Last Friday, a sleepy man flew to Kaktovik
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 11:23AM 
Despite multiple attempts, I was unable to put up a single post during my stay in Kaktovik - thanks to Squarespace.* So now I back up to Friday, the day I left, a day that began miserably. This was because I did not get to bed until 1:00 AM, but set my alarm for 3:55 AM.
It was not necessary for me to set the alarm at all, because when I must wake up at such an hour, I really don't sleep at all. I might drop into a semi-doze for five, ten - and if I am very lucky - 15 minutes at a time and then my eyes open and I check the time.
Still, I set the alarm just in case I should somehow actually fall into a deep sleep.
It didn't happen, though.
At 3:54, I was watching the clock. I could have turned it off, but Margie needed to wake up, too, and it was easier for me to let the alarm wake her than to wake her myself.
Margie has been blessed with the gift of sleep. Her head hits the pillow and she's asleep, usually until its time to get up.
I have been cursed with the curse of insomnia.
Worse yet, the less time I have to sleep, the more insomniak I am.
I often wonder how I function at all.
As for Jim, he sleeps at will and also takes many cat naps.
Soon, I was in the car with Margie, driving to Anchorage, to the airport, to hop on my first Era Aviation flight, the one that would take me from Anchorage to Fairbanks.
I desperatedly wanted to sleep on that flight, but I could not.
In Fairbanks, I switched to the plane that would take me to Kaktovik. I was the only passenger, but the plane was full - full of freight.
For those of you who may wonder why everything is so expensive in Rural Alaskan places like Kaktovik, this is why. Except for a barge load or two in the summer, this is how goods travel - including all fresh food, milk and such.
Even with bypass mail, this is not a cheap way to stock the shelves.
Again, I wanted to sleep but again, I could not. Still, I kept my eyes closed. I figured that would help. Accompanied by the roar of the engine and the props beating the air, I held my eyes closed as images, often bordering on dreams, played in my head.
Images of the living, and images of the dead; pictures of places, from Alaska to Arizona, to India and Canada and Greenland and New York City and San Francisco - all sorts of images of people and places, swirling about in my head as the plane carried me over Northern Alaska.
I wanted to hold my eyes closed forever.
I knew I could not do that. So I decided I would hold them closed until I felt the plane stall and the wheels hit the runway in Kaktovik.
But I couldn't do that, either. At a certain point, I knew we had to be drawing near to Kaktovik. We had to be passing over the Brooks Range.
"Eyes!" I ordered. "I have seen the Brooks Range many times! I do not need to see it now! It is better for you to stay closed, so that I might get what little rest I can."
My eyes did not listen.
They popped open.
And there, beneath the plane, stood the Brooks Range.
Very soon, the plane was descending, the Beaufort Sea below.
Then, it was dropping down over the westerns fringes of Barter Island, the northern-most point of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, upon which sits Kaktovik.
Then came the stall, and the bump of the wheels. Now we were rolling down the runway, past the massive hangar built by the Air Force in the early 1950's, when they force-moved the Iñupiat of Kaktovik out of their homes so that they could build this airport where the old village had stood.
I was hungry by now, so, after Crystallee Kaleak and Annie Tikluk found lodging for me in the Assembly of God Church and I got settled in, I walked to Waldo Arms and ordered an omelette.
As I ate, someone came in and peeked through the telescope that points out the Waldo Arms window toward the sea and shore, to see if perhaps there were polar bears out there.
He spotted none.
And then, I was standing on a beach, camera in hand. People were smiling, and waving. I will explain in a subsequent post.
I was about to state that I would explain in tomorrow's post, however, tomorrow is a very special day in someone's life, someone who had a most important role in the happenings that unfolded in Kaktovik, so maybe I will dedicate tomorrow's post to him, instead, and save my larger explanation for the next day.
*Squarespace has an iPad app, but it is a pretty lousy app. I did not have access to wireless where I stayed, so, when I would get a chance, I would go to the school and usually sit on the steel stairway and log on to North Slope Borough School District public wireless.
I built three different posts in the Squarespace app but at the end of each attempt was rewarded only with a rotating, circular, arrow above the word, "publishing." After the failure of my first attempt, which included three photos, I figured maybe Squarespace just could not deal with that tiny amount of information on a slow connection, so I made a new post with just one photo.
After that failed, I made a thrid post that contained only words and no image at all.
Just like before, the publishing arrow just rotated and rotated and rotated - for two days it rotated. yet never published the post. Sometime before the end of fall, I must make the time to research some other web-hosting platforms. When I find the right one, I will move this blog and my future electronic publishing efforts to it.
Reader Comments (6)
I always feel like I'm travelling with you Bill. Thank you for sharing your adventures. I also wish I could give you the gift of easy sleep.
Bill, one of your pictures made it on to the BBC websiste!
Around here that means you are now officially a God. Congratulations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14141261
Waoh Bill, you rock and you always do. Thanks for sharing this adventure with us!!!
I know you were tired Bill, but you just can't pass up a chance to look at the Brooks Range!
Curiosity at your expense aside, I can't imagine what it is like to live with sleeplessness. I'm sorry for that. It sounds like there are terrible chemical ways to help, wish something more natural were out there. I wonder what Elders would say?
I love the photo of the older kids with the piggy-backers - in the village we used to call that a noise (not really a word) where we would purse our lips and make almost a raspberry sound but it sounded like, Brrr-ah.
Can so much relate to the hitting da pillow thing!! I am so much like Aunt Margie I sleep in like max 5min and Manu will be awake for hours after dat :( hope u managed to get some rest after ur return!
Bill, may I suggest Melatonin? It does wonders for me.
Happy Birthday!