Day 1- Thursday, March 9th
Our first day of the trip began on March 9th with a bus ride down from St. Scholastica to MSP. Our bus driver pulled up, we loaded our luggage, and hit the road to the cities! I knew when our bus driver introduced himself it would be an adventurous drive; “Hi everybody, I’m wild Bill!” I could feel my excitement growing with each mile that passed because it meant we were one step closer to reaching our destination in Alaska! Once we got to the airport, we unloaded all of our stuff from the bus and tried to find our way around to get our bags checked. It already became quite the adventure trying to navigate the bustling airport with a group of 14 people. With taking different elevators, escalators, and a shuttle subway it was bound to happen that somehow we’d get split up. Needless to say we eventually arrived to get our bags checked in and our boarding passes printed. Next stop security. We made it through relatively quickly with no problems (security is usually the most stressful part of traveling for me so this already made for a good start to the day). After we all got through, we wandered about the terminal, browsed some stores and ate lunch before boarding our plane to Seattle.
The flight to Seattle was pretty uneventful but I’ll take that as a good thing. By time we arrived to the Seattle airport, we were all a little wiped out. The 2.5 hour bus ride and 3 hour flight was fun but also a little tiring. We had dinner at Seattle Seahawks 12 Club and boarded our final flight for the day to Anchorage, Alaska.
We didn’t get into Anchorage until pretty late. Once we gathered our luggage and got our rental cars we were off to the house. Even though the drive from the airport to the house was pretty dark I could still make out the mountains behind all the buildings we passed. It was beautiful! We arrived to the house about 25 minutes after leaving the airport and settled in pretty quickly. We all walked around the house in awe of the place we’d be staying for the next week or so, picked our rooms, and went to bed excited for the days to come!
Day 2- Friday, March 10th
Our first full day in Alaska began bright and early as we got ready to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center for our cultural awareness workshop. It was a beautiful building that had an interesting map of Alaska placed in the center of the rotunda area. Different areas of the state were shaded different colors to represent the different cultures of the Alaskan people. There are 11 distinct cultures that speak more than 20 different languages. The specific region I would be completing my clinical hours is in the Aleut region. We watched a video Stories Given, Stories Shared, shortly after arriving to give us some background knowledge of the different heritages represented on the map. I hadn’t really thought about how different each region was until the video described each region’s values and way of life based on their relationship with nature.
After the videos were done, we walked to a separate building where we would be most of the day for our workshop. A women, Colleen “Yaari” Walker, led our discussions and learning for the rest of the day here. We described what our culture values are and what we value personally as well. She then told us stories about her culture as she was growing up and how different it is compared to the culture she’s living in today. The main thing I took away from this is how different cultures can view certain things. An example she used was that a group of students were asked to watch a Caucasian individual and an Alaskan Native person answer the question of whether or not they love their job. They both responded and said, “I love my job!” The Caucasian individual used fluctuations and said it loudly while the Alaska Native individual used a monotone voice and had a straight face. When Caucasian students were asked who sounded more sincere and real, they said the Caucasian person because they fluctuated their voice and sounded happier about their job. When the Alaska Native children were asked who sounded more sincere and real they said the Alaska Native individual because they took the question seriously and the Caucasian person sounded sarcastic- like they actually didn’t love their job. It’s amazing how differently various cultures can interpret the same thing and it can mean something totally different to people.
We were taught the different ways of communication that cultures use and how in our culture it may be rude or disrespectful but in their culture it is seen as giving the upmost respect to someone. Something as simple as eye contact holds a lot of meaning. In my culture it’s polite to look someone in the eye when talking to them. In another culture, it can be seen as rude to look someone directly in the eye (like a nurse, doctor, etc.) because they are highly respected individuals.
After our workshop was complete, we were able to walk around the site and tour the different village sites that each culture typically lives in. That too was very interesting to be able to see how vastly different each one was from another. Some were round and others were taller but they were made that way on purpose. The homes were built to resemble their values and beliefs for that particular culture.
Towards the end of the day we said our goodbyes to Yaari and thanked her for the knowledge she gave us to use not only in our clinicals for the trip but, also in our future careers as RNs. It was a very eye opening experience because I haven’t dealt with such a variety of cultures back home in Minnesota.
After the workshop we stopped to get groceries on our way back to the house. This was another adventure in itself because of how large our group was but it made for a fun time! Once we arrived back home Sami, Kaylee, and I walked around the neighborhood in which we were staying. This was the first time I was able to fully take in the beauty of the mountains and watch the sunset behind them. It was absolutely beautiful! When we got back, we ate dinner and prepared ourselves for the coming adventure the next day would bring!
Day 3- Saturday, March 11th
The first excursion day we had was at Alyeska Ski resort located in Girdwood, AK. It was about a 45 minute drive from where we were staying in Anchorage so it wasn’t a long trip and it made for another spectacular sight-seeing experience. On the way there we stopped and took pictures in the valley of the Chugach Mountains near the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet (it’s a waterway on the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska). Most of the water was frozen so it almost looked like solid ground at the bottom of the mountains. Another beautiful view!
Now I’m not a skier (the last time I skied was on a middle school field trip and that was the one and only time I’ve ever done it- needless to say it wasn’t the best experience of my life). For that reason I told myself I was going to ski at Alyeska. As soon as we pulled up to the resort I saw what they described as their “bunny hill” and thought there was no way I’d make it down that without breaking something. I immediately changed my mind and thought it would be best to snowshoe (It seemed easier to walk on flat ground compared to flying down a hill more than 30 mph). I snowshoed with Jadyn, Robbi, and Melissa but Jadyn and I kept a steady, relatively fast pace and were able to finish one of the trails. It was gorgeous looking around because we were at the bottom of mountains surrounded by trees and trails. I’m glad I was able to that because I felt I was able to appreciate Alaska’s scenery so much more!
The snowshoers and cross country skiers met up at a cute café to have lunch and then we took the tram up with the downhill skiers to a restaurant at the top of the hill and try a drink called “The Fizz.” Everyone said that if you go to Alyeska you have to try the drink (I tried it mainly because you get a sticker if you ordered one). I wasn’t a huge fan of it but at least I got a sticker out of it so I thought it was worth it.
After we left the restaurant the skiers went down a few more times and the rest of us went for a hike around the resort. It was a fun but also tiring day! On the way back we stopped along side the mountains to fill up our water bottles with glacier water. I’ve never seen anything like this before. There’s this spout that water literally flows out of the mountains and people were lined up to get water there. Apparently you’re supposed to boil the water before you drink it because the water can be contaminated and cause “Beaver Fever” which of course we didn’t know until after we drank the water. We were all fine but that became the joke of the trip that if someone wasn’t feeling well they probably had Beaver Fever.
All in all it was a fun day and I got to experience things I hadn’t done before!
Our first day of the trip began on March 9th with a bus ride down from St. Scholastica to MSP. Our bus driver pulled up, we loaded our luggage, and hit the road to the cities! I knew when our bus driver introduced himself it would be an adventurous drive; “Hi everybody, I’m wild Bill!” I could feel my excitement growing with each mile that passed because it meant we were one step closer to reaching our destination in Alaska! Once we got to the airport, we unloaded all of our stuff from the bus and tried to find our way around to get our bags checked. It already became quite the adventure trying to navigate the bustling airport with a group of 14 people. With taking different elevators, escalators, and a shuttle subway it was bound to happen that somehow we’d get split up. Needless to say we eventually arrived to get our bags checked in and our boarding passes printed. Next stop security. We made it through relatively quickly with no problems (security is usually the most stressful part of traveling for me so this already made for a good start to the day). After we all got through, we wandered about the terminal, browsed some stores and ate lunch before boarding our plane to Seattle.
The flight to Seattle was pretty uneventful but I’ll take that as a good thing. By time we arrived to the Seattle airport, we were all a little wiped out. The 2.5 hour bus ride and 3 hour flight was fun but also a little tiring. We had dinner at Seattle Seahawks 12 Club and boarded our final flight for the day to Anchorage, Alaska.
We didn’t get into Anchorage until pretty late. Once we gathered our luggage and got our rental cars we were off to the house. Even though the drive from the airport to the house was pretty dark I could still make out the mountains behind all the buildings we passed. It was beautiful! We arrived to the house about 25 minutes after leaving the airport and settled in pretty quickly. We all walked around the house in awe of the place we’d be staying for the next week or so, picked our rooms, and went to bed excited for the days to come!
Day 2- Friday, March 10th
Our first full day in Alaska began bright and early as we got ready to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center for our cultural awareness workshop. It was a beautiful building that had an interesting map of Alaska placed in the center of the rotunda area. Different areas of the state were shaded different colors to represent the different cultures of the Alaskan people. There are 11 distinct cultures that speak more than 20 different languages. The specific region I would be completing my clinical hours is in the Aleut region. We watched a video Stories Given, Stories Shared, shortly after arriving to give us some background knowledge of the different heritages represented on the map. I hadn’t really thought about how different each region was until the video described each region’s values and way of life based on their relationship with nature.
After the videos were done, we walked to a separate building where we would be most of the day for our workshop. A women, Colleen “Yaari” Walker, led our discussions and learning for the rest of the day here. We described what our culture values are and what we value personally as well. She then told us stories about her culture as she was growing up and how different it is compared to the culture she’s living in today. The main thing I took away from this is how different cultures can view certain things. An example she used was that a group of students were asked to watch a Caucasian individual and an Alaskan Native person answer the question of whether or not they love their job. They both responded and said, “I love my job!” The Caucasian individual used fluctuations and said it loudly while the Alaska Native individual used a monotone voice and had a straight face. When Caucasian students were asked who sounded more sincere and real, they said the Caucasian person because they fluctuated their voice and sounded happier about their job. When the Alaska Native children were asked who sounded more sincere and real they said the Alaska Native individual because they took the question seriously and the Caucasian person sounded sarcastic- like they actually didn’t love their job. It’s amazing how differently various cultures can interpret the same thing and it can mean something totally different to people.
We were taught the different ways of communication that cultures use and how in our culture it may be rude or disrespectful but in their culture it is seen as giving the upmost respect to someone. Something as simple as eye contact holds a lot of meaning. In my culture it’s polite to look someone in the eye when talking to them. In another culture, it can be seen as rude to look someone directly in the eye (like a nurse, doctor, etc.) because they are highly respected individuals.
After our workshop was complete, we were able to walk around the site and tour the different village sites that each culture typically lives in. That too was very interesting to be able to see how vastly different each one was from another. Some were round and others were taller but they were made that way on purpose. The homes were built to resemble their values and beliefs for that particular culture.
Towards the end of the day we said our goodbyes to Yaari and thanked her for the knowledge she gave us to use not only in our clinicals for the trip but, also in our future careers as RNs. It was a very eye opening experience because I haven’t dealt with such a variety of cultures back home in Minnesota.
After the workshop we stopped to get groceries on our way back to the house. This was another adventure in itself because of how large our group was but it made for a fun time! Once we arrived back home Sami, Kaylee, and I walked around the neighborhood in which we were staying. This was the first time I was able to fully take in the beauty of the mountains and watch the sunset behind them. It was absolutely beautiful! When we got back, we ate dinner and prepared ourselves for the coming adventure the next day would bring!
Day 3- Saturday, March 11th
The first excursion day we had was at Alyeska Ski resort located in Girdwood, AK. It was about a 45 minute drive from where we were staying in Anchorage so it wasn’t a long trip and it made for another spectacular sight-seeing experience. On the way there we stopped and took pictures in the valley of the Chugach Mountains near the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet (it’s a waterway on the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska). Most of the water was frozen so it almost looked like solid ground at the bottom of the mountains. Another beautiful view!
Now I’m not a skier (the last time I skied was on a middle school field trip and that was the one and only time I’ve ever done it- needless to say it wasn’t the best experience of my life). For that reason I told myself I was going to ski at Alyeska. As soon as we pulled up to the resort I saw what they described as their “bunny hill” and thought there was no way I’d make it down that without breaking something. I immediately changed my mind and thought it would be best to snowshoe (It seemed easier to walk on flat ground compared to flying down a hill more than 30 mph). I snowshoed with Jadyn, Robbi, and Melissa but Jadyn and I kept a steady, relatively fast pace and were able to finish one of the trails. It was gorgeous looking around because we were at the bottom of mountains surrounded by trees and trails. I’m glad I was able to that because I felt I was able to appreciate Alaska’s scenery so much more!
The snowshoers and cross country skiers met up at a cute café to have lunch and then we took the tram up with the downhill skiers to a restaurant at the top of the hill and try a drink called “The Fizz.” Everyone said that if you go to Alyeska you have to try the drink (I tried it mainly because you get a sticker if you ordered one). I wasn’t a huge fan of it but at least I got a sticker out of it so I thought it was worth it.
After we left the restaurant the skiers went down a few more times and the rest of us went for a hike around the resort. It was a fun but also tiring day! On the way back we stopped along side the mountains to fill up our water bottles with glacier water. I’ve never seen anything like this before. There’s this spout that water literally flows out of the mountains and people were lined up to get water there. Apparently you’re supposed to boil the water before you drink it because the water can be contaminated and cause “Beaver Fever” which of course we didn’t know until after we drank the water. We were all fine but that became the joke of the trip that if someone wasn’t feeling well they probably had Beaver Fever.
All in all it was a fun day and I got to experience things I hadn’t done before!