I've been back about a week now from my month up north, and thought I'd share some of the experiences.
First of, my thread about what I took up in my BOB can be seen:
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=170249&page=1This bag was modified initially for the airplane as my carry-on. Pretty much a spare of clothes, the food, took out the blades, Leatherman, etc. Good thing too, since on day 1 my flight got postponed in Detroit. On Sunday I got delayed in Minneapolis (slept with a friend of my girlfriend) and on Monday got delayed overnight in Anchorage (slept in the USO room). Mt. Redoubt was burping a lot then! it was nice to have clean clothes, eyeglasses and contact solution with me. Wish I'd kept a pillow or my space blanket though.
I was in Bethel, AK. It's 6000 people, about 4 miles of paved road and maybe 5 of unpaved. Temps ranged from -10 to about 35 towards the end of April. No mosquitoes yet. The Kuskokwim river still had 6+ feet of ice at the time, so there was a 100-mile ice road to some villages. Wish I'd been able to go around it, but I wasn't about to take the car of the folks I was staying with. 2 grocery stores, bowling alley, saturday market, a community center with a cool museum, a US Wildlife Refuge building with it's own museum, and a few other odds and ends. Food was pricey, for example, frozen pizza was $12, box of Cheez-its was $7. Milk about $5 for liquid, though powder was normal price. There was an amazingly good selection of produce, but pricey too. Gas was $5.65/gallon. The hospital is a 40-bed, serving an area the size of Oregon with 56 villages and about 28,000 Yup'ik Eskimos. Treaties between the tribes and the US have stipulations that the federal government provided health care for natives, so their care is free for them. Emergencies would get seen at the village clinic, then medivac'd if appropriate (and accessible). If non-urgent, the patient would come on a normal flight, or snow-mobile in to the hospital.
I stayed with a guy that worked at the hospital for a few days in the beginning and end of the trip, and house-sitted the rest of the time. Once I got to Alaska, I re-arranged my bag back to it's original configuration. Kept it in the trunk of the car I had, while I had it, otherwise I carried it on my trek to work. It went with me on the 3 medivacs I did. Fortunately, each paramedic had his own bag, so I didn't feel like a total idiot bringing the bag on the plane (a Cessna Caravan).
I also took this on a day hike, but didn't go too far as the 5" of snow made it tiring. About 3 miles total, up the river than back down. Snowshoes would have been nice. The people for whom I was housesitting did have XC skiis, but shoes didn't fit.
Only 1 incident the entire month where I wish I'd used the stuff in my bag. Was on a snowmobile hunting with one of the ER docs. After 2 hours my feet were getting pretty cold. I really, REALLY wish I'd tossed in my foot warmer pads, but didn't. Live and learn. Also, having a mitten with a trigger finger would have been useful, as we had a chance to shoot a red fox, but it got away - the doc flipped the snowmobile when the fox hit the brakes and turned. Banged up my foot, but still a good time. And he still bagged 7 ptarmigan (I didn't have a permit, and he wouldn't let me shoot without it).
some of the pics can be seen online. For some reason, some of the pics got duplicated:
www (dot!) mikecase (dot) net / miked
One of the medivacs can be viewed at the above address, but add:
slash shageluk
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