Musher Profiles:

Hey gang. This week we are running a series of Iditarod musher profiles (a product of all the recent traveling). The first about Newton Marshall, a Jamaican musher, aired last night. Here's a link to my youtube page were you can see them all. Joshua's Youtube. Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think. I'll be headed out of town on Sunday!

On the road again

Once again I'm off to the wilds of Alaska. Well, maybe night quite the wilds, but the cold part. Headed to Fairbanks to shoot the start of the Yukon Quest. The Quest is a dog sled race that starts in Fairbanks and ends at Whitehorse, Yukon. I will only be shooting the first couple days, but it will be good practice for the Iditarod. Airplane photo anyone?

To Fairbanks, Return Anchorage

Thursday was a quick turn-around-trip to Fairbanks. Sports reporter Kevin Wells and I headed out during the wee hours of the morning. We were doing the final two of four Iditarod musher profiles. First we swung by Lance Mackey's place to meet up with Newton Marshall. Newton is a Jamacian dog musher, who is leasing a team from Lance.

After our time at the Comeback Kennels we headed down the road to Jessie Royer's place. She, like Lance, has a great place off the beaten path. We did a great interview, Jessie was swarmed by her dogs all throughout, and then headed out on the sled. I got to play with a new toy (it's a fully self-contained helmet cam).

When we finished up at Jessie's house Kevin and I made the long slog back to town for some dinner and resting time whole waiting for our nine o'clock flight. Another good day full of travel and adventure!

Noorvik Video

Here is the video I did in Noorvik about Eskimo Dancing. I am slowly uploading other stories I have done over the past couple of years. If you'd like to see others click HERE.

Noorvik II

From one crazy day to the next to the next. The tape heads rolled for another 14 hours yesterday after an interestig night of sleeping in the school's media room on top of my gear bags. Not the most comfortable, but better than the icy coldness of the linoleum. Yesterday is a blurr of motion. Sounds and colors have mixed together creating a multimedia Picasso in my memory. It was the day of the census to begin. The villagers chose 89-year-old Clifton, to be the first person in the community, which, by default, made him the first in the country. Christine and I had to make a very concerted effort to get an interview with Clifton. Keep in mind that we were not only dealing with cultural barriers and certain age hinderances, we were also dealing with the United States government. The bureau people wanted to be helpful, but are wrapped-up in so many rules and regulations that every little move had to be double checked. We did finally get a one-on-one with Clifton.

The door handle slowly turns and we quickly follow our interpreter through the arctic entrance and into the small living room. The room was comfortably warm. The cabin had odds and ends strewn about. A hand saw hung on the wall overlapped by a well loved red and black flannel. A large chair sat mid-room. Next to it sat a table holding up a classic tube t.v. Static lines danced their way across the images fight for Clifftons attention.

"It's nice to meet you," Christine and I say.
Our greeting is met with a blank, yet gentle stare and almost immediately followed by, "WHAT!"

Turns out our interviewee is mostly deaf and didn't really have much to say about the census. He was full of stories about life in the village and WWII. With a pleasant smile Clifton humored our presence for an hour or so.

The rest of the day was a giant blur. Christine and I returned to our make shift editing area and set to work. We had to turn stories for the 5, 6 and 10 o'clock shows. Plus, we had live shots for each. And ontop of those items we still had story parts to shoot. Whew! The day ended sometime after midnight.

Tuesday afternoon was to be our departure time, but mother nature had something different to say. Just before our little cessna was to pick us up a fog thicker than pea soup rolled over the tiny village. The day became a waiting game. We had a few false alarms, but finally around five the clouds parted and our plane scooped us up for delivery back to Kotzebue.

After checking in for our flight home it was smooth sailing straight to my comfy bed at home. Ahhhh....

Off to Noorvik I gone

Noorvik, oh Noorvik. A bright little town just 45 miles east of Kotzebue. A haven for 650ish tough souls in the middle of Alaska's wild bogs and tusiks. Where the moose and the caribou roam, well, that is until they become the evening stew. Throw a little seal oil on top and you got yourself an outright native Alaskan meal. Yummy, in an, "now I can say i've eaten seal oil," kinda way.

We have, both vultures and ravens, descended upon the kind and brave women and men of Noorvik. Hands fly about in gestures of greetings. Smiles fill the rooms with warmth and kindness. Hugs are given in payment for years of friendship. Names are exchanged, some remembered, some forgotten. The wheels past my glazed eyeballs. From one plane to the next; from one interview to the next...I stumble diligently. I tell myself the circus will end, the grins will lessen, but alas, the second hasn't even checked into it's new residents. I scream to myself, " what's taking the second hand so long, slow motion has set in, if doesn't move than the minute will never gain momentum..."

I stand near the heat of my interview light. I can feel the sweat building against my still bundled body, which crys to be released into the icy coldness of the arctic tundra. No, still another interview. More wide shots, more cut-aways, more movement, more people...

Close to midnight we make our way back to the school. We grab a couple snacks and proceed to continue our work. Christine, the KTUU reporter I'm with, and I have been going for well over 14 hours. We have done six interviews. Shot three 32-minute tapes. Drained one battery of life. Both ended up without matts. And to be honest, besides extreme exhaustion, we're both pretty happy campers. It's been a crazy day with good people in a wonderful part of the world. I guess the adventure never does end. What do you think's coming next?

Horizontal

Yesterday, as I wandered through the world I was struck by the horizontal. Maybe today will be the vertical or the wobbly. What does your horizontal look like? Here's a few of mine.

Haines to Juneau

I did not awake to the scrumptious smell of french toast this morning, but I did get to sleep in. After breaking from our warm cocoon Ted and I ventured out into the sleepy, snow-covered town of Haines. Resident were recouperating from several feet of snow fall. Plows roared down the streets dragging with them piles of the frozen water. Some were on roof top scraping giant pillows of fluff, sending shovel fulls tumbling to the ground. After gathering some town shots and an interview we wolfed down some grub at The Bamboo Room. I had the best Halibut fish and chips, which was caught locally. Yummy!

From there we headed out town to the ferry terminal. Again more waiting, shooting and interviewing. As time passed our scenery crept into oblivion as the coming snow storm lodged itself between the mountains.

The ferry was univentful. Well, it was until I found out from the ship's purser that our arrival time into Juneau would around eight o'clock. Now one might ask, "why could this be cause for concern?" To the average person this wasn't alarming by any means, but to some who had an 8:10 flight to catch a few alarms do go off in the ol' noggin'. All this and I had no way, at first, to communicate with the outside world, I was at sea!

In the end my flight was changed to the next morning and slept in a bed big enough for me to sleep sideways in without my head or toes hanging off the edge. It was awesome.

I'm now sitting in my plush airplane seat waiting to be yelled at by a stewardess for still using my electronic device. In three hours I will be back in Anchorage and on my way to work, where I will immediantly hop in another car and drive to Wasilla for an Iditarod musher profile shoot. I guess the adventure never ends! Visual compliments for your rods and cones to anylyze are next.