I leave my family and cool and rainy weather behind and drop into sweltering, hot, Barrow where I find Dustinn Craig, teaching young people how to make movies

During my very brief stay at home, I took a number of pictures of my family that I intended to post so that I could let readers know a little bit about what we experienced in our short times together. Included among these were my son Rex with his special new friend, an adventurous young woman by the name of Ama from the San Francisco Bay area who has been out hiking, camping, and kayaking around Alaska.

Unfortunately, I forgot to transfer them into my laptop. This one, final, family image that I took was still in my pocket camera, which I put in my pocket before I left and so it came to Barrow with me.

As you can see, it is of Jobe, studying his dad as he shaves.

I often wonder how it is that Jacob ever learned to shave in the first place.

He sure as hell didn't learn it from me.

I haven't shaved in 92 years - well, maybe its been a little less than that, but not much.

Not long after I boarded the jet that would take me from Anchorage to Barrow, I heard someone call my name from a seat just a few rows behind me. I turned. It was Qaaiyan. For those of you who have read Gift of the Whale, Qaaiyan was the boy making coffee with a pick ax from freshwater ice that he had learned to find on the salty, frozen, sea. 

He was with Jamie and their new baby, Aagluaq. The "g" is supposed to have a dot over it but if there is a way to do that in this program, I do not know it.

For those of who have seen my latest Uiñiq magazine, Jamie is the girl taking the accidental dive, braids flying, off the blanket toss during the Point Hope Nalukatak.

As for Aagluaq, dotted "g," this is my first photograph.

Oh, wait - I think I also posted the picture of Jamie in the Point Lay series I put up on this blog in June of last year. Give me just a moment and I will go check for certain and I will find a link. Oh, heck - I am certain. She's there. I don't need to check, I just need to find the link.

So give me just a moment and I will go find it...

I found it, here it is.

Shortly after we departed Anchorage, the pilot spoke on the intercom to tell us what kind of weather conditions awaited us on our journey. He said it was 80 degrees in Fairbanks, which is not at all that unusual in the summer and it can significantly hotter than that, but when he said it was 70 degrees in Barrow, I wondered if I had heard him right.

It's not that this never happens in Barrow, but it doesn't happen that often. I know - some of you read "70 degrees" and laugh, but let me assure you that in Barrow, 70 degrees is hotter than it is anywhere else that I have ever been. 

When I arrived in Barrow, I found it simply sweltering. Roy Ahmaogak picked me up and brought me home. There, in his parent's living room, I found a a visitor, young Katilynn, desperately trying to cool herself in front of an electric fan. And if you look closely at the background, you will see a hand-fan in motion as well.

I should note that, as of today, it is much cooler: 43 degrees. It is raining and most people would probably consider it cold.

I hope it isn't raining during tomorrow's afternoon football game - the season opener. I plan to be there, taking pictures and I don't want to get my cameras all wet.

I was most happy that this trip to Barrow coincided with a visit by the Apache-Navajo filmmaker Dustinn Craig, the son of my late and special friend, Vincent Craig. I am also proud to call Dustinn my special friend. We were together at the moment of his dad's death and we share some things.

Dustinn was finishing up a two-week Media Camp where he had been teaching filmmaking to a group of young people from high school to college age who had gathered at Ilisagvik College from various Arctic Slope communities.

I dropped in a little more one hour before the students were to show their movies to the public. Most of the movies were finished and ready to be shown, but Gabe Tegoseak, the tall guy in the back, was still finishing up the editing on his - with Dustinn's help, to be certain that it would barely be ready to show.

Gabe's movie starred Gabe himself and it was a take off on a popular TV show about a guy who goes out into wild places to survive only off of what he can take from nature.

Speaking with a perfect Australian-Iñupiaq accent, Gabe leads viewers on a hilarious Iñupiaq survival adventure that begins in the local grocery store and progresses to the tundra, where he eats caribou poop that looks strangely like candy, drinks what appears to be a wildly-squirting fountain of yellow liquid created by his own kidneys and wrestles a dangerous creature from Iñupiaq lore that strangely looks and acts like a kitty cat with a sock on its head.

At least, there is a sock on its head for a few moments.

Damnit. I hate it when people give away the ending or the good parts of a movie and now I just did it myself.

Also pictured are student filmmakers Chris Ross, sitting next to Dustinn, and Joey Atkins. Chris created a dreamlike horror tribute inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Joey presented a soul-stealing wraith whose fearsomeness was accentuated by the special effects he worked into his film.

Both films were damned frightening, with some humor thrown in.

At points early in the process, these students had felt overwhelmed by the process they faced, but they got through that, had fun and created some good work which I hope is soon online.

Onscreen is Dominque Rose Nayukok of Atqasuk. She created a movie in which she used stills to tell the story of her home village. Unfortunately, her travel schedule had taken her back to Atqasuk earlier in the day, but we got to meet her onscreen.

Agnes Akokok and Lavisa Ahvakana of Wainwright both love to Eskimo dance and so they made Eskimo dance the subject of their movie. Each took their turns onscreen to narrate the action.

Each time that Lavisa appeared onscreen, offscreen she got to feeling a little shy and bashful. She did a good job, though - one that I would say has earned her the right to hold her head high.

As Gabe stands laughing in the background, the audience laughs at his survival film. This kid ought to be on TV performing his antics every week. I think he would be loved, far and wide.

Afterwards, Gabe asked Dustinn if he would help him record some of his own guitar playing and singing, so Dustinn did. April Phillip, who, among her other filmmaking activities played the main character/victim in Chris's Alfred Hitchcock tribute, helped out.

I shot this through the very dust-coated window of the class van as Dustinn drove April and I back into Barrow from Ilisagvik college, located at the old Naval Arctic Research Labratory three miles north of town. It was a beautiful, warm, night and many people were out on the beach, the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean behind them.

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Comments

[mocha]

Nice to see young people having a good time and using their creativity. And I just can't get over 70 being sweltering, I guess it's like here in the winter when you get one or two days in the 40s - everyone runs around in shorts because it feels so warm.