Flying in Alaska

Yesterday was the last day of the New Teacher Training in Unalakleet.  We were given all our additional paperwork and forms from the district that.  After lunch the different villages began heading to the airport to fly out.  St. Michael and Stebbins are connected by an 11-mile road, which makes it easier for the teachers to share a plane.  When I left St. Michael for Unalakleet the plane picking me up stopped at Stebbins first, picked up three teachers then came for us. 

The first Stebbins flight was scheduled to depart at 1:00pm.  The pilot would drop them off then come back and pick up Carolyn, Tim, and I and the rest of the Stebbins teachers at 2:30pm.  At 4:20 we are all still at the airport in Unalakleet.  The villages are fogged in.  As we waited, more villages came in to wait expecting to fly out.  No luck yet. 

While we were waiting five of us played Rummy on a cardboard box.  We played two games before we got too sore to sit on the floor.  At 4:45pm the chatter at the check-in desk at the Era Alaska airport got our attention.  St. Michael’s airstrip had cleared up enough to fly out.  Carolyn, Tim, and I, along with Denise and Ed (from Stebbins) grabbed our bags, put our small bags in the nose of the plane and left everything else to be loaded on to the next plane.  We boarded the Cessna (with six seats) and John (our Era pilot) started up the engine.  We turned the plane and faced the runway…. and sat.  John took a glove and wiped the steam off the windows and waited. 

30 minutes later, he revved the engine and turned the plane around.  We taxied back to the airport and he turned the engine off.  There were planes coming in from Anchorage and we might as well save fuel and wait inside.  We walked inside and had to explain to everyone why we were back/still there. 

The flight from Anchorage was bringing in returning teachers, mostly for St. Michael and Stebbins.  Meanwhile, the airport had filled up with people waiting to board that plane back to Anchorage.  We waited while that flight boarded and left.  At 6:00pm we boarded the Cessna again and the returning teachers boarded a different plane.  Both planes headed down the runway.  We turned at the same time.  Then the plane with the retuning teachers took off followed by our plane. 

We flew at about 110 mph at between 350-500 feet.  At 350 we were well below the clouds and at 500, they swallowed us.  As we got closer to St. Michael, John reached between the front seats and retrieved a manual with maps of the different airports.  It was interesting watching our pilot fly and read with the book on the controls.  At 6:45 we landed on our gravel airstrip in St. Michael, unloaded our bags, picked up or other bags that were left from the flight ahead of ours, said goodbye to the Stebbins teachers and watched as the plane took off toward Stebbins. 

Steve picked us up at the airport in the school’s truck and drove us home.  I got home at 7:00pm, only four hours after I was scheduled to be home.  This is how we travel in Bush, Alaska.  We must be flexible.