What does an Eskimo Village look like?

             I have made a few blogs talking about traveling and the cultural traditions of Kong and the Yup’ik people. But, I never really got to explain much of what the village is like, so I want to dedicate this blog to that topic.

Kongiganak is not a very big village. The population is about 450 people total. All of the population is Yup’ik Eskimo except about ten people. Those ten people are all teachers that work at the school. So, there is really no cultural diversity in the village.

When I got to travel into the village one Saturday in January, I had to remind myself that I am a minority now. This is something that you really don’t think of much when you are back in Pennsylvania, but you stick out when you are a white person in an Eskimo village.

As Garnet (one of the other teachers) gave me a tour of Kong on her ATV, I was just shocked by everything. The village is broken down into two parts: new housing and downtown. New Housing is where I went when I got to meet Shelia and have my Yup’ik initiation. New housing all pretty much looks the same. Houses are built on four to five foot stilts. The reason that the houses (and all other buildings) are built on stilts is because we live on the tundra. Tundra is classified by permafrost, which is a layer of permanently frozen subsoil. (The only reason I know that is because I will be teaching that in my ecology class.) Now, if a house were to be built on the ground then the heat from the house would melt the permafrost and the house would sink into the soggy ground. So, it makes sense why the houses are built on stilts when you can have people living in houses that are sinking into the ground.

Downtown is still the same with the houses being built on stilts, but downtown has a few more buildings that new housing doesn’t. For example, downtown is the location for the church, community center, the post office (it is literally a shed), and our two stores. Downtown is also the home of the old school of Kongiganak, Dick R Kiunya Memorial School and the old teacher housing. The old teacher housing still has some teachers that live there; however, they do live a little differently than the rest of us teachers. The old teacher housing has no running water or plumbing. So, these teachers do have the opportunity to shower in the school, since we do have a teacher shower in the school. Also, these teachers have to use honey buckets. The best way to describe a honey bucket is that it is bucket with a trash bag in it (Sometimes there is no trash bag) and a toilet seat put on top. So, pretty much you have a port-a-potty in your own house. This is why when I signed my contract for Alaska, I said that I have to live in housing that has running water and plumbing, since I don’t think I could survive like the rest of the village does.

I did get to experience shopping in the Alaskan store. And, prices are very expensive here! I needed bread and I paid $6.50 for a loaf of bread! That is something that I am going to miss at home is having things come at cheaper prices. Also, the stores are very limited. Sometimes you can walk into the store and there will be no eggs or anything else that you need. You just have to try to pick the right day to go to the store since it is really like a game. You never know what you will find at the store on the day you want to shop. But, if I don’t see something at the store, I can always use online shopping to get whatever else I need to survive here.

Overall, Kong is pretty different than village life in Pennsylvania, and I am trying my best to adapt to everything that Kong has to offer me since this is my new home until at least May.

This is a photograph of the airport in Kongiganak. It is literally a runway and this building.

This is the old teacher housing. None of these buildings have running water or plumbing.

This is the new housing in Kong. If you look to the left, you can see small shed like buildings. Those are the maqii, or the steamhouses. 

This is the old school called Dick R. Kiunya Memorial School. They stopped using this school about 3 years ago when the new school, Ayagina'ar Elitnaurvik was built.