 Marshall
Cultural Atlas
This collection of student work is from
Frank Keim's classes. He has wanted to share these works for others
to use as an example of Culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These
documents have been OCR-scanned. These are available
for educational use only.
Discovering a New
World
The date was August 16, 1869 when we first went
under... under the sea that is. Carmen, Lois, Cheryl, Leona, and I
invented a new device that could take us under water. We could live
and breathe in it too. On the main floor was the control room where
there were five cushioned seats, for determined navigators who need
to be comfortable while exploring their new surroundings. There was a
big shatter-resistant window on the front wall to look out and
observe the underwater world. The wall to its right was covered in
buttons, controls, and other fancy gadgets, although half of them
were there just for decoration. The wall to its left was covered with
Leona's drawings, Cheryl's painting's, Lois's posters, Carmen's
homemade crafts, and my photography. The wall behind us was
completely empty except for a basketball-sized peeking window in the
center. We were still contemplating what we were going to put up
there. In the middle of the control room there was a ladder that both
led to the top exit and down to our living quarters and the engine
room. We considered this contraption like an animal and called it the
Wild Thang. It took us one year to put it together, and when we
finished it we decided to use it to run away from our mean, abusive
boyfriends.
We first left notes to our honeys saying that they
would never see us again, then we set out on our voyage beneath the
waves. Captain Carmen Pitka maneuvered us away from the land we once
called home and into our new unknown environment. In our vessel I
could feel both fear and happiness in the air as we left sight of
land. The silence was horrendous as we descended into the murky
waters of the present day Pacific Ocean. The room we were in darkened
as we went deeper and deeper into the sea. Suddenly the room was
illuminated with candle light and Lois emerged from the
shadows.
"Where in tarnation did we install the light
switch?" she asked with a muddled face of forgetfulness.
"Way over yonder," I answered pointing at the west
wall of the Wild Thang.
"Man, did we put an autopilot thing in this
machine?" Leona asked, "We need to start exploring."
"Lee," I answered, "auto pilot hasn't been
invented yet, this is the 1800's, remember?"
"I'll shut off the engines and let us linger down
here for a while," Captain Carmen said with an eager and ready to
explore voice.
When all the engines were shut off we sat in
stillness waiting for the monstrous sea animals to approach the Wild
Thang in curiosity. The silence was almost deafening as we sat and
stared out into the blackness of the ocean. Suddenly Cheryl started
screaming and the rest of us jumped nearly ten feet in the
air.
"AAAHHGG," she gasped, "what is that thing with
the big head and long stringy legs?" She was hiding behind her chair,
using it for a shield from the sea creature that was coming closer
and closer to the vessel.
"It looks like my boyfriend Oxford," Leona said
with both disgust and admiration in her voice. We all stared at the
thing for a few minutes and realized that it really did look like
Leona's boyfriend.
"Quick, Leona, get out your drawing equipment and
make a sketch of it! Since it reminds everybody of your boyfriend,
we'll call it an Oxypus," Captain Carmen said as she scrambled around
the room looking for a writing utensil. We were all excited and
amazed as many other sea creatures came around, wondering what this
big metal animal was. The rest of the day we spent naming and drawing
the many wondrous animals of the sea that visited us. We had great
fun and slept like logs that night. Many of our exploration days were
spent this way, drawing and naming animals, but others were spent
relaxing and talking about sea life. Some days we would go diving
with equipment we'd invented and collected edible foods and other
treasures of the water. We knew that this was the life we were
supposed to live, having fun and not caring about what was going on
in the world above us. As far as we knew there was no possible
dangers that lingered in the waters.
One morning after a busy night packed with things
to do, I woke up to Lois's voice. "Where the haystacks are we?" she
asked still half asleep. Then she lay back down on her bed and was
off in dreamland again. I sat up and looked out the viewing window in
our living quarters. Captain Carmen and I decided that we should
surface and see if we could recognize where we were. All of us then
went up and stood outside.
"Hey, we're getting close to those hot islands!" Leona
said, noticing that the weather was unusually warmer than
Alaska's weather this early in the morning.
"I think those hot islands will be called Hawaii
in the future," Captain Carmen said with that distant
glance-into-the-future look in her eyes.
"You're such a psycho psychic," Lois said
jokingly. "You should start your own eight hundred
number."
"Well if you're so good at looking into the future
can you tell what that big long leg is doing wrapping around our
submarine?" Cheryl asked staring at the front of the Wild Thang with
eyes as big as golf balls.
"Holy shinbones! That's not a leg, it's a tentacle
of a giant squid!" I hollered as I dashed for the entrance. "Get
below before it grabs one of you, quick!" Everyone practically broke
the speed of light getting into the sub, but before we could shut the
door a thirty foot tentacle was reaching into the control room.
Visions of our journey started flashing before my eyes. I tried to
block out the thought that this was the end of our little voyage, but
it kept rushing back to me like a bitter wind crashing against my
head and sending a shiver down my spine. Then suddenly I felt it. The
long, slimy tentacle was wrapping around my legs and squeezing out
every last drop of blood in them. I fell to the floor, grabbing ahold
of anything in my arm's reach trying to keep the giant squid from
dragging me to a cold death in the watery grave of the ocean. The
squid was too strong for me, though. But just when I thought I would
never see my friends again, I hit the floor, hard, and everything
went black, The darkness was petrifying. I only saw a little light
reflecting off something, maybe a blade... of a knife. I watched it
slowly rise above my head and then felt it smash through my chest.
The pain shot through my body as I clutched my wound. It hurt to
breathe as I was desperately gasping for air.
"Charlotte! Charlotte, are you okay?" I heard
Leona's voice, distant and faint, as if she were miles away from me.
I tried hard to open my eyes, but a massive weight kept them
shut.
"Man you're lucky you landed on a cushion or you
wouldn't be here anymore," Lois said, as I lay there drifting deeper
and deeper into the blackness.
It took me a few seconds for Lois' words to sink
into my head. When they finally soaked in, my eyes shot open in an
instant. "You mean I wasn't stabbed!" I hollered.
"Heck no! Why would anybody in here stab you?" Captain
Carmen asked me.
"That was what I saw
"Oh! I think I know what you're talking about,"
Cheryl said. "Maybe somehow in your unconsciousness you saw Captain
Carmen stabbing the tentacle of the squid. Then she cut it off and
threw it Out the hatch. It was bad, you should have seen
it!"
"That was close, though," Leona said with a sigh
of relief.
"No kidding, we were almost that squid's
breakfast," Lois said, plopping herself down on the floor. "I don't
think I want to see something like that again."
"Really," I said laughing. "Let's go to the future
Hawaii."
We left right away, desperate to escape from the
hideous memory. As soon as we landed in Hawaii we auctioned the Wild
Thang off for enough money for each of us to live a life of riches
for the rest of our days. We also sold our notes and drawings to
scientists who were eager to learn about the sea life we
experienced.
That was years ago. We are all much older now and
have our own families and a lot of amazing stories to tell our
children. All of us kept on living on the hot Islands which did later
become Hawaii. We've also kept in touch with the new owners of the
Wild Thang , never wanting to forget all of our hard work. No matter
what happens to any of us in the future, I know we will never forget
the good old days of discovering a new world under the
sea.
Charlotte
Alstrom
Christmastime Tales
Stories real and imaginary about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 1996 |
Christmastime Tales II
Stories about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 1998 |
Christmastime Tales III
Stories about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 2000 |
| Summer Time Tails 1992 |
Summertime Tails II 1993 |
Summertime Tails III |
| Summertime Tails IV Fall, 1995 |
Summertime Tails V Fall, 1996 |
Summertime Tails VI Fall, 1997 |
| Summertime Tails VII Fall, 1999 |
Signs of the Times November 1996 |
Creative Stories From Creative Imaginations |
| Mustang Mind Manglers - Stories of the Far Out,
the Frightening and the Fantastic 1993 |
Yupik Gourmet - A Book of
Recipes |
|
| M&M Monthly |
|
|
| Happy Moose Hunting! September Edition 1997 |
Happy Easter! March/April 1998 |
Merry Christmas December Edition 1997 |
| Happy Valentine’s
Day! February Edition
1998 |
Happy Easter! March/April Edition 2000 |
Happy Thanksgiving Nov. Edition, 1997 |
| Happy Halloween October 1997 Edition |
Edible and Useful Plants of Scammon
Bay |
Edible Plants of Hooper Bay 1981 |
| The Flowers of Scammon Bay Alaska |
Poems of Hooper Bay |
Scammon Bay (Upward Bound Students) |
| Family Trees and the Buzzy Lord |
It takes a Village - A guide for parents May 1997 |
People in Our Community |
| Buildings and Personalities of
Marshall |
Marshall Village PROFILE |
Qigeckalleq Pellullermeng ‘A
Glimpse of the Past’ |
| Raven’s
Stories Spring 1995 |
Bird Stories from Scammon Bay |
The Sea Around Us |
| Ellamyua - The Great Weather - Stories about the
Weather Spring 1996 |
Moose Fire - Stories and Poems about Moose November,
1998 |
Bears Bees and Bald Eagles Winter 1992-1993 |
| Fish Fire and Water - Stories about fish, global warming
and the future November, 1997 |
Wolf Fire - Stories and Poems about Wolves |
Bear Fire - Stories and Poems about Bears Spring,
1992 |
|
