Alaska trip

Visiting the Oomingmak Store

Alaska is a wonderful place. It still has a charm that makes it different from the lower 48. Definitely part of the West. I spoke to a cashier at a gift shop yesterday who’s lived here for 30 years. When she first moved to Anchorage, she stayed for five years before returning “home” to Chicago for a visit. As soon as she got off the plane in Illinois, she thought “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with this place? What’s wrong with these people?” That is exactly the reaction I had returning to New York after I’d moved away. The stress, the frenetic pace, the suspicion, the cynicism of the Eastern cities cannot survive in the West. I hope that never changes.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Oomingmak shop  with Sigrun, Joyce, Eliza, and Marie. Sigrun is a feisty Swede. Joyce and Eliza are reserved Yup’ik. They are the sweetest ladies, I believe, that I have ever met. Joyce has lived in Anchorage for 12 years, Eliza for even longer. Their families still live in the villages where they were born. Eliza’s mother is 78 and her father recently passed away at the same age. Both ladies speak in low, steady voices, without the urgency or attention-grabbing volume of the “normal” American voice. They have no need, it seems, to draw attention to themselves.

I have pages and pages of notes from my conversation with Sigrun (contrary to advice I’ve recently received, I prefer not to record interviews)… but I sat with Joyce and Eliza for a couple of hours as they blocked nachaqs and scarves, and we spoke – slowly and occasionally – about family, knitting, sewing, and the weather (Eliza said her mother believes that every leap year winter lasts longer, a four-year cycle of cold and snow.) I’m sure I can’t remember everything they said, but I would have wanted to write or record as we were talking. It somehow would not have been natural.

Eliza (left), Joyce (right), and the back of Donna's head

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Both ladies were quiet, but Joyce was especially so. She knits Continental and Eliza knits English-style. Joyce can knit a nachaq in two nights. After work the first night, she casts on and knits one pattern repeat. The next night she completes the second repeat and binds off. She prefers knitting nachaqs to scarves because they are knit in-the-round and she doesn’t have to purl. Joyce can also knit a lace blanket in two weeks! Not a normal project sold by the co-op, but they raffle one off occasionally. She is by far a faster knitter than I am!

After meeting with Eliza and Joyce, I am a bit less anxious about going to Unalakleet tomorrow. But the pace is definitely going to be slower and the attitude more relaxed than anything I’ve experienced so far. I will be meeting with Fran Degnan, who is also an author. Her book, "Under the Arctic Sun," (available from the Oomingmak shop or Alaska small press tells the story of her parents, Frank and Ada Degnan. So on top of knitting, family, weather – universal concerns – we will also be able to talk about writing and publishing. As I read Fran’s book, I realize that Unalakleet is every bit as cosmopolitan as New York City. Fran’s family tree incluces Yup’ik, Inupiaq, Swedes, Germans, French Canadians, Irish, and Russians. It seems that while 19th and 20th-century urban centers in Alaska were filled with prejudice, in the rural areas, the people – of whatever origins – were bound together by the experience of living off the land. The place is definitely a melting pot!

An older knitter came into the shop yesterday to drop off some finished items and pick up some more yarn. “I will NEVER leave Alaska,” she proclaimed loudly. A recent trip to Utah – “where they have no wild berries, only useless flowers” – convinced her. As if, at 90, she would have been ready and willing to pull up her roots and strike off to a new land if they did have berries!