Buddy, a dog from Wasilla, makes good in Barrow; Flossie feeds me a good Iñupiaq lunch

As I walked from the far end of the sprawling Barrow neighborhood of Browerville, I passed by the Northern Lights Restaurant. I was hungry, and for a moment I thought maybe I would go in and buy some chow mien or Kung Pao chicken.

What a foolish thought! I was on my way to the home of Roy and Flossie Nageak and I knew that they would feed me - and it would be a bigger, better, meal than I would get in a restaurant. I needed to save room in my tummy for it, so I just walked right by Northern Lights.

Soon, I was sitting on the living room couch. Roy was out for a bit, but Flossie was there and so was Buddy, a half-dalmatian dog that came to Barrow from Wasilla.

Buddy was happy to see me. He wanted to know everything that had happened in Wasilla since he left as a pup, all these many years ago.

When I told him, he simply could not believe it.

I mean, if it wasn't something that we have witnessed, who could possibly believe it?

Roy and Flossie's grandson Amare Roy, a beautiful mix of Iñupiaq and Filipino, was there. He pedaled about as Flossie pulled together the ingredients for a good lunch.

Soon, she called me to the table. Laid before me was bowhead maktak and flipper, frozen caribou, frozen fish and seal oil. That's a frozen grayling that she is cutting with her ulu. 

When I was still new to this country, I once took a seat at an Iñupiat table and my hostess asked me if I needed a steak knife. "Yes," I answered, picturing one of those flimsy, serrated things that mainstream America calls steak knifes.

Instead, she sat a big, sturdy-bladed, razor-honed, hunting knife in front of me. This, and even better, an ulu, is the kind of knife it takes to slice up Iñupiaq food. Using what Mainstream America calls a steak knife, you could not possibly cut up the maktak you see on the other side of the knife.

I soon learned to carry a good knife with me at all times. This worked out well for awhile and I stayed well-fed, but then along came international terrorism and tightened airport security. I kept forgetting to take my $50 to $70 folding knives out of my pocket and the good folk of the Transportation Security Administration kept taking those knives away from me.

So now I must borrow a knife whenever I eat an Iñupiaq meal.

I had not had such a meal for awhile. This one was excellent - and the blubber that you see attached to the black skin is not at all like beef fat and it is healthy. It is full of the good kind of chorlesteral. The black skin is rich in Vitamin C.

It is the food of the Arctic, and it is the best food to eat in the Arctic - especially if you want to stay warm.

Plus, my tummy had been feeling irritated for a couple of days. This good, oily, food calmed it down and made it feel much better.

Flossie offers a piece of frozen grayling to Amare, but today he wants a hotdog.

Flossie slices up a hotdog with her ulu and then the three of us chow down. My fingers quickly became too oily to handle my camera, so I put it down.

After we had eaten, Flossie brewed tea.

And cookies go good with tea.

This is what it looked like out the window. The sun has been down now since November 18, but, as you can see, it is on its way back. It will rise for about half-an-hour on Saturday, January 23 - tomorrow. It's time above the horizon will then increase for about 15 minutes a day until midnight on May 10. It will then slide across the northern horizon of the sea ice and then not set again until early August.

Sadly, I will not be able to photograph the return of the sun. Lavina is having labor contractions, more than a month early, and while they are far apart and the hope is she can hold off for another week or more, I am going home. I have accomplished all that I needed to accomplish this trip and, as much as I would like to photograph the returning sun, I want even more to be there when my next grandchild is born.

I want Margie to be there, too, and Mary, Lavina's mom. So I really hope this new baby waits awhile - but, just in case these contractions grow strong and push it out, I am going home so I can be there.

After Roy returned, everybody gathered around my laptop to see a picture spread that I did with images that I took of them last summer.

Roy and Amare, with Flossie in the background.

Joe the Water Man pours coffee at Pepe's; Emily plays Little Dribblers as she prepares for surgery; Little Alan - his grandfather watches old Barrow movies

It was a good and productive day - but I took very few pictures as I have already done all the images for this project.

I did photograph Joe the Water Man, however, as he poured coffee this morning at Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant, where I ate a breakfast of ham, eggs, hash browns and wheat toast.

Not so long ago, there was two ways to get water into your home in Barrow. You could go to Freshwater Lake, cut out some blocks of ice, put them on your sled, bring them home, lug them into your house, put them into the water barrel to melt - or you could call out for the kind of service provided by Joe the Waterman.

If you called Joe, he would show up wearing no parka, no hat, not even a sweatshirt - it did not matter what the temperature was; even when it dropped into the minus 50's, Joe wore only a t-shirt and jeans (but always a good pair of gloves).

When I would see him this way, I always worried about the outcome should he break down somewhere on a truly bitter day, lose the heat in his truck and have too great a distance to cover on foot to the next heated structure to get there before the cold got him.

Praise be! It never happened.

He drove the truck for his mother, Fran Tate, and now he waits tables and helps her run Pepe's, which has brought her world-wide fame as the owner of the farthest north Mexican Restaurant in the world. Johnny Carson even brought her on his show once, and she brought an "oosik"... wait... wait... wait...

I should tell this story with a picture of Fran, who is now well into her 70's and still running the show.

I did not see her today, but maybe I will catch her before I leave. I don't know. I might, I might not.

Here's Joe at the cash register, where he just took my money. Concerning the characters on the shelf behind him, he said the seven to the right are the cooks who work at Pepe's and the paunch-bellied blonde to the left "is my mom."

A decade or so has passed since Joe quit driving the water truck, but people still call him and ask him to bring them water.

This is ten year-old Emily Brower, and she had stopped briefly at the home of her Aapa and Aaka, Savik and Myrna Ahmaogak, to pick Myrna up and take her to Wednesday evening church services.

Emily was born with a cleft-palette and has had five corrective surgeries and will soon be going to Anchorage for another. After that, she will get braces. She has made huge progress and I believe she will continue to do so.

Emily is playing Little Dribblers basketball. "I love it," she says.

This is Emily's cousin, Little Alan Beall, who is also going to church with his Aaka Myrna and his Aunt Jo-Jo Brower, Emily's mom.

Little Alan's mother, Shareen, reports that lately, Little Alan has begun making regular visits to the home of his Aunt Jo-Jo, Uncle Arnold and cousin Emily. He enjoys the feeling of independence that he gets when he leaves his mother behind and goes off to visit without her (Jo-Jo comes and picks him up).

Lately, his hair had grown long but he did not want to let anyone cut it. So he was told that if he wanted to keep visiting his aunt and uncle, he had to let Uncle Arnold cut it.

So he did. His hair is short now. His visits continue.

I spent some time tonight watching old Barrow films from the 40's and 50's with Savik, who recently returned from Anchorage where he had kidney surgery. "Now, I have to build up my strength," he told me.

Here, he watches as a woman from the days of his youth is tossed high off the boatskin blanket at the whaling feast of Nalukatak. When I first met Savik over a quarter-of-a-century ago, he was still recovering from having broken both legs doing the blanket toss in Wainwright.

At a different point in the film, we watched as people clad in their Sunday best parkas poured out of the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church. "There's Mom!" he said as several women exited together.

We also watched as a runner came into the village off the sea ice, carrying the flag of his whaling crew. This told the village that the crew had just landed a bowhead.

Today, the landing of a whale is still announced in this ceremonial way, but everybody knows as the news is instantly broadcast over VHF radio. Usually a youth carries the flag as he races to town on his snowmachine. 

In those days, Savik told me, the young man always ran with the flag. He did not even take a dog team. Trails can easily be ten, 15 miles long and the sea ice very rough.

Those runners were tough guys.

"Praying for you, praying for you,

someone is praying for you

Your path may be darkened

Your friends may be few

but someone is praying for you."

Savik has gone to bed, but his TV is still on - a recording of a singspiration in Wainwright, and the song from which the verse above comes from is being sung - first in Iñupiaq, then English.

Smoked salmon, Trevor Study # 5 and the flight to Barrow; Aarigaa Java (Good Coffee) with the temperature closing in on 40 below

The lady at the baggage counter informed me that the current temperature in Barrow was -33, and then I went through security where a huge man with gigantic hands patted me down. Frankly, I would have been less uncomfortable if it had been a petite woman with small hands.

I then continued on through the concourse toward Gate C-4, when I saw Janey coming in the opposite direction. We stopped to give each other hugs and then she pulled a packed of king salmon, smoked Yup'ik style, out of her bag and gave it to me.

Janey had been in Bethel, where someone had given her a bunch of salmon. When she learned that I was going to Barrow, she wanted to come, too, but she was going south.

The kid sitting by the window is Trevor, who graduated from Wasilla High with Caleb. Over the past few years, I have happened upon him a number of times at airports and in villages where he has gone to work on construction projects.

Even before I started this blog, I kept a photo journal, so I always photographed him and put him in it.

I have enough photos of Trevor to start calling him a study. So I will call this, "Trevor Study, #5" - five being a number I just picked out of the air, because I really don't know how many times I have photographed him so far.

He was on his way to Wainwright, via Barrow, to work on the ongoing water and sewer project there.

I wonder where "Trevor Study, #6" will be photographed?

These two board in Anchorage. They will debark in Fairbanks.

The flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks is only 40 minutes, so they offer you a choice of only two beverages, water or orange juice. I went for the water. I was parched, so I was glad to get that water.

We dropped the Fairbanks people off, picked up a few dozen more passengers, then headed on to Barrow. Now we are about to get off. I am sorry, but I have forgotten their names. 

I join my fellow passengers and debark in Barrow, where the temperature is still - 33. I am a little disappointed. I had hoped it would be colder.

People come from all over the world to drive Taxi's in Barrow. I have had drivers from Latvia, the Middle East, Korean, Phillipines - from all over. This fellow is from Asia and had a strong accent, but I don't know what country.

He dropped me off here, at Roy Ahmaogak's house. Roy is my host and that is his dog, Dawson, who has been around for a long time.

In the summer, Dawson jumps in the boat and goes to caribou and fish camp.

 

This morning when I got up, it was still -33, but then temperature started to drop. I took this picture at 12:30, as I walked to lunch at Osaka, eager to order Bento Box #3, which comes with three pieces of sushi, Terriyaki chicken, miso soup, rice, and a wide array of tempura vegetables and shrimp, plus a pot sticker.

About 3:30, I headed over to Aarigaa Java. "Aarigaa" is the Iñupiat word for "excellent, superb - very good."

"Hi Bill. You want your Americano?" Thelma asked when Noe drove us up to the window. Thelma does not forget, even though it has been six months since I last came to this window.

By now, the temperature was approaching -40 and still dropping.

This caused me to feel better about things.

In the evening, I took a short walk and photographed the steeple of the Utgiaqvik Presbyterian Church. I brought my big DSLR's on this trip, but I did no photography work today so I never got them out.

I stuck with the pocket camera.

No, it can't match the DSLR's in so many ways, but I love the pocket camera. It is so much fun.

I land in Barrow, sit down to make this post only to experience technical difficulties

Due to a technical difficulty that I should have foreseen and could have easily taken care of in advance, I am temporarily unable to download the photos that I took today, enroute to Barrow from Wasilla. I am fixing the problem, but it requires a download and my connection here is not so fast as at home.

I have been downloading for nearly an hour and my computer says I still have two hours and 59 minutes to go before it is complete. I can't stay up that long, so...

No post today.

Except for this one.

And this one doesn't count.

I should be back with something, even if brief, tomorrow.

Vagabond coffee drinker in front of the world; Kalib comes to feed Bobby and the fish, then takes them home

Kalib was asleep in his car seat when he and his parents arrived to pick up the fish and so the lot of us headed over to Palmer to get some coffee at Vagabond Blues. Some of you may recall an earlier stop at Vagabond in August, when I photographed Charlie standing in front of this very map.

I have decided that each time I wind up in Vagabond with Charlie, I will photograph him in front of this map.

It should prove to be an interesting study.

I wish I had thought of it years ago.

The lady behind the cash register at Vagabond Blues in Palmer.

Kelsey, Vagabond Blues barista.

Charlie and his mug. Charlie always comes up with neat mugs.

Kalib was still asleep when we arrived at Vagabond, so Jacob had to stay in the car with him.

By the time we returned home, Kalib was wide awake. The first thing that he asked to do was to come out here to my office to feed "Bobby," to feed "fish." Ever since he has moved into his new home in Anchorage, he has continually brought up the subject of feeding fish. He has been sad that he had no fish to feed. His parents found what appeared to be a good deal on an aquarium complete with fish on Craigslist, but someone else beat them to it.

So I decided to give him one of my four active aquariums - not the one behind him, but the one that is most prominent in my earlier Kalib-fish feeding pictures.

I don't think that he understood yet that he would be going home with an aquarium and fish of his own.

Before they took the fish, Kalib, Jacob and Melanie did a little fish dance.

We also shared a little dinner. Royce took a seat near his buddy.

Kalib points at Bobby, his favorite fish, the one he named, the big pleco. I'm afraid that I did not do too well taking pictures of the fish-moving, because I was too active in the process.

I kept the orange parrot fish pictured in earlier posts. I moved it from the 55 gallon tank that Kalib would take home to the 90 gallon tank where Bobby had lived.

Kalib, about to leave for home with his fish.

I hope they all survive. They are pretty old fish, mostly eight and nine years, but the two smaller ones are four or five; I can't remember exactly.

Had things gone according to my original plan, I would have joined Margie in Arizona today. Tomorrow, assuming that everything goes according to my current plan, I will go to Barrow.

I have much to do in a short time up there. I will try to post every day, at least one or two pictures.