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| Beginning of the parade in front of the Russian Orthodox Church that is in the middle of Lincoln Street |
It is Alaska Day!!! This is a fantastic holiday celebrating the day of the transfer of power from Russia to a US territory. I had to work until 1pm. Which was lame. But classes only went until 1 so it really wasn't that bad. I was a little worried that we were going to have to work during the parade- watching kids or something. However, the principal told us to have fun and if we see students, just make sure that they are being polite. YAY! What a good boss! So, Jonathan and I left at 1pm to go to the parade. We drove over the bridge, but the students walked. It was cool to drive on the bridge and see so many people going the same way at once.
Once back on the main island, we parked and set off in search of a good spot. I went down the main street towards the end of the parade route where two of my roommates, Kristin and Amanda, as well as Meghan, another AmeriCorps, her boyfriend Branden and EJ, who are people we know from town, were standing. The parade was so much fun!
There were two groups from MEHS in the parade, a group of Yupik and Inupiaq dancers. They were wearing their kuspuks and they danced down the street. It really interesting to see and to experience that type of culture in between fire trucks. The different schools had people in the parade also. Sitka High had a marching band and everyone in the parade wore their Xtratufs.
The fire trucks and ambulances all had little kids in them who were wearing tiny firefighter outfits and emt outfits. It was pretty cute.
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| Xtratufs |
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| Heck yeah!! |
Every year the Alaska Day committee pays to have the Seattle Pipes and Drums bag piping group come up to Sitka. They were in the parade and they were awesome! They all wore kilts and were pretty intense about their whole bagpipe and drums deal. There was also a huge whale that was made out of pvc pipe and covered in a black plastic. There were people walking under in and people on the sides lifting the flippers up and down and then more people in the back lifting the tail up in the air and then down again. The whale was for whalefest which is coming up. There were also several floats with the Coast Guard and the state troopers. We know a few of the Coast Guards, so it was fun to see people we knew in the parade! There were little girl scouts and boy scouts. A group of girls from the middle school did the entire dance to Thriller. It was awesome. They were pretty intense about it- there was costuming and makeup involved. Thriller is serious stuff after all. I had so much fun at the parade!
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| Bag pipers!!!!!! |
After the parade, there was a reenactment of the transfer of power on Castle Hill, a historic site, and I wanted to go to it. I asked my friends if they wanted to go, but they were all lame and didn't want to go. I thought that was crazy because who knows if we'll ever be in Sitka again for Alaska Day? I wanted to do everything!
So, I went to the reenactment and stood with some of the MEHS kids who were a touch grumpy about it because they were required to go for their Alaska history class. It was interesting I thought. They had a military band and the coast guard was there.
They read off the statements of the Russians and Americans as they transferred power. There was an old Russian flag flying and after the transfer it was lowered and an American flag raised. Seward's folly! Then they read off all of the states and the date that they were admitted to the union as a state. After every state, the Coast Guard fired a shot.
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| Oops! (second guy on the right) |
There was a line of them at the edge of Castle Hill after the first round of shots, the second guy in the line's gun stopped working. It was pretty funny because every time that his turn to shoot came up you could see him mini-panic. He would sort of waver and then lift the guy to try and fire it and then the next person would fire it for him, but he would look down at his weapon. He was definitely not as serious as the other guys.
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| Basket rescue |
Then, there was a Coast Guard demonstration in front of O'Connell Bridge. They did a mock rescue in the water. There was a guy in the water pretending to be in distress, he was wearing the red safety suit or gumby suit. Then the CG helicopter flew by and lowered a man (also in a safety suit) and he started swimming towards the distressed swimmer. There was a CG guy on the shore with a bullhorn explaining what they were doing. He said that it is extremely difficult to swim under the force of the helicopter because the winds are stronger than even hurricane force winds. I can believe that, we were on the shore and were getting battered by the wind and the swimmer, you could see him struggling against the force of the wind and the water was spraying like crazy all around him. The helicopter left, circling around and the swimmer, when he reached the distressed person he waited for the helicopter to come closer and then set off a flare.
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| Hugging rescue |
The shore guy said that was because it is extremely difficult to spot two small heads in the water, even when you knew they were around and that it is even more difficult when their are waves crashing against them. The flare was red smoke, a lot of it. Then the helicopter lowered a rescue basket and the person in distress got in it and then it was lowered again for the swimmer. After the rescue, they did another rescue, showing a different technique. They dumped the person in distress first and then the rescue swimmer. I felt bad for them because it was seriously chilly out and the Alaskan ocean it pretty freaking cold. This time, instead of a basket, they lowered a tie thing and the swimmer and the person in distress went up together. It was really interesting to see the different ways that the CG operates.
That was it for the planned events of the day. After the events, people go to the bars. There are three main ones, Victoria's Pour House, Ernies and Pioneer Bar or Pbar. My friends were already at Pbar, so I went over there and met up with them. It was a lot of fun. We were there maybe an hour when the bag pipers came into the bar! They came in the back entrance and played a couple of songs in the bar! It was awesome. Apparently, they do this at all the bars every year. People went crazy when they came in. People were standing on top of booths and chairs trying to see. People also would poor in from outside. It was a really fun day! I texted Daniel after a little while that Alaska Day was great, and then later on that Alaska was the best state ever. His response was hilarious, he said, Well, lets not say things we can't take back. That is clearly reserved for Missouri. Well played brother, dear.
Also, this week, our dormant (hopefully!) volcano got some snow on it! The mountains started getting snow on them. It is so beautiful. It was already gorgeous, but now, with snow dusting the tops of the mountains it is amazing.
Last week, we had a ridiculously powerful storm on Tuesday. It blew over 70mph at one point. A tree got knocked down between Blue Lake and Heart Lake and knocked out power to the whole town. The entire city and borough of Sitka was dark. About two hours after the power went out, it came back on. I thought that this meant that the power was back on.
Oh, no. That is not what that meant. They apparently have a diesel generator that can power the whole town. They got the generator up and in order to save diesel they had rolling blackouts. Most people either, depending on their location, had power on even hours or odd hours. My house, because we are right next to the hospital, had power all the time! HA! You know what they say, location, location, location.
I find it a little amazing that not only is there a generator that can power the whole town, and that this happens so often that it was necessary to have a generator that can power the whole town. We finally got normal power back on Friday around noon.
Sitka is in the October 18th edition of Newsweek! Read the article- The New Oil.
