On Sunday, four children from Nunam Iqua (Alaska) said they were going on snowmachine to the dump just outside town. They ended up 18 miles south of the village, on the Black River, where they spent over 24 hours outside (in early February) without shelter....Simon saw...all four children bundled together. They had dug a hole in the snow, about a foot deep, 3 feet in diameter.
“The infant was in there,” Simon said. “And the boy laid over the infant, and on his left side, a little older boy covering the draft. And the 7-year-old was laying right above them like he was blocking the wind.”
“They were protecting the baby,”
“I won’t get in exact detail, out of respect for the boys, cause from what I hear, they’re still in some critical condition. I’ll just say it didn’t look good,” Sundown said.
When we lived in Alaska, that was one thing that was different - at any point, you could step off the tour bus and into the food chain. I think that Alaska leads the nation in "death by misadventure."
ReplyDeleteIt led to a consistent feeling of . . . seriousness. The corollary is that if you appeared to be in need, every (and I mean every) car would stop to help you.
As I've said elsewhere, we can question why the kids were out there in the first place. But you can't in any way question their actions once things got bad. Good kids-damn good kids.
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