Day with the Kenaitze, Alaska by Student Camden Droppo

I am your average outdoors man, I love to go fishing and hunting. I am going to be a junior at our high school after this summer. At the end of my freshman year I heard about this trip to Alaska, and it obliviously got my attention. My first thoughts we yeah right like I’d be going to Alaska in High School with out my parents. The funny part is here I am now writing my blog in our hostel at 1:30 in the morning. For any kids that read this take the chance to come up to Alaska. It will be something you will remember forever. For me the reasons I came up here was to experience the different cultures, go see how you feel climbing a glacier that makes you look like an ant from distance. Through this trip my favorite parts was visiting the Kenaitze and hiking to the bowl on Mount Marathon.

July 12, 2010
We forgot to set an alarm for today. It was funny I woke up at 7:55 a.m. I was still the first one up to eat like I usually am. Today was my day I was looking forward to this week. The main part was going to net salmon with the Kenaitze tribe. We first drove an hour to our first stop at K’Bec. It was a Kenaitze National Park just outside of Kenai. There we took a tour with one of the girls in the tribe. She showed us some old native homes which were called natish. In the homes it was a whole family including the grandparents. The grandparents in the family got there own room, because they deserved it from all the work they have done in their lives. Like me I got my own room too, but the kids in the tribes haven’t earned the right yet. It was interesting hearing our everything guide had to tell us. After our tour we got to do some arts and crafts. 

We made necklaces and at the end is an agate. It is said by the elders the agate’s are lucky and can bring luck to the one wearing it. I decide to wear this necklace at home as much as I can and test its luck out. We continued our to the town of Kenai. Our group got another tour of the town, and while on the tour of the town we saw a calf moose with its mom. They were being barked at by a dog and the mom charged at the dog. We had to leave to she wouldn’t charge us. We stopped by the Russian church, it looked very old. The priest looked very old school, with his long white beard. He told us about his beliefs and how their services worked. I am not a very religious person , but I enjoyed hearing what he had to say. Later after that we had some fun learning some dances. One was about a Raven and a man who needed an axe. The dances were more fun than I thought they were going to end up being. Finally the real fun was going to start. (Below: pulling in the nets)

We drove to the Kenaitze private beach where we’re going to net the salmon. Through the day we netted two hundred and fifty red or sockeye salmon, and one king or Chinook salmon. It was nice helping the natives catch there favorite food. In our free time we got to look for some of the lucky agates on ocean beach. I got to know two of the tribe girls named Allison and Josie (below).

 They were the girls who taught us the dances earlier in the day. The natives made our group a dinner, and it was amazing. They made salmon, chicken, rice, and this funnel cake like bread. After dinner we got to do all of the dances with the tribe. It was a lot of fun being apart of what they love to do. There was so much I could have put into this blog, but would end up being like five pages. I think I summed up the day by putting all my favorite parts. If I could I would come back and visit the tribe and those two girls I met every year. This was by far my favorite party of the Alaska Green Edventures Trip.