University of Maine at Farmington

For Tim Shumway, who graduated from UMF with a degree in secondary education, teaching in Alaska was more than a job – it was an adventure. Shumway taught at Aniak Jr./Sr. High School after spending a year teaching language arts, mathematics and social studies to the 36 native Yup’ik Eskimos who comprise the entire enrollment at Johnnie John Sr. School in the sub-arctic village of Crooked Creek, pop. 135.

Shumway, who coached a nearby high school softball team while completing his student teaching at UMF, always imagined himself fully engaged with school extracurricular programming once he became a teacher. But he freely admits he was gun shy about taking his Johnnie John Sr. School students on a field trip to explore the tundra surrounding the school. You see, his colleagues decided that as the only male chaperone Shumway would be the one to carry the school rifle (a .308) in case any grizzly bears intruded on the field trip. “The idea of being ultimately responsible for the lives of all these kids made me almost sick to my stomach,” chuckled Shumway, as he recollected the field trip planning. “The good news though, was that Tim, the custodian, came along so I was off the hook with carrying the school rifle.”

For Shumway, who was called Mr. Oongluk (Yup’ik for bearded man) by his Johnnie John Sr. School students, teaching in Alaska was a personal and professional challenge. Crooked Creek lies some 300 miles west-northwest of Anchorage in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where Yup’ik Eskimos have hunted, gathered and fished for 2,000 years. The only way in or out of the village is by plane, and his school-provided transporation was an all-terrain vehicle. The upside was that his class size never exceeded 12 students, he could land a 12-pound silver salmon with nearly every cast in Crooked Creek and his students adored him.

-- By Marc Glass, managing editor of the UMF alumni magazine

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