids were playing around. When I came across another in another tree, I realized what they were.”

Old Duck Hunter: Beware the trap of inattention

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

If you hunt upland birds with dogs, take dogs with you on outdoor adventures or have a family dog that runs the neighborhood, then Nov. 10 is a date you want to remember. This marks the opening of trapping season for most furbearers on the Kenai Peninsula. Thus, the presence of snares, foothold and conibear traps in the field.

Dogs, being what they are, will find trap sets quicker than their wild canine counterparts, since pet dogs are not nearly as survival oriented.

Being a trapper, a hunter who hunts with dogs, and a dog lover, this subject is fairly dear to me. I have friends who have lost dogs in snares near their homes and others who have lost dogs in the wilderness. Most of the losses can be avoided with a little forethought and care to beloved canine pets.

I don’t know any trappers who want anything to do with catching someone’s dog. Most trappers are responsible and don’t set snares or kill-type traps near areas of human habitation. But as in practically any activity nowadays, there are some exceptions.

This isn’t in any way intended to tell pet owners how to deal with their pets, only a fair notice in case someone isn’t aware of the dangers inherent with a dog running loose without supervision this time of year.

If there are snares or traps in the area, there is a good chance your dog will find them and possibly get caught in them. Most trappers use some sort of bait or attractant for coyotes, wolves, wolverines or lynx. The attractant that draws these animals also will draw your canine companion.

Outdoor treks this time of year can also land you in areas where trappers are plying their trade. On the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge there are regulations that prohibit trappers from using traps larger than No. 1, which is a fairly small trap, within a mile of a road or a trailhead.

Common Ground: No contest — Laundry vs. anything outside

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham. Lake trout lie hidden in Hidden Lake —especially on windy winter days.

The day my fishing partner decided that enough time had gone by that we needed to go ice fishing happened to be on a day in which the wind was blowing about 45 mph and the temperature had risen to negative 20 degrees.

My personal views on ice fishing held that fish don’t much like the wind. I don’t know what goes on underwater in a wind, but based on the attention that gets paid to my lure by fish, my guess is that they are hanging on to a reed by their lips waiting out an underwater storm. But since fishing is better than ironing my clothes or washing my dishes, I decided to go anyway.

The road to Hidden Lake wasn’t all that bad. As long as we kept the speed of the vehicle to less than 10 mph and stayed in the middle of the road, there was every chance we’d make it to the lake.

The chances weren’t as good on making it back. But, those were the odds that we were willing to take in order to catch a lake trout and avoid domestic chores. When my life flashes before my eyes, as it did on the last downhill curve in the road to the lake, I certainly don’t want to have any images of myself ironing clothes. I’m just not that good at it.

From the parking lot it was clear to us that it wouldn’t be a good idea to drive out on the lake. Freeze and thaw conditions had created about a foot of overflow. We loaded up our sled with the barest of essentials. The hand auger, the ice scoop, our fishing rods, our spare fishing rods, tackle boxes, two camp chairs, my portable ice shanty, my propane heater, several extra cans of propane, a Thermos of coffee, a bottle of blackberry brandy, and, in my case, a book on the life and legend of Crazy Horse, who defeated Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Once the sled was hooked up to my fishing partner, we began the long walk to our favorite spot. Luckily, the wind was at our back and so my added weight in the sled was of little inconvenience.

Down Under over — Alaska teacher exchange a gamble that pays off

By Joseph Robertia

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Gavan and Margaret Brown of Victoria, Australia, take a dogsled ride in Kasilof before leaving Alaska. The two spent a year here on a teacher exchange program. Gavan taught at Kalifornsky Beach Elementary, while Margaret spent time in numerous central Kenai Peninsula schools as a substitute teacher.

Redoubt Reporter

In terms of teaching and exploring the world, Gavan Brown, of Victoria, Australia, has seen a lot. Not only has he been an educator for 30 years, but he’s taken part in three yearlong teacher exchanges around the world — in Birmingham, United Kingdom, British Columbia, Canada, and most recently in Soldotna. Despite this long career and his diverse travels, he said he still learns from each experience, and his most recent one was no exception.

“I didn’t know a lot about Alaska, other than it was a really cold place,” he said.

That’s exactly why he came, though. To Brown — and his wife Margaret, who came and taught in several schools around the district as a substitute while Brown was spending the year as a fourth-grade teacher at Kalifornsky Beach Elementary — teaching is about more than just imparting knowledge. It’s about exchanging thoughts, ideas, customs and cultures.

“Education should be a social experience,” he said. “The 45 kids I’ve had here at K-Beach, plus the others who’ve come in the room for presentations, they haven’t just benefited from my years of teaching, they’ve acquired a different view of the world from the experience, which will also shape those kids, and that’s priceless.”

In terms of how the U.S., and Alaska, specifically, compare to his other teaching posts around the world, Brown said that times have changed since he first became an educator, and a lot of the changes he’s seen are the same from country to country. This isn’t always a good thing, he said.

“We all want kids to be the best they can be, but it seems like we’re all headed toward a more centralized view of education. When I started, education was good for its own sake, and it used to be OK to be an individual, and be OK at math, but really excellent at art or something. Now, there’s so much emphasis on standardized testing, so we all have to jump through the same hoops as educators,” Brown said.

Cool running — Race to stay warm in winter solstice run

By Clark Fair

Photos courtesy of Andrea Hambach, Willow Running Company. Yvonne Leutwyler, of Soldotna, and Clark Fair, of Sterling, complete the Willow Winter Solstice Half Marathon on Dec. 22, in temperatures dipping to minus 30.

Redoubt Reporter

I awoke at 4 o’clock on the morning of a race and struggled to get back to sleep because I was worried about whether I was capable of finishing the event, and, given the conditions outside, whether I was capable of even surviving.

My running partner, Yvonne Leutwyler, and I had spent the night with friends (and race organizers) Andrea Hambach and Dave Johnston in Willow for the Dec. 22 inaugural Willow Winter Solstice marathon/half-marathon. At 6:30 a.m., their outdoor thermometer read  minus 32 degrees. The clear dark skies were pinpricked with stars. We were about three miles from the race venue and at least four hours from sunrise. Normal, rational people would not have ventured outside on a day like this. They would have cranked up wood stoves, snuggled under wool blankets or wiggled their tootsies inside of fuzzy slippers — but not us. We planned to run in it.

For Yvonne and I, that meant 13.1 miles of ice and hard-packed snow mainly across a series of low-lying lakes, starting at the Willow Community Center on the western shore of Willow Lake. This would be the longest run of my life — if I made it — and, by far, the coldest.

About 50 percent of the 31-person field would be joining us for the half-marathon. The rest would be running the full-meal deal — 26.2 miles, all the way to a tiny island on Red Shirt Lake (in the Nancy Lake State Recreation Area) and then back again. (The marathoners, obviously, were the real crazy ones.)