Mikaela Trowbridge didn’t plan on Alaska. At a job fair in Michigan, she stopped by the Alaska table “just for practice”.
She was surprised to hear about landscapes so vast they could only be reached by boat or dogsled. When they offered her the exact fifth-grade position she wanted, she laughed it off as impossible. But then a fortune cookie told her to “do the crazy thing,” and a few months later she was boarding a plane north. The first year was intimidating—new culture, new climate, no family nearby—but she immediately felt the difference in how communities take care of one another.
A student’s parent bought her her first pair of ice cleats, another made sure she had snow pants, and when she caught a cold, someone dropped off soup at her door.
Villagers invited her berry picking, ice fishing, and to try traditional foods. “This is my family away from home,” she says. “It’s not just pretty here—it’s meaningful.”
Professionally, Alaska gave Trowbridge room to grow in ways she never expected. Her district encouraged her love of science, helped her students reach the state science fair, and is now paying for her master’s degree in science education. The career support, coupled with her deep ties to her students—who still email her years later just to share updates—convinced her she made the right choice. “Even if you come for just one year,” she says, “it changes you. Alaska makes you a better educator.”