When Deborah Rix wanted to check out her new job last spring, she used some accumulated air miles to fly to Kotzebue, Alas. and then rode a 10-passenger plane the 138 miles northeast to Ambler, 45 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Ambler has a population of 276 and lies on the north bank of the Kobuk River in Northwest Arctic Borough.
When she moves to Ambler in the fall, she will be one of the few Caucasians in the primarily Inuit community.
Rix grew up in Damariscotta and lived in North Edgecomb, before moving to Alaska in 1980. Rix is the daughter of Sam and Abbie Roberts of Nobleboro, publisher emeritus and retired managing editor, respectively, of The Lincoln County News. The Roberts family has owned the newspaper since 1920.
When Rix moved to Eklutna Lake near Chugiak Alaska, a suburb an hour northeast of Anchorage, the nearest phone and electricity were 10 miles away from the inexpensive rental she and her future husband found.
“It was kind of fun,” she said July 30 at her parents’ home in Damariscotta Mills. “Where I live is at the edge. It’s as far away as you can get in that direction and still be considered to be in the municipality of Anchorage.”
“It was pretty crazy times,” she said. Oil money from the recently completed pipeline was flooding the area and Rix worked as a waitress with a starting wage of $5 an hour before tips. Later, she and her husband purchased contracts to provide rural postal delivery service to the region’s growing population.
In 1983, they bough a 5-acre parcel, bordered on two sides by state parks, and built their own log home over a period of three years. It was there that they raised their two daughters.
The log house burned down in 1994. When they rebuilt, the Rixes hooked the new house up to the power grid and put in plumbing.
Meanwhile, Deborah Rix received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Alaska in Anchorage, with a minor in special education. She earned two master’s degrees and worked in the Anchorage School District, one of the largest in the U.S., as an elementary special education resource teacher.
Rix worked in that capacity, then as an intensive needs classroom teacher, before joining the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project in 2010. The Alaska Statewide Mentor Project (ASMP) is designed to improve teacher retention, enhance the quality of instruction and improve student achievement. Mentors work with first and second year teachers to support them as they learn their new jobs.
Most of Alaska’s 54 school districts are located in isolated communities that are accessible only by air, boat, dog sled or all-terrain vehicle, according to the ASMP website at alaskamentorproject.org. Of the state’s 506 schools, 135 have fewer than 50 students; in 82 of those schools enrollment is half of that.
In part because of the geographic isolation, teacher turnover is high. Acclimating to a native culture under severe economic pressure is a challenge for new teachers, and the repeated change makes it harder for teachers to build the relationships with communities that foster educational goals.
On loan from Anchorage, Rix’s job has her working in communities that are far more rural than Eklutna Lake, at schools with fewer than 20 students. To get to her assignments she flies into hub cities, then transfers to smaller planes or boats. Accommodation is in teacher housing, often apartments in retrofitted older school buildings that have been replaced with newer construction. In many remote communities school buildings are the only ones with electricity and running water.
Average temperatures in Ambler range between -10 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, with recorded lows of -65 in winter and highs occasionally topping 90 degrees.
The local economy is based on subsistence activities such as hunting and fishing.
In previous mentorship assignments, Rix worked with Yupik natives. Students were taught in the Yupik language and teachers strove to balance cultural preservation with the need for students to learn to live in the larger English-speaking society.
Approximately 60 children attend classes at the preschool-grade 12 Ambler school, traveling on 4-wheel all-terrain vehicles or snow machines to get there.
Rix said rising gasoline prices have hit the poor communities of oil-rich Alaska. Students often drop out of school to hunt and fish, forgoing the opportunities that education can offer.
On her visit in May, she spent three days with the 20-year veteran teacher she will replace and made a list of supplies she will need for the coming school year.
“I need everything,” she said.
Having lived without amenities that many in the lower 48 states consider essential, and taught in schools without the basic infrastructure most Americans take for granted, Rix’s experiences in remote and rural communities will enable her to bring much more than pencils and books to her new job north of the Arctic Circle.
