Kaktovik

Well, this is from Monday but the Internet's been too slow to let me upload this entry any earlier.

This morning 16 of us from public health, the wellness center, the library, and other key employers in the community headed to Kaktovik on a charter flight for the health fair. We took off at 10am and landed at 11 to a frigidly cold, and I mean bitter cold, barren place. WAY more remote than Barrow. The snow was glazing white for miles around and looked smooth enough as ice cream, the way the wind had drifted it up into mounds. It was breathtaking—no pun intended. A van from the clinic picked us and all our gear up and we headed for Kaleook School, where we set up shop in the gym. The health fair was quite a success, running from 2:30-5:30pm on a variety of topics including the importance of the flu vaccine (I assisted an LPN from Samuel Simmonds in giving flu shots), BMI readings, BP screenings, cancer screenings for breast and prostate cancer, dental health, gun safety, infant developmental screening, and disaster awareness. Kids and their families filtered in and out and were required to stop at each station. We gave about 20 immunizations which was, I guess, a fairly good number for the health fair. After we closed down at 5:45 we ate some pizza and fruit and then took off on a little polar-bear hunt (in the van). Bertrand drove us around like shrieking kids, looking for the supposedly 7 polar bears currently roaming the area. After a half hour of driving around in the snow with the headlights on (which includes driving ON THE RUNWAY to get out to the bone pile near the water), we drove back. Unsuccessful. I was so disappointed! All I wanted to see was a polar bear! Why did they have to go into hiding NOW? Anyways, then we found out the flight was supposed to land back in Kaktovik at 7:05 and at 7:20 we got a call saying it was JUST leaving Barrow. Hmmmm. So we all piled into the warm clinic and sat for a little over an hour. But we made it back safe, and that’s all that matters.