One week in Kotzebue

 

Hello from Alaska, everyone!

 

So, where to start?! My journey to Alaska started in Atlanta where I’d been for a few weeks hanging out with friends and family in the area. Friday night I flew to Seattle and then Saturday morning I flew through Anchorage (pictured below) and to Kotzebue. It was a very early morning and I landed in Kotzebue around lunchtime. My flights were fine, long but uneventful. I’ve been here almost a week and it feels like people want an update so here we go!

            Two sweet co-workers met at me at the airport and helped get me settled that afternoon. We grabbed the boxes I had shipped and got them over to my temporary apartment and they took me to the grocery store. Y’all, rural Alaska grocery prices are no joke, more about that later. My apartment is a cute little mini-studio with a washer and dryer. Currently my boxes are occupying the space that’s supposed to be the closet. It’s temporary because I am waiting for a one bedroom to become available!

 

Alright so here are the things that surprised me the most:

#1 No cell reception
That’s right, my phone doesn’t work. It works in Anchorage but not out here. Fortunately one of my co-workers is letting me borrow and old phone of his. I bought a sim card for it so I currently have my Alaska phone and my iPhone, which I can only use when connected to wifi. I thought the wifi was more widely available but it is not! Anyway, I’m not sure that two phones is my permanent solution but it’s working for now.

 

#2 The heat  

When you move to a place above the Arctic Circle you kind of expect to never be hot again. WRONG. When the sun is out it is HOT. And unless it’s cloudy, the sun is out all the time. You’ve heard that Alaska is the land of the midnight sun, right? It’s true. The sun does not set here for a few months. It doesn’t even get that dark. 2am looks like 2pm, it’s pretty trippy. It’s significantly cooler in the shade (which there is very little of because there are not trees) or otherwise outside of the sun but if the sun is out it is quite warm during these summer months. Obviously that will change as the seasons wear on.

 

#3 The mosquitos

They are huge! One of my co-workers who is from Alabama refers to them as “dragons” and I totally get why. The things are huge and hungry. If it’s warm out you can expect to be swarmed. They bite through your clothes and appear unaffected by repellent as far as I can tell. Being from the south I thought I’d seen it all in terms of mosquitos but that was not true at all. (Hopefully I have now, I can’t imagine it getting worse than this).

 

            Other notable things that I did this week are get a PO Box here in Kotz, submit an application to get internet at home, and figure out how to order groceries online. I’ll have to do a grocery haul for you guys but the groceries here are at best double if not triple normal prices. In the lower 48 I exclusively shop for groceries at Aldi so you can imagine my sticker shock at the prices here. For me it’s just not tenable so I needed to figure out an alternative solution. A co-worker told me about doing a bush order from a store called Fred Meyer. Apparently Mr. Meyer will deliver groceries to the airport via bush plane from Anchorage, even perishables. Even with the taxes and associated fees it’s still less expensive than shopping at the AC (local grocery store) so I’m in. I submitted my first order via email last night. I don’t think I can describe just how strange it was to grocery shop this way!

 

            Work has been pretty boring to be honest. It won’t always be this way, it’s just that the first while is a lot of onboarding and boring HR stuff. Things will pick up once I start working with clients, which I am really excited for. I talked this week with a supervisor and we discussed what my interests are clinically and what kind of clients I work best with, etc. It was a good conversation and I’m excited to get started!

 

            The first few days of being here felt more like a trip than anything else, just like a temporary thing where I’d eventually return to my apartment in St. Louis.  Around day 3-4 is when I started getting what I can only describe as homesick. That’s also when the midnight sun started interrupting my sleep. It wasn’t homesickness in the nostalgic, longing for home kind of way. It was more that the reality of just how far away I was from home was setting in, as was the decision to move here. I a little bit went down the road of “what have I done?” but I figured I was only feeling that way because I felt so disconnected from the world without my phone. I made a few phone calls and within a few hours I was feeling much better. I’ve noticed I’m the loneliest after work, around 6pm Alaska time which is 10pm on the east coast and 9pm for St. Louis so it’s on the later side which is a little difficult. My pillows arrived today and they smell like home, wherever that is. 

 

            The week has had its highs and lows but overall has been fine. It’s nice to live close to the water. I always wanted to live by the ocean. To be fair I never thought it would be in the Arctic but never say never J Below are some pictures of sea and the little lagoon by my building. Enjoy! 

Until next time everyone, 

Veronica <3