~Egg Hunting~

Last summer my mom and dad were planning on hunting for eggs for my Papa out on the tundra. We started getting ready. My mom brought my little brother over to my Papa’s house. My dad went to borrow one of the canoes that the IRA always let people borrow. First, he brought two people across the river, then he came back and picked the other two and brought them across the river. We started to walk and look where the birds always start flying, then we would go see if there was a nest where the birds left off. If we see a nest, we would run to it and happily grab the eggs quickly like we never saw wild eggs on the tundra before.
If we weren’t able to find anymore eggs, we’d look where the birds were sitting and we would have to hop into the canoe and go to the other side of the river. When we reached the other side of the river, my little sister started to get cold. My parents said that we had to stay with Kacie by the bank until my parents were done looking for eggs. Both of us didn’t want to stay, so we tried to walk up to my dad and tell him that we want to look for eggs. Brandon and I accidentally walked on the wrong side; we walked on the muddy part. Both my legs were starting to sink. I was going to slip, but when I was about to slip, I lead out my hands on the mud. Just when my hands first touched, I said, “eww!” We started laughing. My shoe came off of my left foot and I told Brandon to grab my shoe out of the mud. I almost got stuck in the mud; luckily with Brandon’s help it was easier to get out of the mud and I was able to get out of the mud quicker than I thought.
Right when we were almost up to my parents, we saw a small pond. When we saw little jumps, we started jumping around. Them jumps are like “tussuks” but their size is a little bit bigger. Brandon started making fun of me when I was too scared to jump. I was scared to even try and jump because I thought that I would land in the dirty water. I didn’t even want to land in the mud where the pond was. I told Brandon that I couldn’t make it to the other side of the pond where he told me to jump. I tried even though I didn’t want to because I didn’t want Brandon to tell one of his friends that I wasn’t able to make it and that I was too scared. My dad told us to go see my little sister and tell her to follow us and jump around. We were soaked and wet. Jumping around took us at least a half hour for all three of us. I was the wettest and the dirtiest person while we were there. Both my sweater and my thin jacket were muddy. The only part of Brandon that was wet and muddy was his feet and part of his ankles. When my parents finished looking for the eggs, we told them what happened while we were in the mud. We also told them what happened when we were jumping on the tussuks. One of the little jumps that Brandon and I tried to jump were the ones that I couldn’t jump. I was too scared to jump off of some of them because I thought I would land in the pond. I didn’t want to land in the pond because I didn’t want to get wetter and dirtier than I was when we were jumping around and when we were in the mud. I felt so dirty I really wanted to take a shower badly. I couldn’t wait to take a shower when we were getting ready to go home. I started laughing at my parents because they said that we would make it home the next morning. We made it home after midnight like around 1 o’clock in the morning. When we got home, my little sister told us that she heard Brandon and I laughing while we were trying to get out of the mud. We had fun when we were playing in the mud. I want to find that place where we were jumping on the tussuks. I wish that could happen again this coming summer when egg-hunting season starts!


Story by Chelsea