Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon!
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 3:14PM ;)
This is Robert John Gordon and today is his seventh birthday. Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon! We share birthdays, you and I. Robert lives in the Brooks Range village of Anaktuvuk Pass, but I took this picture in Kaktovik, outside the community center, just a little before midnight on July 8, the day that I arrived in Kaktovik.
Here is Robert again, standing amidst loved ones at the graves of Thomas K. and Simon Gordon. The woman wearing the parka and standing behind Robert is Mayuin Gordon, wife of Thomas and adoptive mother of both Simon and Robert. She had been out on a hunting trip with her family on August 1 of 2008 when her husband slipped on a steep bank and fell into a deep pool of cold water that he could not get out of.
Twelve-year old Simon followed him into the inescapable water, and it is my understanding that he did so in an effort to rescue his father.
Kaktovik has a population of just under 300 people and when Mayuin returned driving the boat without her husband and son Simon, the entire village came to her and then went back to the scene to find and recover the bodies.
Thomas had been a leader in the village and I can tell you from my own experience with him that he was an exceptionally warm and kind man. He was beloved in the village and the people also had high hopes for Simon, as they watched him grow.
Their loss left the community in deep and lingering sadness. Thomas had been a guitar player, and loved to perform gospel music. So, last summer, both to honor Thomas and Simon and to bring healing to the community, the village held the first Thomas K. Gordon Memorial Gospel Jamboree. Yes, there was gospel singing, but also community games, played on the beach and at the community center; there was a feast, a bonfire, a talent show, snert tournament and an Arctic char fishing derby.
The healing extended beyond Thomas and Simon to all those who had lost loved ones and families.
People cried, but they also laughed.
Had I have known, I would have been there, but I knew this year and so came for the second jamboree.
It was a wonderful experience. Needless to say, I took lots and lots and lots of pictures and it had been my hope to do a decent summary on this blog. However, deadlines are weighing heavy upon me. In addition to the healthy communities Uiñiq that will include this story, I have another Uiñiq on Kivgiq that is JUST ABOUT press ready.
What I have discovered is that JUST ABOUT - layout all done, most of the photos adjusted, most of the text written - can still mean days, even a couple of weeks, of work ahead and once that is done I must go to Kotzebue to do a job that has nothing to do with Uiñiq. Sometime in August, I plan to visit Atqasuk and maybe Arctic Village and then, somehow, I must have this healthy communities Uiñiq press-ready by the first week of September.
So I think I will wait until after Uiñiq comes out to post this story. By then, I hope to have figured out how to make and present the electronic magazine that I want to create. If so, then I plan to go back and rework some of the Uiñiq stories for that. This way, the stories can be shared with people who will never see Uiñiq magazine.
As for those who do see Uiñiq, I will be able to share more pictures that space will have prevented me from including in Uiñiq.
So that is my plan.
There is no way to know what will actually happen until it happens.
That goes for tomorrow and the next day, too.
The fence beyond the graveyard is a snow fence - built to catch the constant fall, winter and spring drift so as to lessen the amount of deep drifting within the village.
;)
I should note that when I first met Thomas Gordon, in September of 1986, he was living in Mayuin's home village of Anaktuvuk Pass. Each September, the people of Anaktuvuk eagerly await the migration of caribou that pass through and by their village.
Before passing through, the caribou tend to gather in herds just to the north of the Brooks Range. By their own traditional law, no one is to disturb or shoot a caribou until the first group enters their valley and passes by the village. This is because a gunshot or disturbance might frighten the lead caribou and cause them to change routes. Once the leaders have passed through, the rest will follow, no matter how many shots are taken. In that year, the people had observed the caribou gather as normal, but they did not come to the village. They chose another another route to the west.
There had been sport hunters camped down where the caribou had gathered. They did know of local, native, traditional law nor did they care about it. When they saw the caribou, they did not wait for the leaders to pass by and enter the valley.
They shot.
So, without caribou, Thomas and his friend Harry went out to hunt moose, and I followed. We did not find any moose. It was frustrating, but Thomas never grew angry. He did not swear. He did not say anything bad about anybody - not even the sport hunters whose shots may have turned the caribou from the village.
He was sad, but his humor remained good.
Reader Comments (6)
Happy Birthday Robert John Gordon and Bill Hess!
What is a snert tournament? searching the term turned some rather peculiar acronyms but nothing sensible.
Blessings on Kaktovik.
Happy birthday, Robert! Welcome to a new year of your life. I do hope that this next year will be filled with not only the joy of being with family and friends, but also the wonder found within books! Have a wonderful time!
Oh, today it was almost 90 degrees in our town. I was not happy! What would you do if it were this hot where you live?
"There is no way to know what will actually happen until it happens."
I like to think this is a good thing. How much joy would a new dawn bring if we knew in advance what lay in wait for us?
You are, at some point, going to have to tell us what a snert tournament is.
The card game is actually called "Nertz", -- but somehow we changed it to Snertz....its fun for all ages, young and old.... Haha, I know, Inupiaq name for Nertz is Snertz....
sending all my love to ROBERT..if you see him again FROSTY
give him a hug from civi
happy birtday to all of you!
Thanks Flora!