NACTEC

One of the more interesting things here in Nome is a program called NACTEC, the Nothwest Alaska Career and Technical Center.

In cooperation with other districts, kids go to different towns and spend two weeks learning something new. The batch just arrived here yesterday from other parts of Northwest Alaska and are staying in the dorms off the district office. Our neighbor and babysitter, Becca, is helping out with them.

Some districts here in Alaska are huge, literally encompassing almost 100,000 square miles. If you look at a map, you have to remember that there are almost no roads around here. Sure in the Nome area there are about 300 miles of road, going from Teller to Kougarok to past Cape Nome, but most of Alaska is still isolated by anything but bush plane. "Bush" is the term Alaskans use for wilderness areas or the "boonies" as we called it back in Somonauk when you lived on a farm outside of town. This is even more remote because there is literally NO ROAD going there. Just imagine for a minute no roads. I actually didn't believe it at first. I kept thinking to myself that this was the twenty-first century, that there have to be roads now going everywhere. Nope.

So the kids come and stay here, in one of the big cities of the area, for two weeks, learning a new trade or vocation. The trip is probably half the fun. What a great concept. These children can still live where they want to, where their family is and lives have always been, and now get to learn current vocational training.