I am a civil engineer…not really, but it sounds really cool. I am a summer intern at the City of Bethel/City Shop, and I work with City Planning in Bethel Alaska. My boss, who is the City Planner, is Richard Aboud, and my co-worker is Jeff Lee.

When I first started working, I made Site Plan Archives on the city data file. To do that, I had to scan years of Site Plan applications and permits and save them to files sorted by number and year.

If anyone wants to do any type of landscaping, or building on their property within city limits, they have to apply for a Site Plan Permit through the city, unless their land is owned by the State. After a week or so, I learned to review the applications for a Site Plan. I would review, and type out the official permits. If the application didn’t contain square footage, or exact location, etc, I had to manually look it up and do the math.

Before my boss left, he gave me a project to work on. There is an archive where you can look up all the information you will ever need for any place in Bethel. A few years ago, someone put in the information for a subdivision named Kasaiyuli, and they didn’t do a very good job. All the plat numbers were inaccurate, and the owners were not listed, neither were the survey numbers and so on. My job was to look up all the different lot numbers on line and verify the owners and look up the correct plat numbers for all the blocks and lots in Kasaiyuli. The site I went to was:

http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/ssd/recoff/search.cfm

I love working at the city shop, the environment is healthy and the challenges are what make working there all the better.

~Angelica

Platinum is a village of about 26 people. It is peaceful and full of wonder. There are many beautiful flowers. When we got picked up at the airport, Martin told us that we had to walk to the school. . . I thought it would be a long walk, but it was only about one hundred feet away. LOL.

Our first night here, Karlene and I took a walk to the beach. Oh my gosh, the beach is so very beautiful. Anyhow, when we got down there, we walked barefoot on the tickling sand and let the waves catch us. We jumped into the cold ocean and took many pictures. The second day here, we went Kayaking. We went from one side of Platinum to the other side of Platinum. (around the spit) While we were kayaking, a salmon jumped right in front of us, which made us jump. We wore wet suits so that we stayed dry. By the third day, everyone hiked up the mountain(I couldn’t go because I recently underwent knee surgery and it hasn’t healed all the way yet). So while they were hiking, I stayed home and shot a few basketballs, and swung on the tire swing. I also went walking by the stream and saw red salmon swimming up stream. We also got to go to the old original Platinum mine. A lady named Bev drove us around all the old sites. We got to see the original Dredge and Clay mine, and the old buildings that everyone worked in. My favorite part was seeing the old blacksmith shop where all the original tools were still there and in use.

We plan to kayak across Goodnews Bay to Goodnews, a larger village. I can’t wait to go, because all I brought, money-wise, is a debit card and the stores here don’t have card machines. Yeah, that’s right I said stores, plurally. There are two stores here. One store is the native store called Arvik Inc. and the other store is owned by a cute old couple. My mom used to always talk about how she wanted to one day live in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere. I think this would be the perfect place. It is not out in the middle of nowhere, but it has all the peace and wonder as the wild.

I like it here in Platinum. Perfect place to be with people you love, and I do consider returning sometime in the distant future.

~Angelica