Sidthisak Kaybounthome sits behind the wheel of his cab, idling in a parking lot across the street from the terminal at Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport.

He blasts the heat. Outside, the temperature hovers around 25 degrees below zero — not unusual for winters in Barrow, the northernmost town in the country. But Kaybounthome hasn’t seen many winters this far north.

Not too long ago he was a monk at Wat Lao, Mountain View’s Buddhist temple.

He told me his story as we drove along the Arctic Ocean coast, past frozen buildings and bleached whale bones blanketed in drifting snow.

Monkhood was a calling he followed for most of his life, ever since he became a novice at age 11, he said. When he moved to Anchorage in 2000, he helped build Wat Lao into the complex it is today. His work consumed his life. When you are a monk, you give all your time to others, he said. There’s not much time for family. And that’s why he quit.

His elderly mother still lives in Laos, thousands of miles away, and he wanted to earn more to support her, he said. In 2013, he left Wat Lao and took a job at Prudhoe Bay. The oilfields weren’t for him, so he packed his bags and moved further north to Barrow to drive a cab. There’s more business there than in Anchorage, he said.

It’s not like Mountain View and it’s nothing like Laos, but he’s learning to call it home.

“I can live anywhere,” he said.

This microprofile originally appeared on Mountain View Post.

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Go west on Commercial Drive, past the car wash and the smoke shop, and you’ll see an unpaved lot that stands out from the rest.

There’s a picnic table out front, a little white house in the back and a few old campers parked around the yard. One sign advertises a 24/7 window repair business; another promises “Yup’ik gold & silver.” A giant coffee cup rests on a massive spinning saucer by the driveway. A partially rebuilt ’68 Dodge Charger sits next to a stack of tires nearby.

The lot – and everything on it – is Jack Vinson’s best hope.

Three summers ago, his 12-year-old son was struck by a car while riding his bike along Patterson Street. Vinson still keeps a laminated copy of the Anchorage Daily News report about the crash: It barely made 100 words, but it changed their lives forever.

The collision paralyzed Vinson’s son from the chest down. He spent his 13th birthday in a coma. The medical bills topped $1 million, and there wasn’t nearly enough insurance money.

Vinson, living with his own disability, began scrambling for ways to make money, he says. He rents the lot on Commercial Drive in the hopes of opening a business.

He tried a 24-hour coffee cart, a drive-in theater and a secondhand store. Nothing ever took off, so Vinson sells odds and ends and keeps looking for an idea that sticks. Maybe there’s room for a food truck on the lot, he says. Maybe he can sell one of the campers to bring in a little more cash.

“Everything here is to make money for my son,” he said. “All this is just to keep us going. Everything is for sale.”

This micro-story originally appeared on Mountain View Post.

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The little house at the end of North Bliss Street is full of memories, said Tulukqaaqsiuq Hank, who found my blog, Mountain View Post, on Facebook and sent me a note with some old pictures attached. I sent him a message and asked if he’d be willing to tell me more. We ended up talking on the phone for a few hours over the course of a several days. He lives in Point Hope now.

Growing up on N. Bliss, still in grade school, Hank played basketball in the driveway with the hoop his dad built, back before his dad went to prison. Sometimes, when the cupboards in the house were empty and his mother was nowhere to be found, he pocketed packets of ramen noodles and candy bars from Red Apple to feed his young brothers.

He rode his bike all over the neighborhood, smoked stolen cigarettes at Lions Park and learned to take care of himself. One day, when a stray dog chased his cousin, he fought it off with a metal rod. When things got tense with a boy at school, he broke into a neighbor’s house and stole a handgun for protection.

Hank spent the next 17 years moving in and out of the justice system on charges ranging from assault to burglary. He fought addiction. He felt angry. He was locked up when his brother died: Tigautchaiq Douglas was 22 when he fell from the fifth floor of the Castle Apartments. Then, a few years later, Hank learned about the death of his girlfriend while brushing his teeth and watching the evening news at Goose Creek Correctional Center: Elaine Cleveland was 34 when she was discovered, frozen, in a van in downtown Anchorage. It broke Hank’s heart.

Behind bars, he said, he became part of the Native Brotherhood: Police call it a prison gang, Hank calls it a positive movement. It helped him understand some things.

”I kind of understand why I am who I am today,” he said. “It had to take a lot of tragedy for me to change my life.”

The last time he was in Mountain View was last fall, right after he got out of prison, right before he went back to Point Hope to be with family. His childhood girlfriend, Panika Williams, had called him and asked for help finding her mom, Irma Williams, who came up missing, and Hank walked all over the neighborhood looking for her. The house on N. Bliss is still there, remodeled and recently sold. Tuluk couldn’t believe how much it changed — how much the whole neighborhood changed — since he grew up there.

He had no luck looking for Williams that day. It wasn’t until October that a man walking his dogs found her body buried in Davis Park. She was 54 years old. (Michael Memeo, her former boyfriend, was charged with first and second-degree murder and evidence tampering. He’s currently scheduled to go to trial in October.)

In Point Hope, Hank says he found a measure of calm on the Arctic Ocean ice, thinking about his future and making peace with his past.

“Mountain View taught me to survive,” he said.

Here is the picture that was attached to his email:

Kirsten Swann is a writer and blogger who lives in Mountain View. A version of this post originally appeared on Mountain View Post.

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It’s one of Anchorage’s lesser-known farmer’s markets; a cluster of tents and tables that pop up in Davis Park every summer weekend.

There, you can buy luscious greens and fragrant fresh vegetables from local Hmong gardeners. They grow their wares in home plots and community gardens around East Anchorage.

Gina Her, who helps organize the weekly market, said it’s a popular stop for members of her Hmong community. Other shoppers are pulled in by the sight and smell of homegrown produce.

“It’s convenient,” said Darren Williams, who lives in Mountain View and stopped by the park to pick up some greens Friday afternoon. “It’s freshly picked, it’s not flown in.”

The market is open Thursday-Sunday through the end of September, Her said. Look for the biggest selections on Saturdays and Sundays, and prepare for creative communication, since many of the gardeners speak little English.

Luckily, the smell of fresh green onions is the same in any language.

This post originally appeared on Mountain View Post.

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