On Sunday, February 7th, I got on the plane to go to Newhalen for Phase 1. On the way we landed in Kokhanok to pick up 2 more of our group. When we arrived in Newhalen, we went to the Newhalen House. We spent some time getting to know each other. Our first task that evening was to plan our menu for the week and then go to the store to buy our food.
Monday we spent some time talking about values and we did an energizer where everyone had to stand in a box together. Everyone had to be in the box and nothing could be outside of it. We also took a test to see what careers we were interested in. My career was craftsmanship.
On Tuesday, my team cooked a hearty breakfast of pancakes and sausage. We started our day learning the basic maintenance on 4-wheelers. Some of it was familiar to me since I used to help my brother Richard fix his. After we were done I remembered that cleaning the oil and grease off the tools before you put them away was very important (my mom often hollered at Richard about that).
In the afternoon we each interviewed a different teacher about a previous job they had that we had interest in. The teacher I interviewed was Mr. Cornell who teaches Math at Newhalen School. He used to work as a Natural History Guide which really interested me. I really liked the idea of being a Natural History Guide. It was a much more interesting job than it originally sounded like once he started talking. I found out they spend a lot of time outdoors and I really like that. That evening my team cooked a delicious spaghetti dinner.
Wednesday morning we got to meet Sarah who runs her own business as a cake decorator and we learned how to decorate a cake. Amazingly, the best rose was made by one of the guys in our group. In the afternoon we went to Iliamna Trading to interview the owners about running their own business. One thing I learned from them about owning your own business is you don’t get much time off. There is too much work to be done.
After visiting Iliamna Trading, we went to the Pebble Mine office to learn what job opportunities there were for people in the area. After that, we were surprised by the chance to go see one of their helicopters and meet the pilot, Mel. We all were able to take turns sitting in the helicopter. Getting out of the helicopter, someone behind me said my name and I turned to look and bumped my head getting out. Lesson learned… helicopters are small, don’t turn your head when you are getting out.
That night, we did a service project at the Newhalen School gym. We organized a gym night for the little kids and played games with them.
Our day began outdoors on Thursday. We went to the landing where Joanne Lester, our Commander in Chief, used extra free time as motivation to get us to do our best in some challenge games. One challenge was to guide our blindfolded team members through an obstacle course using only voice commands. Another challenge was to pass a tiny cup of water over our heads to the next person without spilling any water. It was really hard because you could only hold the handle of the VERY tiny cup.
That afternoon we did our job shadowing. Four of us interviewed a pilot at Iliamna Air and got an idea of what it is like to fly in the pilots seat.
After that, two of us got a chance to interview a Joseph Minnick, a State Trooper in Newhalen. Before we interviewed him, we all went inside and Trooper Minnick showed us the jail cell. As I predicted, everyone (except me) walked inside of the cell and I am surprised none of them noticed the evil grin on my face. After the last one of the group walked into the cell, I closed the door and locked them in. I am not sure if Trooper Minnick saw the humor in my little joke, I didn’t look at him to see his reaction. While interviewing Trooper Minnick, I learned there is a lot more reading and writing that plays into the job than I thought there was.
The final day was Friday. We cleaned the house and said our good-byes then piled into the Suburban to head to the airport and home.
by Maggie Stoltman - 9th Grade
