An Arctic Pantry

What does an arctic pantry look like?

I get asked this question every once in a while, especially by teachers moving to a small village or other professionals.  So I thought I would show what I like to stock up on and my general way of stocking up on things.  But first you must keep a few things in mind:  1.  I like to cook - Not at like chef level mind you, but I like to try new recipes and explore.  Normally for meals I like to include a protein, a starch and a veggie.  My mother made me OCD like that. It's WAY cheaper to cook your own meals rather than relying on microwavable food or canned food.  TONS cheaper and tastier.  2.  We use hundreds of pounds of subsistence meats every year, mainly caribou (we also ground our own), ptarmigan, geese, and various fish. It's much more healthy and lean.  So we buy very little meat and it's mainly pork and chicken.  We also trade with other people on the coast for muktuk, seal meat and oil, and fish that are not available here.  3.  We also supplement our diet seasonally with fruits, leaves, and roots.  Like Masu (eskimo potato), tons of berries, bistort leaves and such.  Most of which get frozen and stored.  We have a normal freezer/fridge, and two chest freezers which we try to keep full at all times, both for us, our trading partners, and family that might need it.  In the winter we use a wooden outside box to keep meat frozen and protected from predators, dogs and our sneaky resident weasels.  4.  We eat alot, especially my husband.  In the arctic you will burn more calories per day  than expected.  You will burn about 4500 a day if you spend any of it out of doors.  I swear my husband has an empty leg.  We also usually have a visitor or two for our meals, or we bring some to relatives, so we love bulk foods.

DRY PANTRY.  Ours is just a series of deep shelves in the back, away from windows and such.  The things that go here are:
Toilet paper in bulk, paper towel in bulk, dish soap, clorox wipes in bulk, shampoo and conditioner, body wash, lotion, q-tips, laundry detergent, canned tomatoes, bulk rice, bulk pasta (spaghetti and penne are my favs), bulk flour and sugar and brown sugar, salt, plastic trash bags and ziplocs, Various snack foods in bulk (we grab a handful for trips and camping and it includes some 'sweet' like mini chocolate bars, fruit leather, granola bars and hard candy etc).  Some cold meds and various meds (in the Vill the store regulary runs out of OTC meds), a small amount of canned soups, dry soups,  and canned veggies. A couple of boxed brownie mixes and cake mixes and frosting (only if I found them on sale for really cheap). If I can find them I get dried egg powder for camping and just in case the store can't get eggs.  Batteries (we use rechargeable when possible since there is no recycle centers in the Vill), hand soap, coffee, tea, boxed 2% milk and boxed soymilk. 

FREEZERS.  Meats, frozen veggies (broccoli, corn, peas, etc these taste a gazilloin times better than canned ones), berries, frozen fruits, seal oil, store bought meats (I usually get pork chops, chicken thighs, alaskan sausages).

FRIDGE.  a billion different sauces in bottles, including mexican and asian varieties. The stores never stock a huge variety.  I also get tons of fresh garlic, tortillas (can be frozen), and butter (can be frozen).  Some random things I like to keep in there that will last are lemon juice, parmesan and feta cheese, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, pickled things etc. 

Where I get my stuff.  I know it probably differs depending on what village you are at, but I can share where I have found the best prices (including shipping) for here.  I do try and make one or two trips a year to Fairbanks to pick up things that they will NOT ship, which includes random things like fresh veggies (beyond the stuff at the store, like asparagus, cabbage, and such), kimchi, vanilla extract, pepperoni, etc.  Living in the Village you will become VERY intimate with the list of things that cannot be mailed! 

Sams Club -   They sell in bulk for cheap and do the shipping for you.  They charge about 45% of cost to ship, which sounds like a ton till you try and do the shipping yourself.  I found in the end that it will cost you the same and it will take the better part of a day to do if you ship yourself.  They charge a yearly membership fee which is not too bad at something like $40.00, I share mine with my brother who is at college in the same city so he can buy bulk or just stop by for a cheap slice of pizza.  If you are ordering online from a village you must choose 'pick up' and write your phone number and that it is a Bush order in the message or they will not ship.  They will contact you with any questions.  It is a little bit of a headache to order online which is why I hit them up whenever I'm in town.

Fred Meyers - they used to have a website up but it is now being re-done, they don't sell in bulk but they do provide variety and convenience.  They charge exact cost of shipping which is nice, and you have a choice between Parcel Post or Priority mail.  I love using them because I can do it all over email. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Safeway - I have heard they now have a service for shipping to rural areas.  I haven't tried them out yet but would love to hear some feedback and instructions.  They do send out a weekly sale pamphlet/deal thing to order from.

Span Alaska - My fathers favorite place to shop.  Also sells cheap and in bulk but only high volume so your bill will be huge.   CLICK HERE to visit them.

Alaska Feed Company in Fairbanks - I buy our dog bedding straw from these guys and I am planning to try and order bulk whole wheat flour.  They offer bulk items that are not offered at Sams club, like regular rice, whole wheat flour, and dried beans.  

A few online stores that ship to Alaska.  Believe it or not 80% of stores will not ship to Alaska or if they do they will charge ridiculous amounts of money. I once tried to order $10.00 worth of shipping boxes and was told that the shipping would be $75.00.  Some places I know will ship to rural Alaska and that I regularly use are:

Amazon.com (can be expensive to ship, can have some items that will not ship.  I found that if I clicked on the thingy on the left after a search and chose just items from Amazon.com themselves they are more likely to ship.)

Cabelas (dependable where other outfitters sometimes aren't)

Drugstore.com (I have noticed a couple of times some items took WAY too long to get here.  I have no idea why some get here quick and some don't)

Herbco (if you like cooking this is where to buy bulk seasonings and teas, always good quality)

Etsy (for awesome homemade goodness!)

Sears (for random house stuff.  I also buy large house appliances from here because they will deliver to your preferred shipping provider - but contact the store itself for more info)

Denali Seed Company (For Alaskan seeds to grow your own veggies!)


I don't keep all of this stuff stocked up at all times, but I do try and save up money to make orders.  In the long run it really does make a huge difference.  Since me and my husbands work is heavily seasonal and can be sporadic we found that stocking up when we can really helps in the lean times. 

I also tell people to invest in a few things:  Thermal light blocking curtains - in the winter your windows will be blocks of ice, in the summer the sun never sets.  Get quality curtains, I think I bought mine at Sears.  Internet - you will go crazy without it, unless you are one of those people that can live completely on books and reruns.  Some options are ASTAC dial up, Star band, Hughs net and GCI.  They vary in speed and cost.  A hobby - to fight the winter time blues.  Your favorite OTC meds and products.  A vacuum sealer to store meat and goods.  Multivitamins.  Nutella.  Seriously.  Nutella.

And now some spring time photos to make sure this post is not nothing but words.  I realized after uploading this set that it totally looks as if I am just rolling around on the ground taking pictures...which is almost true.

Garden stuff and photos....

We have been working non-stop on the garden.  We crawl into bed with sore muscles and dirt under our nails.  Today we finished hauling dirt to our site and filling all of the boxes.  I've planted seed or mini-plant in pretty much all of them.  I'm holding on a bit longer to the warmer weather plants, waiting to make sure the frost is gone.  The weather has been a steady mix of light rains and hot sunny warmth.    I have also found that I am a bit obsessed with taking photos of birds so that I can look them up in my husbands bird book. 

One of the weird things I have been dealing with is the massive urge I have to run every time a bee comes to look at my plants.  Most people are unaware that we Inupiat are usually absolutely terrified by the arctic bees.  They are huge and extremely furry and come with their own stereo system.  It's like seeing a flying mouse ...with a stinger.  We run.  I have been training myself not to run, because I would never be in the garden if I did.  I actually came up with a theory of why we are as a whole afraid of these fuzzy beings.  The warble fly actually looks pretty similar to the bees, but the warble flies land on a good host being (usually caribou) and deposit their eggs in the fur.  The larvae burrow into the skin of the animal and live there all winter to emerge as adults in the spring.  Yes.  It's THAT gruesome.  My theory is that to fight this thing off we as a whole have evolved to run screaming without an ounce of dignity to avoid becoming host to these insects.  That's my theory and I am sticking to it.  I know have a mission to take a photo of these bees with a size reference.

Fireweed sprouts have emerged, officially announcing spring.

The empty husks of Stinkweed seeds dot the landscape and make it look fuzzy.

I was surprised to find these little flowers.

every single photo of this bird was blurry because he was moving so fast.  Spinning in circles and bobbing his head.  He looked like he was listening to the wub wub of techno music.

I literally have had a nightmare about this robin.  He comes around every night and digs a bit in the dirt between my garden boxes looking for bugs.  So far he hasn't found the tasty seeds I have carefully planted. 

My garden.  The plastic covered box in the back left is corn, and I have covered up the little seedlings for the night under plastic.  You can see part of the rock wall we are building to the right, to cut the wind down a bit and protect it from the area that had dogs living in it.  I told my helpers that one day they will write poems about that wall...none of them believe me.

Almost completely camouflaged in the gravel in our front yard. 

Photo Day....

I promised myself that I would make a bit of an effort to increase the posts in this blog.  One way I am going to do that is to just do a few 'Photo Days'.  I constantly take pictures, they not only document everything but they also provide endless inspiration and Happy.  I hope you enjoy these peeks into our world!

Once the ground was cleared we started working on the garden space.  Digging up willow stumps and the larger rocks, removing trash and snowmachines and the larger stones.

So of course a few days later it snowed heavily for a couple days.  Cause I almost forgot I lived in the arctic.  Here you can see some of the finished boxes my husband made from salvaged wood.

A polar bear claw pendant, capped in whale baleen and scrimsahwed with a ancient Inupiaq design.  I call this one 'Twist'.  more info and pics at: www.SalmonberryDreams.Etsy.com

Some lichen sunbathing on a rock.  For some reason it looks so exuberant.

My brother picked up the camera and got a shot of me.  We were watching my husband and my brother in law butcher two caribou for transport. 

A American Golden Plover.  Eying me suspiciously.  Because I was acting suspiciously.

A polar bear fur, pearl, seed bead and bone hair pick.  The pearls were leftovers from my wedding.  More pics/info at www.SalmonberryDreams.Etsy.com

Tomato Anxiety....and other random spring things.

A quick update on my mini garden.  My tomato plants have developed something wrong with them.  Their thin baby leaves develop puckered pale spots, that have a little bit of shimmer to them.  The spots spread from the bottom leaves to the top leaves.  Which leads me to think it might be some sort of deficiency.  The weird part is that whatever it is is is only happening to my spoon tomato plants.  Every time I google the ailment it leaves me more confused that anything.  I've made a very diluted mix of epsom salt and aspirin and have sprayed in on a few plants to see if that does anything. I did notice that these plants also grew incredibly tall and wobbly, despite my lowered lights, and they were the only ones to grow that way. 

I feel like such a noob! all nervous and twitchy and confused.

I also have a plastic bin filled with a mix of random types of tomato plants.  I have been snipping the smaller weaker and slow to germinate ones as they have grown.  It feels like a gladiator ring, with me as the emperor, as I watch an incredibly slow fight to the death.  I know I should thin them more but I feel so guilty that I have to do it in the first place.  Next week I'm going to try and separate the healthier ones and give them their own mini pots, and hope some survive the transfer. 

I found out that the gardener voice in my head sounds exactly like my Okie step-grandmother from California, who has two giant green thumbs.  When I was young we would patrol her huge garden and search for snails which she would mercilessly toss onto the road.  She grew a redwood tree in her backyard, and I remember thinking that she had magical powers of some sort to make plants grow like they did.  She referred to any disease of her plants as 'gunk.'  She once gathered salt drowned roses from the sea (I'm sure some people tossed them in for a memorial or something) they were nothing but sad looking parched sticks, but she babied them in rich soil and love and grew several rose bushes from them.  Too bad she never grew tomato plants. 

Mystery illness.  I removed a section and photographed it and put it in my journal. 

My little plants, trying to survive me. 

this is the type of art projects we have in this household.

wolf fur pin.  Art has always relaxed me and comforted me. More pics/info and up for sale at: www.SalmonberryDreams.Etsy.com 

I also collected some cottonwood buds this year and decides to sell some of the balm I made.  It is also known as the balm of gilead.  But I add a bit of chamomile and aloe...we use it on our frostbite and sunburn...which we always get at spring! more info and to purchase visit: www.SalmonberryOrigins.Etsy.com

See why I didn't want to take a picture of my future garden? lol  My husband has been sneaking snowmachine carcasses back there.  Either that or they are breeding.  There is also an argo under that wood.  Once our front yard is cleared of snow this is all being moved to the front. Sometime in the next week. 

While I was taking that last photo I realized that there were several sets of little eyes trained on me.  A flock of these tiny birds were sitting in the bushes watching me.  I was a tiny bit afraid. 

Spring Time at the Gates of the Arctic.....

The moment that I realized it was spring?

I was sipping my first morning cup of coffee, doing that weird blank just-got-out-of-bed stare out the window.  You know the type; unfocused, heavy lidded, that morning limbo gaze that is almost as comfortable as the cup of coffee.  After a minute or two I noticed something odd.  There was something sitting on the pristine snow right outside the window.  It had a weird texture.  An unrecognizable shape.  I stared at it for about five minutes, my mind was having trouble trying to name it.  To tell you the truth I was a tiny bit scared.  It was like seeing an alien, or a mermaid on a distant rock in the ocean, or maybe even odd mole on your foot.  It did not belong.  I stared at it till the coffee was gone and the last sip at the bottom of the cup was ice cold.  My husband came in the kitchen and I glanced away for a moment to greet him...and when I turned back to resume my puzzled stare I instantly recognized it.  A laughed a bit nervously.  A flood of actual relief crested over me.  It was gravel.  Plain old stones peeking through melting snow.

Ah. Spring.  

Spring here in the arctic is not what you would call pretty.  If Winter is a vain, beautiful, mean woman, then spring is an awkward teenager boy covered in acne and all gangly and squeaky.  The snow melts and freezes in quick bursts leaving the ground randomly wet and crunchy at the same time.  Layers of debris and animal poo and things you didn't realize you left in the snow emerge in ugly glory from what was once white and clean.  The willow bushes shed the heavy snow and sit on the horizon looking like a bald mans brand new hair plugs...or maybe barbie hair.  Even the dogs scratch miserably at their shedding fur as it falls off in heavy smelly clumps.  Early spring is uncomfortable and wonderful at the same time.

The weather gets warm enough for me to emerge from my winter hibernation, and I disappear from the modern world at least every other day.  Ice fishing for lake trout and arctic char, trips to the tree line to gather alder bark and cotton tree buds, and general driving around in the melting arctic watching what the animals may be doing.  The sound of chittering squirrels and singing snow birds always makes one smile and laugh. 

It's also when our 'adventure times' begin.  We usually use this term to describe any situation in which we are in the boonies and we will face some type of hardship or we are doing something with a smidgeon of danger.  Just a smidgeon mind you.  Like if a snow machine breaks down and we have to load it on a sled and drag it home.  Or on the way home we encounter a heavy snow blizzard and whiteout conditions.  But sometimes we try something new and these are also 'adventure times'.    Personally I think it's our way of completely refusing to become a complete adult.  As long as I don't get frostbite or end up in water (which has happened once or twice) then it's always said with a grin and high five. 

Some spring time photos.....

Lake Tulugaq has spots that never freeze at all during winter.  My husband and his older brother got a caribou over the hill while I sat at the edge of the lake and tried my luck at fishing. 

At Lake Chandler about 30 miles away, you can see how thick the ice is.

A big danger in the spring is snow blindness.  Northern Alaska natives have physically adapted to combat this, with slanted eyes and brown pigmented eyes.  We still wear sunglasses or eye protection though. 

My husband butchering a caribou in the 'hot' spring weather.  At this time of year the caribou are gathering together in larger herds and are slowly making there way north for the summer.  In our area they will pretty much be gone all summer long.

Adventure Time.  My husband convinced me to take a 'shortcut' over the mountains to lake chandler.  It was crazy, and I decided never to do that again!  It was a series of steep climbs and drops and narrow crooked ravines.  My ears popped at least 8 times because of the quick elevation changes. 

There were several times I had to get off the snowmachine so he could do maneuver the snowmachine better (sometimes my squealing was a distraction).  Here I am posing next to the snowmachine in what I call my 'sleeping bag' outfit, head to toe fluffy down. 

Aunty enjoying the view at the trees.

Bens family has finished building a spring cabin on their property at the trees. 

Niece Josie tells me about hows the weather and temperature has been while they were there.

Josie took a photo of me.  I think she did pretty good.

Josie again with a lake trout that a cousin caught at Lake Chandler.  In the background is a Swedish family friend that has been visiting Ben's family every year for about 17 years.  He has no idea what 'swedish fish' is.  Yes I asked.

Garden update picture!  Some pepper/tomato and echinacea plants. Today they are being put into larger pots that finally got here in the mail!