The water surrounding Kotzebue freezes to about five feet thick. Because of this and the fact that we had no snow build-up at this point in time, we were able to take our jeep several miles out onto the ice for some ice fishing.
Here you can see our Jeep in the middle of nowhere on the above mentioned ice.
This is Paige's catch for the day!
Between us we pulled in about 40 fish in three hours. We took one home which was enough to feed us for several days and gave the rest to a local to feed his dog sled team, the same team mentioned below.
The picture above is of Paige before we took off for a 70 mile round trip snow-machine outing. Our goal was to follow a local friend out to meet a dog sled team that was practicing for a 440 mile race. We were bringing supplies for the dogs. The weather started out bad, but quickly cleared up and turned into a gorgeous ride across Alaskan countryside. We made it safely to the location we were supposed to meet the dogs. Unfortunately we were early and waited there as we watched the sun disappear and the weather turn for the worse. When the team finally arrived we fed and watered the dogs and let them relax before allowing them to take off in front of us. By this time the wind had picked up, it was completely dark out and the temperatures had plummeted well below zero. We were both getting nervous when our local friend finally decided it was time to go. There was a lady that accompanied the dog sled team but was now traveling with us. That made three snow-machines, the one I was driving with Paige on the back, the local and this new lady. When we took off our local friend took off first and the lady cut in-between us! We were navigating by these stakes with reflectors every 20 meters or so. The lady who cut in-between us and our friend moved slowly so it didn't take long before our friend was out of sight. This was scary considering we could barely see anything at this point and had no idea who this lady was!
Then the weather went from bad to horrible! The wind was gusting at 40mph across our trail, it was pitch black and even though we were right behind the lady, her snow snow-machine tracks were covered with snow by the time our machine reached them. This was impressive considering we were moving 30-50mph. Twice our friend stopped for us, and each time the lady complained her snow-machine was running out of gas and each time we had to tip our machine over to pour gas out of it in a jug to help her out. This was extremely difficult considering once the machines were turned off you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. At this point, both of us were extremely worried and frustrated with the situation. Everytime we pulled over we gave this lady more of our gas and she thanked us by cutting in-between our local friend and us! We caught up to the dog sled team, which now had an injured dog that we had to unhook and figure out how to safely stow in a sled being pulled behind one of the machines, this was a considerable delay. This was followed by a fourth stop, the third time this lady needed more gas. I was not about to give anymore gas away (I was making sure Paige and I had enough to get home). Our local friend said "no worries, I have plenty of gas!" Which looking back now is funny, at the time it was not so funny. In fact, between being scared of not making it back and handing out free gas to a stranger who should have been better prepared, we were reaching our breaking point. So when we took off again, I hit the gas, cut in front of her and stayed as close behind our local friend as possible (it was the only way to see where he was as this point) leaving the lady far behind. It eased my mind knowing we were right behind our friend, who I trusted, and that if we now broke down or ran out of gas there was someone off behind us who now owed us a hand. After a while longer driving through horrible weather and our tank approaching empty our friend pulls over. The snow machine lights go out and again we can see nothing. We hear him yell "the town is that way, follow the reflectors and DO NOT GET LOST! I am heading to the dog yard." And then he takes off. I turn my machine on and I can't even see the closest reflector because the storm has gotten so bad. Paige and I give each other a quick "okay, lets do it" (thinking to ourselves oh crap, I love you and it has been fun). I start moving forward slowly looking for the first reflector. Eventually its light appears through the blizzard and we continue in that direction. Each time I see a reflector our speed increases until we are cruising right along at 60mph. This was dangerous because we couldn't see very far in front of us and it wouldn't take much to send us flying, but at the same time we needed to get out of the weather which was proving to be more hazardous. After what seemed like forever, I stop and ask Paige if we should have seen the town by now or at least should we be able to see the city lights? Cold, scared and feeling lost we move forward watching our gas gauge blink at us, warning that we were dangerously low. Then when we were less than a 100 feet from the town we saw the first street and house lights appear. We should have been able to see it way off in the distance but because of the storm we had to be on top of the town to know it was there. And what a relief it was! When we finally made it back to a friends house we were several hours later than expected and she informed us that the she had called search and rescue. Luckily they wanted her to hold off a little longer. Our local friend met up with us and invited me to head back out with him to find the dog sled team, I politely declined enjoying the safety of shelter. Everyone made it back safely, but our nerves were tested.
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