Students gearing up for Alaska trip

WILTON – Talk about a way to kick off a school year.

Ten students from Mt. Blue Middle School are preparing for a trip of the lifetime next month, when they will travel to Alaska for a week and a half. They’ll tour the Rasmussen Museum, cruise the Prince William Sound and visit Denali National Park; all “must see” events.

Then their experience will really begin.

The plan is for the students to spend a week in Crooked Creek, Alaska, roughly 300 miles west of Anchorage. This is the Alaska that causal tourists never see, best known as the bush. There, the students will spend their days with the students of Johnnie John Sr. School, in a village of roughly 125 people who continue to practice subsistence lifestyles. There will be, needless to say, some culture shock.

That’s the point, according to their principal guide Tim Shumway, who spent two years in Crooked Creek, beginning in 2006, and called it “the defining experience in my life.”

“It really is like living geography,” said Shumway who, until recently, taught social studies at MBMS. “The village is really excited, not just the students and the school, but the village.”

Beyond the incredible value of meeting people with a very different culture, Shumway is looking forward to his students’ other experiences, like flying into town on a small bush plane.

“I’m so excited for them,” he said. “It’s going to be great.”

For the past several months, the ten students have been meeting every two weeks for effectively extra class time; learning about the geology, anthropology and ecology of the region. They’ve studied every aspect of the trip in detail, met with their future classmates using video tele-conferencing equipment and even had poetry readings featuring “poetry of the north.”

Fund raising for the trip is still ongoing, with the students benefiting from a Cook’s Night Out at Subway on July 28. They’ll also be at the Blueberry Festival, manning a table. The trip isn’t cheap; each student’s complete fare is expected to cost $1,685 in privately-raised funds.

“They’ve been totally committed,” Shumway said of the students. “Everyone has participated.”

Upon arriving in Crooked Creek (final school board approval is still required, although directors had previously indicated they supported the trip in principle) the students will attend class with their Alaskan counterparts, complete a series of projects and be able to communicate their experiences to their Maine classmates. After class, they will take part in a number of events being organized by the community, from fishing to learning about local crafts.

They’ll know at least one local fairly well; Shumway is moving to the region to teach, and will be meeting the students at the Anchorage Airport on August 25, along with fellow chaperons Wendy Simpson and Greg Veayo. After they leave, he’ll still be in Crooked Creek, teaching kids.

“That’s just my life now. The spell of the Yukon” he said, quoting the poem by Robert Service. “It’s not so much leaving here, as it is going back there.”

His last teaching gig for Maine students, at least for the foreseeable future, will be giving ten MBMS students experiences of their own lifetimes.