Wandering about AFN, Part 6: Still more faces and stories: Centurian, rescuer, Tlingit Anthropologist, Point Lay whaling captain and more

When I first went to work for the Tundra Times, nearly three decades ago, I was lucky to meet Elders from all across Alaska and one of them was Dr. Walter Soboleff, Tlingit. These Elders were a special group of people, for they had seen and known life in Alaska in a way that no one else ever would again. They had knowledge in their heads that they would take to the grave and then that knowledge would never again be possessed by anyone in quite the same way.

To honor them, it was Tundra Times policy to always capitalize the words Elders and Elder - and I have continued to do so.

With very few exceptions, those who were Elders then are gone now.

But Dr. Soboleff is still here. He will turn 101 on November 15. The very short nap that he took during the proceedings is well-deserved. I spoke to his son, Walter Soboleff, Jr. not long after I took this picture. He told me that the week before, he had attended a Grand Camp meeting of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and that his dad had been busy throughout - reviewing and filing resolutions and always making sure that folks adhered to Robert's Rules of Order.

Late one day in March of 2000, shortly after the sun dropped below the sea ice on the horizon, I landed the Running Dog on Norton Sound, just beyond the Nome shoreline. I was tired, I did not have much spare change and the hotels were full anyway. 

I expected Mike Williams to drive his dogs into town in the wee hours, probably about 3:00 AM, so I twisted my ice screws into the surface of the sea, tied the Running Dog down, hiked to the shore, bought a big dinner at Fat Freddie's, went back to the airplane, pitched my tent beneath one wing, crawled in, slept a bit, got up to greet Mike as he came in, then went back to the plane, crawled back into my tent, back into the sleeping bag and got what sleep I could.

I felt like hell when I got up the next day and I wandered into town in somewhat of a daze. I had not gone far before a pickup truck stopped beside me. "Hey Bill!" I heard a voice. I turned and looked into this smiling face.

Perry Mendenhall.

I moved out of the tent and into his house, where I stayed for several days. We ate good. Seal, dry fish, walrus, an occassional hotdog, maktak - and a bunch of King crab pulled fresh out of the ocean and dropped live into the boiling pot.

At night we went to ball games and to the bars where we threw darts at targets hanging on the walls.

His wife was down in the states. Two cats lived with him - the white one, which he did not like but his wife did, and the gray one, which he did like.

When finally I would get to bed and go to sleep, those cats would come in and sleep on top of me.

Late on an AFN afternoon, I was feeling dry and parched, so I left the convention center and headed over toward the Penny's Mall, determined to get a Pepsi. When I got there, I found Janice Meadows shopping for goods to take back home to the Slope with her.

She needed a Pepsi, too, so I bought one for both of us, plus pretzels. We had a good, long, visit and she advanced some excellent ideas about how I might seek out the ways and means to begin sorting through and making sense of the photos and stories that I have taken and gathered over the years.

Thank you, Janice!

This is Rosita Worl, Phd, Tlingit Anthropologist and the President of the Sealaska Heritage Institute. In 2008, she was honored with the very prestigious Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology. In June of that year - the same month that I took my fall and shattered my shoulder, got it replaced with titanium and truly learned why the American Health Insurance industry needs to be reformed - SHI released a book on which, as a photographer I collaborated with Worl and other Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian authors:

Celebration: Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, Dancing on the Land. 

In short, in 1982, after listening to the Elders lament about how the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian language, songs, and dances were being lost among the young, Rosita took a lead role in organizing Celebration '82. Tlingit, Haida and Tshimshian people came to Juneau from all across Southeast, as well as Anchorage and Seattle, for three days of dancing, singing and feasting in the hope of inspiring the young to learn.

There was much power, energy and joy in the dances, but there was also a solemnity that hung over the entire celebration, one that reminded me a little bit of being at a wake - this because no one knew for certain if this was the birth of a new cultural awakening or the dirge of one about to go under.

The number of dance groups was fairly small and most of the dancers were older. The number of youth and children dancers was small.

I returned again for Celebration '84 and then did not come back until 2004.

What an amazing experience 2004 was. Now, there were so many dance groups that the only way they could accommodate them all was to set up three separate venues so that they could perform simultaneously.

And there were hundreds - no, THOUSANDS - of young people dancing. And when the parade came, they poured through the streets of Juneau like a multi-colored river of song and dance. The power of the drums boomed through the streets of the Capitol City.

I returned in 2006 to find Celebration had grown even bigger still.

So that's what the book was about. It has been kind of a strange experience for me, this book, almost like it never happened, like I was never involved in such a work at all. I have not been to Southeast since I fell and got hurt. In the year that followed publication of the book, particularly the first half, my whole focus was pretty much limited to trying to put myself back together. I had almost no contact with anyone down in Southeast. I have heard almost nothing of the book since it came out. I have not attended a single function related to it, nor autographed a single book.

Rosita told me that it has had many excellent reviews and is beloved by the people of Southeast.

So that was good to hear.

This is Thomas Nukapigak, one of two whaling captains from Point Lay. I am not going to say much about this story right now, because it is part of the project that I am near to bringing to conclusion, so I will tell it in more depth later.

Briefly stated, one year in the 1930's, the people of Point Lay landed three bowhead whales. After that, largely due to the misguided Indian Relocation Act, the people of the village began to be dispersed all across the nation, from Chicago to San Francisco and elsewhere.

Point Lay emptied, until only two people remained - Warren and Dorcas Neakok.

In the early 1970's, following the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the organization of the North Slope Borough, they returned to reclaim their village, but they were small in number and not yet organized to where they could whale again.

By the time they were ready, many complicated things had happened and only ten Alaska communities were recognized as whaling villages. Point Lay was not one of the ten. They were not allowed to whale. In 2008, after several years of trying, Point Lay was finally recognized as a whaling village.

So I headed over there, to see what would happen. Thomas and his crew - comprised largely of very eager high school students were the first to head down to the ice, so I went with them.

A couple of days later, Julius Rexford, the other whaling captain, had repaired his boat and brought his crew down, too.

It was a most enjoyable stay for me, but the weather was relentlessly windy and harsh, ice conditions terrible, and no whale was landed.

I wanted to go back in 2009, even as I wanted to go back to Wainwright and follow Jason Ahmaogak and Iceberg 14 - for reasons that will also become clear in future posts.

But I had shattered my shoulder and was still recovering. It hurt all the time. It was weak. I wore a brace. I feared that I could not hold up under the rigors of the whaling life. So I went to India to photograph Soundarya's wedding and on the day that I left, Julius Rexford and crew struck a bowhead, even as Thomas and his crew were closing in on another.

Thomas turned away from the whale that looked like it was about to come to his boat and rushed off to help Julius land his.

Now I am very embarrassed. I do not have a picture of Julius at AFN to post here. I saw him, we had a good chat, but, as I did in many cases at AFN, I got so wrapped up in the conversation that I simply forgot to take a picture.

Julius received AFN's Culture Bearer Award at this convention.

You can find pictures of Julius in my Point Lay Nalukataq series.

Here are some of the others who helped land, butcher, divide and share the Point Lay bowhead: Amy Henry, Sophie Henry, Marie Tracey and Lena Henry. The Henry's are all sisters, Sophie is Marie's daughter-in-law and her husband, Bill Jr., is Tom's harpooner and a good, all-around right-hand man.

I am running out of time, so I am not going to say much about these two, Roy Nageak of Barrow and Nannie Ray Kaigeluk of Nuiqsut. They both have roles in the project that I am working on. After that project is done, I am going to share the results with you, so you can learn about them, then.

Now I must hurry: Paulette Moreno, Tlingit poet, actress and playwright, chatting with Mike Williams.

Deborah Vo, who I knew as the Executive Director the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council in the late '90's and early '00's.

Robin Demoski, who took my picture.

Laura Itta, of Barrow. I can assure you, there are stories behind all of these people, but I am flat out of time for now.

Tomorrow, I will publish the final episode of this series and then I will leave the AFN Convention behind until next year.

Comments

[gdwyer]

Thank you so much for sharing. I really enjoy your blog and feel like I know some of these people now too.

[Sirraq Khan (Selma)]

What project are you working on?!

[Ruth Z Deming]

the women of alaska are incredibly beautiful. to earn some money, bill, why not make a calendar of them, highlighting each one per month. its sale would benefit both you and some of the causes you espouse. we have the audubon bird calendar, the sierra club nature calendar, why not the alaskan women calendar. think on it, my son, think on it.

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

I am so behind on comments that I do not feel that I can catch up, but, first, Selma, my project is the special issue of Uiñiq Magazine that I told you about.

gdwyer: Glad to hear it.

Ruth - Interesting idea, but I am too shy to undertake such a project.

[kathy]

Beautiful people. Beautiful culture. Beautiful blog.

Thankyou for inviting me into your world.

[Sirraq Khan (Selma)]

Oh Okay. Just thought you were working on another project knowing how busy you can get. Hopefully Kalib can ease things out...