Field Trip: Teller

This weekend I got to travel to the village of Teller for some training on using Google Earth in the classroom (stay tuned for some future Social Studies Rocks posts featuring this amazing program).

I thought I would take VFN readers on the grand tour.

Disclaimer: I was taking most of these photos in very bright sunlight. I also was feeling very lazy. As a result, most of these pictures are not exposed correctly. I know that. I just chose not to care. Thank you.






This is a view of Teller from the airplane. Teller is an Inupiaq village of about 300 people.





This is the Teller School. This is where the workshop was held. This is also where I spent the night.






Teller School sports a fairly typical playground...






and a fairly atypical school bus. I think they are the only school in our district with a bus. The village is split between two locations: New Site and Old Site. The school is in Old Site, and it's kind of far from the homes in New Site. So, the bus makes a couple of trips out to New Site every day.




Do I really need to mention that this is the Teller Lutheran Church? Probably not. Teller has a Lutheran Church and a Catholic Church. My friend Mary told me that the Catholic Church is more popular. The pastor of the Lutheran Church actually lives in the nearby village of Brevig Mission. He comes over to Teller every Saturday night and gets the church ready for the Sunday morning sermon.







Here's the National Guard station in Teller. If it's anything like the Shishmaref National Guard station, it's pretty empty most of the year.





Most villages have a community hall. Said halls are primarily used to play bingo.





The Teller clinic, in all it's glory.





Looks like something crazy happened on the walls of the clinic...








This was my favorite spot in Teller. A perfect place to sit and look out across the bay. And have a BBQ! I love Alaska.




Teller is connected to Nome by road. Lucky Teller. As a result, people from Teller spend a lot more time in Nome than the people from other villages because they don't have to pay ridiculous plane fares to get into town.





The Nome-Teller connection also means Teller is also home to lots of dead cars.




When cars (or vans) die, there's really no place for them to go.




So they just sit outside and wither away slowly. Future generations may refer to Teller as "The Place Primitive Vehicles Went to Die."





This is the view of the village from just outside of town.





This is what my feet looked like after I walked back into town.







This is a shot to prove that we really did spend time learning about geographic measurements and GPS programs. (Hey Federal Government! Thanks for the grant that made this possible!)





A view of Teller from the airport as we were leaving. I love the fall colors.

If anybody is interested in visiting Teller as a vacation destination, let me know. I will do my best to hook you up with four star accommodations, dining, and entertainment.