Crow Village was proud to host the Crow Village Skirt Party in the summer of 2005. Primary purpose of the party was to entice a sufficient work force to better winterize the "big house" by wrapping the exposed bottom with a skirt barrier. The planning committee utilized the tried and true method of enticement utilized in the past - the lure of a happening social event combined with ample opportunity for salmon and game harvesting along with other rustic adventures. The number of participants were limited, but so were the transportation options, so that all worked out great. The skirting plan was revised after a discovery that some advanced joist sealing techniques would provide a much higher return on investment, and the weatherizing was finished in short order. This left time for the start of a secondary project, initial construction of the Crow Village Shop. Great progress was made on the shop before participants departed.
Salmon fishing was outstanding this go around as the entire state of Alaska was experiencing a banner year for salmon runs. On several occasions, the subsistence fishing had to be curtailed due to insufficient capacity for all the fish. A camping trip was taken up the Aniak River, and the sports fishing results there were great with some nice size kings and chums caught and obviously some even bigger ones that got away. Joe Flynn and Dakota had some spectacular action with kings one night after everybody else had turned in.
There was an unusually high amount of beaver activity noted in the Crow Village Slough, so a contigent was sent out to mitigate that beaver exposure. More then a couple of rounds were required before any results were obtained, but eventually a prize target was retreived via excellent markmanship (excellent in this case referring to quantity not quality) at the hands of Joe and Dakota. The pelt was salvaged, and Joe thoughtfully brought the trophy home to his mom both as a gift and as proof of his accomplishment. Words can not adequately describe Angie's appreciation!
There was one especially eventful night when some ruckus was heard emenating from the sauna. Lisa decided to grab some "protection" and go investigate. Not long after she left, there was a rather peculiar popping sound heard about 7 or 8 times. What Lisa found was a rather large quilled intruder in the sauna. After some quick "action" from Lisa, the intruder lay motionless. The next day, some quills were harvested, and then the plump rodent was sent for an unsupervised swim towards Bethel. Some additional dime size light sources were noted in the sauna.
The signature event of course was the 4th of July party which included the world famous cool tricks contest. Bill and Wanda brought a boatload of folks from Aniak. Bill's mom lit up the Crow Village piano, and Wanda belted out some tunes as the whole village was a rockin'. As hard as it is to believe though, Storm did not repeat as the Cool Tricks champion, although he came in a very close second. The winning act was Raven working along side Bill and Wanda's daughter with a hilarious demonstration of tooth brushing and eating techniques. Storm promised he would come back with a bigger and better act next year to reclaim the title, but he could be facing some stiff competition as a previous contestant winner from Oklahoma who has also vowed to return and reclaim the title. Hope you enjoy the pictures, and its probably a good idea to start planning for the big event next year.