With a sense of adventure my husband and I accepted our first teaching position in a remote Eskimo village in Alaska. We had bounced from Seattle to Anchorage, five hundred miles west to Bethel and finally landed on the dirt strip at Mountain village. Though definitely not mountains, the smooth rolling hills clustered here, did create a striking contrast to the endless tundra that we'd seen below us for the past three hours. Scattered houses of the village were tossed like pebbles along the base of the hills and along the banks of the Yukon River which flowing past the village, Its broad smooth water winding its way for another eighty miles to the Bering Sea.

Members of the village arrived at the plane as we waited for our luggage. Lean wiry, young men with long untrimmed hair, and baseball caps checked the cargo. Old women in the traditional cotton print kusbuks and brightly colored scarves used the mail plane's arrival as an opportunity to visit. A group of school age girls took special interest in us, giggling, pointing in our direction, and finally approaching us. "You new teachers? What your name? You got kids?" They queried, warming up to the interview. "What grade you teach?" Excited to find they would be in Ron's class they hurried off to tell their friends. The principal of the B.I.A. school approached us, hand extended in a warm welcome. He arranged to have our belongings transported, and then walked us through the village to our quarters making introductions and answering questions along the way.

Unfinished wood houses sprawled along the road, Sheppard's Cannery, at one end with the Catholic church and school on the other. Our quarters were connected to the school by a boardwalk in back, but in the front we looked out over the Yukon. Complete with government issue furniture, flush toilets, oil cook stoves, and laundry facilities, B.I.A. housing was by far the nicest in the village. We unpacked and stored the groceries we'd purchased in Anchorage. Our personal belongings, a year's supply of food and a new snowmobile would be arriving via barge in a few weeks time.

With packing crates littering the floor we found ourselves entertaining visitors that appeared at our door. We recognized the girls from the air strip along with a couple of new faces. They could have been sisters, with their smooth round cheeks, thick black hair, and eyes that disappeared when they smiled. Slipping out of their rubber boots at the door they lined up on our couch. There was little conversation, in fact even a simple question might only recieve a raise of the eyebrows. But there was plenty of giggling and a long "ahhhhh", when they spotted the fresh fruit on the table.

Village life provided little entertainment so the beginning of school was an event the children looked forward to with enthusiasm. It was a heady experience walking into my classroom that first day, with twenty pairs of eyes attentive on my face, excited little hands grasping the materials, and the laughter and exclamations I heard as I read them a story. They were undisciplined and sometimes ran around the room, knocked things over, and were unaware of how disruptive their loud voices were. I brought them toothbrushes and washcloths, medicated infected mosquito bites, and taught them to read. Although teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, there was Lucy; a warm, affectionate six year old. She became my appendage in the mornings before school, asking questions, sitting on my lap, following me as I moved around the room. Sometimes I would pick her up, and like a rag doll she would dangle from my arms, long black hair sweeping the floor. She was a frequent visitor in the evenings too, often staying late, and eating dinner with us. I never met her parents, but witnessed an incident one evening that told its own story. She had lingered at our house unusually late and It was beginning to get dark when I sent her scurrying for home. Her father must have been out looking for her, for when he saw her, he angrily grabbed her by the hair to lift her onto the snow mobile behind him.

The seasons passed quickly from the rain and mud to mounds of soft, white, snow. It covered the rusted oil drums and froze the smells of rotten fish and raw sewage that had permeated the village all fall. The Yukon became a highway for travelers bound for villages to the east and west. We broadened our horizons that winter, attending potlatches, Eskimo dancing, and visiting other teachers up river. Whining along, astride our trusty snowmobile, the sun's slanted rays glistening gold on the snow, we were living a great adventure.

Spring arrived with with the crashing of ice and the Yukon's frozen surface splintered into a million fragments. For days we watched chunks of ice float down the river, all travel suspended. The annual hike and wiener roast on the hilltop marked the last day of school, and Ron and I prepared to leave the village for the summer. We said our goodbyes and boarded the plane, fully intending to returning in the fall. That was not to be. My mother became ill that summer, and we chose to remain in Oregon. My husband traveled alone back to Alaska to pack our belongings and break the unhappy news to the village, our friends and a little girl named Lucy . We returned to Alaska the following spring to teach for seven more years, but never again to Mountain Village .