Wales 8 - Reindeer Corral Walk

Sunday while dinner was being prepared, we managed to get almost everyone togeter for a group picture on the steps to the Community Center. You can see how low the clouds were. Planes weren't flying in that day.




Sunday afternoon we had done some more writing exercises and worked on small arty notebooks we learned to 'bind' just by cutting a little and rolling some of the paper. Very clever, we couldn't figure out how they had been made until they showed us. And Alice had brought in this shell from the beach.





After dinner, Joan and I walked to a lagoon to see the reindeer corral. It was an almost rainy evening, with a brisk wind. We took a left on the dirt road at the airport and walked through the beautiful marshy landscape with plovers, dunlins (picture), ravens, and various other unidentified birds.















Finally we got to the reindeer corral and the lagoon. The reindeer were out somewhere eating. As I understood it, they only come here when necessary - like to harvest antlers.






On the way back we could hear the helicopter, but only see it now and again in the fog. It was taken boxes in the net up onto the hillside for the seismic team's research. I asked the pilot the next day if he could see. He said he only needed to see down, that seeing straight ahead was overrated. They weren't taking the equipment far up the hill from road where we were walking.


I couldn't help wondering how much it costs to rent a helicopter and how much it would cost to hire some local folks, where employment is scarce, to take it out on their four wheelers and then lug it the quarter or half mile further up the hill.





And when we got back they were still singing hymns in the Community Center.

The next day, Monday, July 23 - see I'm getting further and further behind here - we flew back to Nome and spent a gorgeous afternoon there. I'll post those pics tomorrow I hope.