Carving Caribou

My second day of teaching, I experienced some intense culture shock.

The first day of teaching in Kobuk, the principal taught my classes for me. My job was to watch and observe how he handled behavior and how he expected me to run classes. This is pretty standard practice in education. You watch first (usually practicum experience) and then you teach. Its very much the apprenticeship style of learning and teaching. I refer to it as "monkey see, monkey do." 

The second day, things got interesting. The school had an inupiaq day. The school district here emphasizes culture. The school wants students to understand where they come from and how their ancestors had lived. To do this, teachers are required to integrate inupiaq culture into everyday teaching. Most students have a separate class altogether for inupiaq instruction. When the district inupiaq instructor comes into town, the school has what is called an "inupiaq day." 

On inupiaq days, teachers lesson plans and prepared activities is thrown out the window. Often, there is no previous notice when inupiaq days come around. A lot of inupiaq days revolve around the wildlife of Alaska. So there really isn't any way to provide notice. The district tries to do at least one inupiaq day a month. 

On my first day of teaching, two of the high school students went out (with the inupiaq instructor) to hunt caribou. Apparently, there was a large herd near Shungnak. Shungnak is a neighboring village about 10 miles away from Kobuk. Well we were in luck. These students came back with three caribou.

Suddenly it is my second day of teaching and we have three full sized caribou lying on the gym floor. Before I knew what was happening, half of my students are armed with knives and other cutting utensils. In Kansas, if a teacher were to walk into a room with a group of 12 students all wielding knives with dead animals on the floor, the police would be called immediately.

So, I began to learn how to process caribou. You start by gutting the animal. This is done as soon as you can. Thankfully, this step was done for us. Then, you take off the legs, and head of the caribou. I watched in awe as my students dutifully carved off the legs of the caribou as well as the head. At this point, the caribou looks more like a sad rocking horse with no head. Then, students wipe the blood from the inside of the carcass. Once the carcass was dry, students began to skin the hide from the animal. Students seemed to carve the animal with expert precision. It was obvious that many students had done this before. 

I was floored when the elementary classes came into the room. There was blood everywhere and a dead animal on the floor but the students were not phased. When inupiaq day comes around, the whole school is involved.

Once the hides were stripped, the elders came to take out organs and begin processing the meat in different sections describing each one as they went. Once they were done, some students were sent into the kitchen, others to share the meat with community members, while the rest of us cleaned the gym floor. 

Once all these tasks were done, we sat in the gym and ate caribou stew. It was very good and my students were more than happy to give me a large piece of caribou tongue. Caribou tongue is considered a delicacy and I must admit it was very good and very tender. 

Overall, it was a crazy day and I doubt I will ever teach anywhere else that will give me an experience like that on my second day of teaching. It was a great moment for me to realize that "I'm not in Kansas anymore!" Everyone was very keen to make that joke as we watched students processing caribou. 

Here is a picture of the three caribou that were caught. At this point, all the caribou are gutted but they still have all their legs and heads. That was about to change.