Kako

Friday after school Joe and I caught a flight out for a teacher's retreat at a place called Kako. Kako is about a 45 minute flight from Mountain, near the village of Russian Mission. Dave and Vera, the owners of Kako, are missionaries now in their 80's who have Christian retreats for Alaskan kids all over the bush. They started their missionary work in the early 60's, and have been here at Kako for almost 20 years. There aren't any roads in or out of Kako, and they're not on the river. Everyone and everything comes in by plane.

We were told that we were on the first flight, but somehow we ended being the last ones to arrive...again. I don't know why that keeps happening. I guess we're meant to be fashionably late. When we got to the airport, our plane was already there. Remember when I said that the last plane we were on was the smallest plane ever? I was wrong. We were picked up in a Cessna 182 which holds the pilot, the co-pilot, and one passenger. Joe rode co-pilot, so I crawled into the teeny tiny backseat. As we got in the plane, our pilot turned to me and said "If this breaks, don't worry. If this breaks, don't worry. If you hear a warning buzzer, don't worry." He really made me feel great about our flight. As soon as we took off, everything he warned me about happened. His seat broke and fell back on me...buzzers started going off...duct tape was flapping in the wind. It was terrifying. In the meantime, Joe and Brent (the pilot) were up there with their headphones having a great ol' time. 10 minutes into the flight I couldn't feel my legs. My ears were pounding because it was so loud, and I was getting airsick from the turbulence.

As we flew over Pilot Station, the winds were so bad that the plane kept dropping and getting pushed back up. I was panicking but Brent kept turning around and saying "It's ok. That's normal." When we got closer to Kako, we had to fly between two mountains, kind of like in a canyon. Brent and Joe were so busy talking about who knows what and I just kept thinking "Does he see how close we are on the left side? The mountain is right there! I could touch it!" And then the plane would twist on it's side as the wind caught us and I would freak out. Soon after the Canyon of Death, I saw Kako below us. But what I didn't see was a runway. But we went down anyway, and Brent landed the plane on the dirt strip that lead from the gold mine to the lodge. That was the first time that I wanted to kiss the ground when I got off the plane. But I didn't....

As we unloaded the plane and headed up to the lodge, Joe and I realized that this was a Christian retreat center and that we'd probably have to stay in separate cabins since we live in sin. I looked on the list, and sure enough, I was in Kuskoquim, and Joe was in Fireweed. The cabins were like 10x12, and super cute. The missionaries had made quilts for each bed in the cabins which reminded me of the polyester quilts my mom's grandma made. Just up the hill from the cabins was the Bath House, a two story building which had bathrooms, showers, and laundry. There was also a tunnel that went from the bathhouse to the main lodge. On the grounds there's also a wood shop, a craft barn, a pavilion, and just a few house were a few families live. There's not a store, post office, or school, even though families live here year round. The children are home schooled, and they get their supplies from Russian Mission.

After dinner on Friday, we had a sermon in the chapel, and then went to bed....separately. In my cabin, the heat went out and it was so cold that I wore all of my clothes, including my big jacket. I thought about sneaking into Joe's cabin, but thought better of it seeing as how we had an image to keep up.

Saturday morning we had breakfast together, and then a sermon on anger management. Following the sermon, we hiked up a mountain behind the village. It was a moderate hike with awesome views. Standing up there I felt like I could see all of Alaska. At the top of the summit there was a wooden cross that had fallen down so we stood it back up and stacked rocks around it's base. It was truly majestic up there with the wind blowing and no civilization as far as the eye could see.

Following our hike, we put our earplugs in and went skeet shooting. After demonstrating how to load the shotgun, we all took our turn. I was surprised at how tough it actually was. Joe and I each hit one pigeon. Shooting was fun, but the best part was yelling "pull!" Several men went after us and nailed every single one. I'm pretty confident that I would have done a lot better if I had on camo pants. That seemed to do it for them.

After skeet shooting, we went gold panning. Kako was originally a gold miner's claim, and when Dave and Vera moved here, they learned how to pan. They've taken tons of gold out of the land, and there are huge veins they haven't mined yet. They stopped mining in the 90's when the price of gold went down, but now they're trying to start it back up again. We panned for a while and he showed us the whole process from using the pans, to spinning, to heating the gold. And guess who found two nuggets!!!! That's right. Of course I didn't keep them, I gave them to Dave. Besides, they were only like the size of a grain of rice.

The rest of the weekend we spent relaxing and reading scripture. The food was great, the fellowship was great, and now we're ready to go home. Brent just left to take a couple home to Scammon Bay, and he'll be back at 4:00 to pick us up and take us back to Mountain. Here's praying for a safe flight!

Well, we made it home. It was a beautiful flight since the sun was low in the sky making everything orange. On the way to Kako, Brent was telling Joe which mountains he could land on top of if he had to. There's this one flat top mountain that looks like a helicopter pad that he said he could land on and we all had a good laugh. Well, he thought it would be funny to act like he was landing on it on the way home. But of course I didn't have headphones on to hear that he was only pretending. We got so close to touching ground that I was waiting for the wheels to touch. The mountain isn't that wide so pretty quick he swung the plane back up into the air. My stomach definitely did a somersault on that one. The he decided to have a little fun with us and flew us right over the river...so low I closed my eyes because I thought we were going to crash. It was a great weekend, but it's nice to be home.