Life in Nunam Iqua – Water.
5 02 2009
A recent post by Ann Strongheart in the rural village of Nunam Iqua generated quite a bit of interest on this site, and the story was linked by Daily Kos and many other blogs. As is the case when we are introduced to a new culture, or a completely different way of life, we find that one question leads to another. Ann got so many questions about water, she agreed to do this follow-up post, to give those who live outside rural Alaska a glimpse into life there.
Once again, I was struck by the difference between my fellow Alaskan and me. I used running water today to take a shower this morning, brush my teeth, fill the coffee maker, wipe the counter, and start my dishwasher. Tonight, I’ll go home and do some laundry, wash the pots in the sink, wash my hands, and water the dog. And, like most of us, I’ll use a flush toilet today. And, like any who read Ann’s second chapter about life in the village, I’ll be thinking about all of those activities differently.
For more issues about water you may not have thought about, click HERE. But for now, enjoy another little peek into the life of a rural Alaskan, living on the Yukon Delta.
**************************************************************************
Life without running water in Nunam Iqua, Alaska
Wow there was so much interest in the “Shopping Day in Nunam Iqua” story and then there were so many questions that I was urged to write up another. So here it is!
As I mentioned in my “Shopping Day” story we do not have running water here in Nunam Iqua. I made reference to the fact that just to make coffee we used water that we had hauled from the watering point from across the village.
“Where does that water come from?” you ask. The Yukon River, of course. We have a water plant that, via a pipe in the Yukon, pumps water in, filters it, chlorinates it, and fills up the large water storage tank. From there it is piped to the watering point, which is basically a hose sticking out of a box attached to a metering machine that dispenses 10 gallons of water for every $1 token you put in. Additionally, the water is also piped to the Village Clinic, Community Hall, school, teacher housing and laundromat.
Now, keep in mind that there are times when we don’t have water. In the spring and fall when it floods, there is a lot of salt water coming in, and they can’t filter the salt out so we are without water until the flood subsides or the tides go out. But most of the time they are able to keep the holding tank full.
So we pack that water from the watering point via snow machine to our house. We keep it in a 30-gallon Rubbermaid plastic trash can that we use only for water storage. We use a gallon pitcher to get it out. We drink it, and use it for normal everyday things.
Dishes.
OK, so it’s time to do dishes. Can’t just turn on a faucet and have hot water, now can we? Nope, time to get out pots and start heating the water. My house is very small and we don’t have a cooking stove/oven, so I put a couple of pans on my hotplate, fill them up totaling nearly two gallons of water, and wait for them to heat up. While they are heating up I get out my dish pans, two 18-quart plastic dish pans, and sort my dishes and get them ready for washing. I do keep at least one pan on the wood stove but it doesn’t get up to boiling so I don’t generally use it for dishes.
So, 20-30 minutes later my water is boiling and I pour it into my dish pans, and start doing dishes. But I make certain to refill the pots and heat more water so that I can change out the water as it becomes dirty and refill it with fresh soapy water. Most people put a little bit of bleach in their dish water to help fight germs and sanitize their dishes.
Sometimes, when I am done washing the dishes I will recycle my rinse water by adding more boiling water to it and then using it to mop the floor. Now, what happens to the dishwater? I can’t just pour it down the drain. No, I have a five gallon bucket under the counter that I pour it into along with other liquids such as water leftover from cooking, or liquid from canned foods etc. Once that “slop bucket” gets kind of full we take it outside and dump it.
So all the water we use around the house for cooking and cleaning comes from our water bucket. OK, what about other uses for water? Oh yeah, no running water means NO FLUSH Toilets! We have a “honey bucket” in our bathroom. So what’s a honey bucket? A honey bucket is a five gallon bucket lined with a 13-gallon trash bag with a toilet seat on top. Yeah, I know what you are thinking…doesn’t it smell? Yes it does. We personally use “Campa Chem” a biodegradable deodorizer. We put a capful into the fresh honey bucket along with the water from the wash basin in the bathroom. Others use “Pinesol” to help keep the smell at bay. So we use our honey bucket, for yes #1 and #2. We have another 18-quart dishpan in the bathroom that serves as our bathroom sink where we wash our hands. We fill it part way with water and then wash our hands in there, changing the water once a day or when it becomes dirty.
Once the honey bucket is full, we tie it off and take it by snow machine to the nearest bin. Once these bins start to fill up, the City of Nunam Iqua waste haul workers, haul it off to the man-made waste lagoon, dump and bring it back. There are maybe 20 or more bins placed on pallets throughout the village.
After we empty the honey bucket we leave it outside to air out, and use the one from before that has been airing out. We alternate them, which also helps cut down on the smell.
Washing/Showering/Bathing
I would say that most of the people in Nunam Iqua use Maqiiviks (steam baths). Those that don’t, instead go to the laundromat and pay $4.00 for adults and young adults or $2.50 for children to take a shower there. The laundromat is open six days a week, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on week days, and 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. So when you want to take a shower, you have to pack up a bag with all your showering stuff and towels, and clean clothes and head off to the laundromat. There are 3 showers and a bathtub on the women’s side, and 3 showers on the men’s side. Good luck if you want to shower on a Sunday. Lots of kids are in there washing up for school the next day.
What about those that don’t take showers, who instead Maqii (MUHH key), aka take a steam bath. Many families have their own Maqiiviks. These are little steam houses made from plywood. Usually about 8’ wide by 16’ long with very low ceilings. There are two rooms inside one room contains a wood burning stove covered with stones where they start a very very hot fire, with wood they have collected from the river. They splash the stones with water to create steam. They steam and sweat, and then go into the other room to cool off, and go back and forth. When the stove starts to cool down, they wash using warm water that was heating beside the stove. When people Maqii they spend hours in there. When my husband Maqii’s he usually is there for about 3 hours. Oh, and the men and women Maqii separately. I have never taken a Maqii but from what I hear it’s a good place to wind down and sit around and talk while they are steaming. Some couples do take Maqiis together. Children do join the men or women and Maqii with their parent.
Smaller children, toddlers and infants, either bathe at the laundromat or at home. My daughter bathes at home. We have a big plastic storage tub that we bathe her in. Which of course means heating water on the woodstove or our hotplate and making her a bath.
During the spring, summer, and fall months many families use rain water in their homes. Before our water/sewer project started remodeling/plumbing homes getting ready for running water, many homes had a rain water collection system. It would collect rain water from the gutters and direct it right into a water storage tank in the home. Other’s have various size plastic trash cans placed under their gutters to collect the rain water. Then of course, they transfer water from that container to another one and bring it into the house.
People get excited when it rains hard here, because then they get free water. Most cover the outdoor rain containers with fabric to act as a filter. Also most families further filter the rain water before they drink it using Brita water filters.
I can sympathize with Dennis Zaki when he got sick after drinking water in Emmonak. When I first moved to Nunam Iqua I made the mistake of drinking unfiltered rain water. All I will say is that I spent 16 hours in the bathroom and felt like I had lost 20lbs that day.
Also some families still get water right from the river. Most use it for splashing the rocks in the Maqiis and for washing.
Laundry
Like I mentioned above, we do have a laundromat here. There are 3 large washers and 4 small washers, and 3 large dryers and 3 small dryers. Also there is an extractor that you can put your clothes in after washing them and it spins them more vigorously than the washers, and cuts drying time. The 3 large washers are about the size of a standard house washer. It costs $4.00 to do one load in a large washer and $3.00 for the smaller ones. The extractor takes one dollar per load, and the dryers are one dollar for 20 minutes of drying. I mentioned the hours above because in a village of 200+ people doing laundry can turn into a waiting game. I personally try to do laundry on the weekends, and I try to be there a little before they open so that I am first in line. Laundry day is a very long day, especially if you have to wait your turn to use the washers, and then we all know it takes longer to dry clothes than it does to wash them, so it seems like it’s an even longer line waiting for dryers. But like in the Maqiiviks, it’s a good time to sit around and talk and visit with everyone.
Our water/sewer project
The actual construction work started in 2006 when they put the causeway (gravel road) across the lake that divides the village to reach the new school site. Last year, they actually started putting in the above ground utilidor that holds the pipes. Our water/sewer project will work on a vacuum system. The estimated completion date is 2010.
I personally am looking forward to it. The thought of flush toilets, running water, and my own washer/dryer seems like a dream. Now mind you, I have had these in the past, and maybe that’s why I miss them. But mostly, I miss being able to throw a load of laundry in, and doing other chores around the house. Now I have to sit and spend many hours at the laundromat. I still occasionally forget sometimes and reach for the faucet that isn’t there, or try to flush the honey bucket, which makes me laugh! It’s really bad when we travel to Bethel or Anchorage for a while and then come back and forget. LOL.
Well I think that about covers living without running water in Nunam Iqua. I can’t think of anything else to add. Hope this has answered the many questions I received about living without running water.
Ann Strongheart
***********************
AKM’s Note – I have only one thing to add to Ann’s account. When she says that the Maquii is “very hot”, I feel this needs some translation. “Very hot” in this context means, to the rest of us, throat-searing, lung-scorching, alveoli-bursting heat. Heat that you feel you may not survive. Heat that makes you think if it wasn’t for the steam, your skin would burst into flame. Heat that makes you believe people who do this all the time have some special superpower. Core of the Earth heat. Inner circle of Hell heat. Heat that requires an editor’s note. Just had to throw that out there.
Photo from loweryukon.org
February 5th, 2009 at 9:51 PM
Evening,
For more information on how you can help please visit…
http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.com/how-to-help/
This website is devoted strictly to providing help to Rural AK.
Ann Strongheart
Nunam Iqua Food Drive
c/o Ann Strongheart
P.O. Box 7
Nunam Iqua, AK 99666
nunamiquayouth@yahoo.com
February 5th, 2009 at 9:53 PM
@ Soldotna Democrat
What a wonderful gift! And if you don’t hear from Ann through this post, here is her email address if you don’t have that, either:
nunamiquayouth at yahoo.com
She mentioned a few posts ago that she had a large family who needed adopting – with kids and elders I believe. Bless you with snowflakes for kisses!
February 5th, 2009 at 9:53 PM
Ann – do ever sleep? LOL!
February 5th, 2009 at 10:00 PM
Dear Ann,
Thank you for sharing your experiences in the bush. We asked the questions and you provided the answers. We also opened our hearts and wallets to the villages of the Yukon Delta, but that’s in response to real suffering and need, not just information, given freely, even generously. I admire your strength and resilience and would love to hear more about your life and its challenges and rewards. Quyana!
February 5th, 2009 at 11:41 PM
Soldotna Demo….
Quyana so much for all of your help!!
Martha…..
Yes I do sleep, I got to bed around midnight or well usually before 2 a.m. and usually get up sometime between 5:30am – 8 a.m.
Pyschicmom…
Thank you for your comments. I am currently working on a lil bio about me since there have been so many questions. But I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY that this isn’t about me, it’s about helping all of us struggling on the YK Delta.
Ann S.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:05 AM
When we moved to Germany two years ago, we were going to get a car when I got a job. Well, I didn’t get a job so we had to buy a cart on wheels to make our trips to buy groceries easier. I never knew how heavy groceries were. Living without a car in Germany is easy with their transportation network. I thought we were roughing it especially since we live in an apartment (which I hated after owning my own home).
When I read Ann’s stories, I am humbled and ashamed to know, I’m living in the lap of luxury today. I am on my second load of laundry today, I have an oven to cook in that I don’t keep clean enough, a dishwasher, satellite tv on demand, high speed internet and I have heat, a toilet and a bath tub that is filled with hot water on demand. I don’t know whether to thank you or hate you for opening my eyes, Ann. But I do know this, I love you.
Thanks, Muppet2
February 6th, 2009 at 1:33 AM
Well, who would have thought that Sarah Palin would lead us to expanding our knowledge…
Today has been a stressful day for my family and I as we finally face facts that the global economic downturn, or whatever other thing you want to call it is biting hard, and we must seek unemployment benefits.
However reading this blog I realise that we are fortunate in what we do have and the comparatively easy circumstances we live in in our part of Australia.
Good luck to all who are trying to make a go of it in such tough situations as Ann Strongheart outlines.
I reckon many of us ordinary folk around the western world are going to face difficult times and we will learn from those who already face challenges such as Ann and her community, and other people such as refugees who have come to our countries.
We live in interesting times………
February 6th, 2009 at 2:25 AM
Ann the Strongheart, Thank You for sharing your stories. You keep the privacy of the people in your village, yet give us a glimpse of how life there is. Personally, I wouldn’t last a week.
I think that this crisis will have some positive effect. People that have donated or mailed boxes aren’t simply going to walk away after this hard winter is done. People all over the world will continue to WATCH to see that their kind of ‘adopted’ friends get treated. That puts the pressure to get things done for all the Villagers.
Thank YOU!
February 6th, 2009 at 2:51 AM
About your story about CC learning to potty training, oh my that does bring back a memory.
My younger Sis had come up for a visit, wanted to go fishing with an Uncle that had a boat. Could I mind her 3 yr old overnight. Well SURE, Aunt Kath could manage a 3 yr old. Things seemed to go well. Then darling Niece in my bedroom starts calling “I stink, I stink”.
Ran in and to my horror. On my brand new 2day old oval wool braided rug – placed on the oak floors I had lovingly cleaned before. There laid a ‘pile’ on my brand new rug, while she fumbled to pull her panties up.
How funny, that little niece is now a mother of three who constantly worries about her clean WHITE carpets. I also remember how my Oldest Sis eventually confessed that she had finally had to resort to M&Ms in doing the potty training. I just told her that I “could appreciate”. I know Ann, you said you keep CC’s sugar intake down, though. Maybe raisins would do the trick. Raisins are a LOT cheaper than huggies. lol
February 6th, 2009 at 7:05 AM
KATH,
Thanks for making me laugh this morning. With my older daughter I did the m&m thing and the first time she peed in her potty I literally had a POOPY PARTY, I made a huge deal and her and I celebrated the one LITTLE drop of pee she got in the potty. With my son I can remember throwing cheerios in the toilet to help teach him how to aim LOL
Ann S.
February 6th, 2009 at 7:51 AM
I’m reminded of 26 years ago when we had our first child. Disposable diapers were available then but we couldn’t afford them and didn’t even want to afford them, doing the cotton diaper thing seemed the mother earth natural thing to do, lol.
Anyway, we had a washing machine but no dryer so I’d do a load of dipes and hang them out on the line, summer and winter. Funny thing in the winter, they’d freeze (dry) like a stiff board and were so soft when they thawed, lol. I’d have a long line full of white dipes, especially when I started double diping as he got older. Actually we still like hanging laundry outside, saves on electricity and smells so good.
In many houses we’d string a line in the basement to dry laundry to avoid using the dryer. It is one of the main energy hogs in a home. So those who’d like to cut down their electric bills might consider doing this. Just takes a bit more time, I sometimes throw certain things like towels or shirts in the dryer for 5 mins to soften and unwrinkle them. But if it’s windy outside that softens nicely. At this house we have 2 retractable lines out on our deck. We only had a family of 4 and now just me and the spouse, I’m just dang frugal by nature.
Thank you sun, wind and the smell of fresh air.
It’s absolutely stupid that homeowners associations ban clotheslines or hanging laundry outside just for “tidiness”.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Longtime Bush photographer James Barker published an amazing book on village life. If you go to his website – http://www.jamesbarkerphotography.com/ and click on Yup’ik Eskimo, you will see the second picture down on the left of two Elders in a Maqi’viik (steambath) using a cunning breathing apparatus in that magnificent heat.
That type of Native ingenuity just humbles me down to the core. We had such amazing inventions, from sunglasses, to animal oil lamps, to medicines and tools that did allow us to survive in such a brutal climate. Yes, life was hard, children, Elders and young adults often died from preventable deaths (sometimes by starvation) but it was rich in culture, nature and spirituality.
I despair over non-Natives that deride us about why we don’t live like we used to, why we ask for government handouts, why we drink, why we abuse. . .read http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=1065017 and from Wednesday’s ADN printing – http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/679340.html and you can get maybe an inkling of why we started out as a dysfunctional society once we were rounded up for sedentary life.
Outsiders promised recreational free time and commodities, medical care and education – what we got in return was wholesale emasculation, laziness, processed foods, medical epidemics and serial molestation and abuse.
When you are completely torn down, and expected to build yourself up without the benefit of a guidebook – you have a decimated culture that breeds an insecure and confused society. Don’t get me wrong, we have hundreds of success stories and perfectly functional and good families out here that make their way, but as a whole, our problems easily gets more attention.
I am one of those modern day Natives that believes the time to blame is past us. We have to own up to our problems and take them head on and recapture the salient traits that defined us as a proud and enduring people.
But when we are hamstrung with a chronological history of neglect and lack of infrastructure, we have a right to complain to those that govern us. We did not come into Americanhood with our own resourcefulness, it was thrust upon us after our self-sustaining ways were dismantled. What kind of citizenry do you expect when that happens? We aren’t talking hundreds of years ago, we are talking about my parents and my grandparents generation.
I may traverse the non-native world with ease, but I will not pretend that it should be so easy for my people. It is with my skills and sense of responsibility that people like me owe our villages a level of activism to level the playing field. Once we have adequate funding for social services and energy sourcing, then taxpayers have a soapbox to stand on in saying you are not responsible for our conditions.
There are many of you out there that care. You have shown it through something as simple as saying you are fascinated by village life and not judging us, or by asking yourself and others to donate food or cash, or by defending our way of life (rather than lifestyle.)
Thank you for your attention, and with the Palin affect, we have people paying attention to Alaska in ways we rarely see. Unfortunately, a lot of it is nasty and negative (even with the heartfelt and innocent letter first published by Nick Tucker) but it is my hope that it is for the betterment of infrastructure out in the Bush, to take us out of Third World conditions and make us a part of the American dream.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Ann you article was great and most of the post were very interesting except 1 I had a brother that lived in the Eagle River area that passed away about 8 years ago.He had a trailer on some land he was buying ,I believe on land contract as when he passed it went back to the owner.He had no running water or bathroom facilities either but I guess he made do.I have been up their twice also had a sister and brother-in-law that lived up in the Eagle River area for over 30 year,about10 spent hauling water and living off the land as they were out in the country by themselves. When she told me how they lived the last time I was up there before the two passed I could not believe it.I told her straight out I could not have withstood it.We grew up with an outhouse and no running water.So that was nothing new but I swore when My parents were able to afford to drill a well and but in a bathroom,I was about 23,that I would never live like that again.You article shows that anyone cna do what they have to .God Bless and keep up the article on the villages
February 6th, 2009 at 8:20 PM
@ I can see the Village from my House
Beautifully written, thank you for sharing! I’m going to make sure Ann S gets your post since Alaska Newspapers is interested in village perspectives. Hope that’s OK with you!
February 7th, 2009 at 8:47 AM
When I used to live in the Bush, we would either string a bunch of hoses together and pipe water in from the school, or we’d have to haul our own water from a nearby spring. Since it was frozen over most of the year, we’d have to break a hole in the ice and dunk our water jugs into the cold water to fill them up.
My last year there, we finally got “running” water, where there was a large water tank in the bathroom that we’d fill up with the hoses. We did have a flush toilet that last year, but still had to empty our kitchen sink bucket outside because there was no place for the used water to go. It was quite an experience and really made me appreciate the little things, like pipes and toilets.
February 7th, 2009 at 1:45 PM
Piped water in a semi-arid region (most of rural Alaska and the Unorganized Borough) is not a good idea, from what I have seen. It requires an enormous amount of generated electricity. A current project in one Village is costing about 1/2 million dollars per man, woman, and infant just to build. It will be expensive to operate and maintain.
The great-grandgovernor (before Palin, before Murkowski) wanted to put the” honey bucket in the museum”. However, we live in a semi-arid country (as little precipitation as New Mexico high desert. The costs are mind-blowing, the systems only work for about 15 years; the systems are expensive to maintain (electricity for heat, etc.; and we have nearly 200 Villages which must be relocated, in all or part, sometime in the next 15 years due to on-going environmental change. There is no money to replace aging systems.
Focussing on wasting water for flushing toilets, rather than having water clean enough for the specific uses needed, is bassackward, so to speak. Point of use treatment, E-loo (enviro-loo, a dry sanitation system), other aspects of permaculture need to be investigated. For example, Denali Commission would rather spend hundreds of thousands on major projects than $10,000 in testing the use of dry systems (no composting, no water, no electricity). Rural water systems (open cess pools, basically, a.k.a. sewage lagoons) are still the norm for AI/AN communities (here and in NM, for example) even though outmoded 40 years ago for suburbia. Toilets and trash in the Last Frontier (Alaska) There are so much better solutions possible.
Rainwater is said to taste better than chlorinated water by some elders. However, water collected from galvanized steel roofs; water collected from roofs with dust blown from car exhaust, fires smoke, and dried sewage; water collected from the edge of the continent with soot from China (we never could get the state, feds, or the tribal associations to investigate) should be filtered.
Steams–
the dry steam or fire bath is the one requiring special filters to keep from searing lungs. John Active did a short video explaining the origin of the steambath (Russian) and the fire bath (Yup’ik)–NIH Hot Weather Advice for Older People. Here’s another one– http://www.bankstreet.edu/gems/kwethlukbnkst0506/steambath2.mov
Teachers blogging from the tundra–
Tundra Teachers