Touchdown in Kobuk

As the plane landed in Kobuk, I had the gut wrenching feeling that I'm sure every traveler feels at some point. "Did I make the right decision?" Should I have just found a job in Kansas and worked as a teacher for 30 years?" I took a deep breath and stepped off the tiny plane that could only seat 8 people. As I gathered my bags, I stopped to look around the area. I could only see white and black. White snow on the ground and black, cloudy skies. I didn't even know which way the village was. As quickly as the plane had touched down, it was back in the air again. I stood on the airstrip, next to all of my belongings and had no idea where to go or what to do. I was about to start walking when a local drives up on a snow machine.

Turns out this local guy was the maintenance guy for the school. Now that I've known him for a while, I know that this guy is the "Swiss Army Knife" of the entire school. If anything goes wrong, this is the guy to call. Anyway, he packs all of my things on the snow machine and a nestle on directly behind him. He turns his head and hollers back "You ever been on a snow-go before?" I am caught off guard, and eventually stammer out an unconfident no. Then he speeds off. As he launched over the snow bank , all of my belongings hovered in the air for just a moment. Soon, we arrived at my apartment. "Drop off your bags and then I will take you to the boss." The only problem was that one of my bags was missing. After retracing our steps, I saw the missing bag along the snow bank that we had ramped over.

I placed all of my belongings inside the room and walk over to the school. I was mentally preparing to meet the "lead teacher" of the school. The lead teacher is simply a regular teacher who has all of the responsibilities as a regular principal.

This is a picture of Kobuk from the plane. The town consists of about 150 people. The challenge is to spot the village in this picture.