Wandering about AFN, Part 5: More of the many faces that I saw

This is Mae Lange of Cordova, with her son, Tom. I used to go to Cordova often and whenever I did, at least one morning, usually Sunday, she and her late husband, Fred, would invite me over for breakfast.

Oh, did I love breakfast at Mae's! I don't remember how long she has had her sourdough starter brewing, but it is a long time and she would keep those sourdough pancakes coming, along with all the bacon, sausage and eggs-over-easy that I could eat.

In fact, she would feed me more than I could eat, and I would happily eat it all.

And when we weren't eating, she and Fred had many stories to tell me, ranging from their experiences running a fishing tender in Prince William Sound to Fred's role in the battle to retake the Aleutian Island of Attu to hanging out with Bob Hope in Palm Springs, where they tried to retire for awhile - but, when you've known Prince William Sound, how can you ever be happy in Palm Springs?

That's Caleb Pungowiyi on the left and Mike Williams on the right. Pungowiyi is very short, even shorter than me (I think. Sometimes I think I am taller than I actually am) but don't be fooled. He is an ex Special Forces paratrooper, so you know that he is tough.

Of course he is. One has to be tough to grow up as a hunter on St. Lawrence Island, where Pungowiyi did, in the village of Savoonga.

He is also the past President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

If you live in Alaska or pay close attention to this place, you probably already know who Mike Williams is. He is the famous "Sobriety Musher" who declared war on alcohol and drug abuse after he lost all six of his brothers to incidents involving alcohol. 

The Iditarod Trail has been his battlefield. In the early days, he fought the fight by carrying pledges to stay sober for one year and he would give them to people along the way to sign. In 2000, I followed along in my little airplane.

Mike Williams will not be running in the next Iditarod, but Mike Williams plans to. Jr., that is. Mike Williams Jr. will be making his first run. This does not mean Mike Sr. is retiring, "The Iditarod is in my blood," he told me. "I'm not retiring."

He also fights for Alaska's tribes and the education of Native youth.

I first met Al Adams at a dinner table in the restaurant of NANA's Nulugvik Hotel in Kotzebue in 1981, when he was a member of Alaska's House of Representatives. He had recently played a lead role in forming a bipartisan coalition of rural legislators that, for many years, provided Native and rural Alaskans with unprecedented power in Juneau.

He later served as the Senator for Northern Alaska and is now an influential lobbyist.

Ben Nageak, former Mayor of the North Slope Borough, holds his baby granddaughter, Madeline, who is the daughter of his late son, Perry. Standing proudly beside her is granddaughter Angela and looking back, daughter-n-law Elli. 

Connie Oomittuk, formerly of Point Hope but now of Palmer, observes.

When you are in town for AFN, you run into friendly people wherever you go. I was walking across Fourth Avenyue looking for food when I heard someone shout from a car, "Hi Bill!" It was Brittney, niece of my friend and colleague in Barrow, Noe Texeria.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that, due to getting hung up in Wasilla, I arrived late on opening day and missed the dual keynote addresses of Willie and Elizabeth Hensley. I arrived shortly before noon and, as I stepped to the doorway opening into the convention hall, an old friend whom I had not seen in over a decade came dashing over to say "hi."

As we stood at the doorway, talking, I became aware of a beautiful, young, female, voice singing "God Be With You 'til We Meet Again," in Yup'ik. The doorway to the hall is far away from the stage, but I looked and saw Alaska Congressman Don Young standing on stage between his two daughters, Joni Nelson and June Valley.

A large image of his wife, Lu, Gwich'in Athabascan, who died in August, was projected onto the screens at either end of the stage. A strong, emotional, moment was happening, but I was too far back to photograph it and it seemed rude to suddenly dash off to the front, so I stayed there with my friend until the song ended.

Then I went up and took this photo, after the main moment had passed, having missed it, but while the feeling still lingered. The song had been sung by 12 year-old Alyson McCarty of Anchorage.

I stopped by a reception sponsored by the Kuukpik Corporation of Nuiqsut. They had door prizes and this boy, who told me his name, but, damnit, I have forgotten, won. He grabbed the poker set. Maybe I will sit in for a few hands with him next time I go to Nuiqsut.

I'll probably leave broke.

Memry Dahl and Janie Leask. Back during my Tundra Times days, Leask, Tsimshian, served AFN as President. Now she is the President and CEO of the First Alaskans Institute. Dahl used to work there with her but is now with the Aleut Corporation.

John Trent, a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife service, and Johnny Leavit of Barrow. Trent's works with walrus and polar bears and so does Leavitt, as a traditional hunter.

In June of 1991, Luke Koonook was 65 when I saw him climb onto the skin-boat blanket at Qaqrugvik, the spring whale feast in Point Hope. Given his age, I wondered if they would toss him more gently than they did youthful celebrants.

No! They tossed him high and hard and he easily rose more than 16 feet above the ground. I know, because I had mounted a camera atop a 16 foot two-by-four and in some of my images, Luke is above the camera.

Sylvia Lange, daughter of Mae, who is at the top of this thread. Sylvia is a commercial fisherwoman and was once featured on a CNN special about strong, independent, women. She also owns the Reluctant Fisherman Inn in Cordova. Two summers ago, before either my wife or I got banged up the way we have been the last two summers, I put our car on the ferry in Whittier and took Margie to Cordova - not for work, but for fun.

We stayed in a suite overlooking the boat harbor at the Reluctant Fisherman and it was truly wonderful. We could look out the window and see otters swimming, as fishing boats came and went.

I would recommend the Reluctant Fisherman Inn to anyone.

Children join in with the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian dance group that came from Juneau.

The children dance to the beat of the box drum.

I hate to go into overkill, seeing as how AFN took place last week and is now a memory slipping into history, but I have already placed the photos for two more posts, so I will, and will feature them tomorrow and the next day.

Wandering about AFN, part 4:* Pilot, artists, activists, war hero and more

This is Hugh Patkotak, Iñupiat, North Slope Borough Search and Rescue pilot. I have been fortunate to tag along with him a few times. Once, we were out during an overcast day on a search for some ladies who got lost on the tundra. It was white above, white below, white straight ahead, white all around.

Hugh and his spotter found the women. They were out of gas and were cold and a bit shook up, but were fine. Back at the airport, when their families came to pick them up, there were hugs and tears.

The lady in front is Desa Jacobson, who has conducted long-term fasts in which she has limited herself to coffee and water. She has fasted for subsistence rights and in an effort to try to bring justice to a man who, in the days that she lay dead and undiscovered, had brought friends by to view the body of a Native woman whom he boasted that he had raped and killed.

He was acquitted. This past year, he was charged with the murder of a female neighbor.

Here, Jacobson holds the petition for which she is gathering signatures in a bid to become Alaska's next governor. She was very pleased with the success of her efforts so far - especially that Ethan Berkowitz, who she expects to run against, had signed her petition.

"I"m going to win, too!" she assured me.

The boy walking past in the background is Josiah Patkotak, Iñupiat of Barrow, who I had earlier interviewed for the project that I am working on. He has jumped into politics, too, and was voted in to be the Arctic Slope youth representative to the First Alaskans Elders and Youth Conference, held on Monday and Tuesday of last week.

My friend, Rose Albert, the first Native woman to run the Iditarod and, as I have stated before, in my opinion, Alaska's best Iditarod artist. 

Jim Barker, one of Alaska's truly great photographers. His book, Always Getting Ready, is the classic work on the life of the Yup'ik of Southwest Alaska. He was the official AFN photographer.

Mark Hoover of the Native Village of Eyak, who has one of the largest collections of blues, rock and roll, folk and other kinds of music that I have ever seen.

He likes to hang out with eagles and ravens. He has rescued a number of injured ravens, restored them to health and then turned them free again.

One time I was riding in his truck with him and a one-eyed raven that he had rescued and was nursing back to health when the raven flapped around a bit and then landed on my head. 

And who is this? Why, it's my own beloved daughter-in-law, Lavina, Navajo, with her friend, Steffers, Iñupiat. Lavina bought the little mukluks for our second grandchild, who still floats in her/his mother's womb. 

Jody Potts, Athabascan, and her son, whose name I forget. Sorry. I first met Jody in 1998 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she was competing for the title of Miss National Congress of American Indians. She won. Now she lives in the ruggedly beautiful Copper River Valley Community of Kenny Lake.

John Waghiyi had come from Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island to sell ivory and other art work produced both by himself and many other artists in his village. He told me about a great celebration that his village recently hosted with their relatives and friends who came over from Russia.

The gentleman on the left is Walter Sampson, Iñupiat of NANA. The man with him is John Walsh, who grew up in Nome, but now lives in Juneau and is a lobbiest for many rural organizations. 

As for Walter, I once walked the length of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, with him and he did shed a few quiet tears.

During his own days as a soldier in Vietnam, Sampson saw his best friend get killed. He once set out to climb a hill with 105 men when they got caught in a u-shaped ambush. At the end of the battle, only 24 still stood - the rest having been killed or injured. 

Once, Sampson was sent to help rescue soldiers whose helicopter had been shot down, but he and his men got pinned down in the fire of two machine guns. Sampson worked his way through the fire and took out the machine guns with a grenade.

In another event, Sampson was carrying a radio when his platoon fell into an ambush. Two men manning the platoon machine gun were quickly killed. “So I handed my radio over to my platoon leader and took the machine gun position and stayed on the machine gun all night.  And life was tough, but I managed to get through.”

Sampson was awarded two bronze stars.

After the war, he turned to alcohol and fell into a miserable way of life, but, with the help of his wife and his God, turned it all around.

I once followed George Woods on a caribou hunting trip outside of Nuiqsut - he driving a snowmachine, me riding in the sled behind. On that same trip, I photographed his wedding. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last. His wife later relocated to Anchorage, along with his children.

George wanted to be with them, so he recently moved to Anchorage. He doesn't really care for city life, but it is worth it, to be with his children.

I found him and his son, Jonathan (right) and his nephew, Daniel, as they were coming out of Penney's Mall and I going in.

Jonathan recently enlisted in the Army and will soon be inducted.

Rex and Meda Snyder. Meda is the daughter of former North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmaogak and his wife, Maggie. George was also the first whaling captain to let me follow him out onto the ice and it is he who is on the cover of my book, Gift of the Whale.

Meda was still a girl then, but she quickly grew into an exceptionally beautiful young woman. I wondered who would be the lucky young man to wed her and it was Rex. Again - I stress - I AM NOT A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER - but I did photograph their wedding. They have two children, a boy and a girl.

This is the Barrow Dancers, led by Joe Sage. They are doing a whaling dance. The men behind Joe have been paddling the umiak to a whale. Joe now throws the harpoon. 

The whale is killed. They say a prayer.

One of their dances was dedicated to all the women who sewed the skins that cover the umiak skin boats used for the spring hunt. All women who had done so were invited to come up and dance.

*While I gave the post just before this the number 1, I should have numbered it three, as the two previous dance-related posts are actually a part of this series. I will put up at least one more, possibly two.

Wandering about AFN, Part 1: I see Alaska history, every which way I turn, the man who witnessed my plane crash, Senators and such, etc.

This is Lee Stefan, Dena'ina Athabascan, coming down the escalator in the Dena'ina Convention Center in Anchorage, where the annual convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives was held. Stefan lives in the Native Village of Eklutna, which is located within the Municipality of Anchorage.

Stefan is a past president of the NVE tribal government. He is also an avid photographer. "Come by sometime soon," he invited. "We'll eat moose soup, and we'll go crazy looking at photos."

And here is Willie Hensley of Kotzebue, who became an activist in the 60's and 70's and was one of the original founders of AFN. The Native people of Alaska had become very alarmed at the expanding pace of incursion onto their aboriginal lands, which they had never sold, bartered, or treated away to anyone - Russia, included.

Thus, Native leaders formed AFN to push for a land claims settlement and Hensley played a lead role. The movement culminated in the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which left 44 million of Alaska's 375 million acres to them. 

The act called for the 44 million acres to be deeded to 12 Native Regional Corporations and some 230 village corporations, which were paid $1 billion for the 331 million acres removed from Native aboriginal title. Under the Statehood Act, Alaska would get 103,350,000 acres and the remaining 222 million acres would be held by the Federal Government.

Hensley went on to become one of the more important and influential Native Corporation leaders. This year, his book, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow was released to critical acclaim and has become an Alaskan best-seller.

This year's convention was dedicated to Hensley, and he and his 26 year-old daughter, Elizabeth, gave the keynote address.

This is Elizabeth Hensley, chatting with Phillip Blanchett of the musical group, Pamyua. Sadly for me, I was delayed in Wasilla on the opening morning of AFN and I missed the keynote address that Willie and Elizabeth Hensley delivered together.

After I arrived, many different people told me that the speeches were excellent and they especially praised Elizabeth, a law school graduate now serving as an aide to Alaska State Representative Reggie Joule. She likened what is happening in Rural, Native Alaska today to warfare.

"The war that engulfs us today is a war fought on the battlefield of substance abuse. Self-hatred. Suicide. Rape. Child molestation. This is a war within ourselves," she was quoted in the Anchorage Daily News. "What would happen if each of our tribes created a well-thought out, well-planned system for enforcing law and order? Could any outside force really stop us, 231 tribes, from maintaining peace and harmony within our villages?"

The Alaska Dispatch, quoted her as well: "This war is just as bloody and as damaging as any fought with guns and knives." She spoke of suicide and substance and sexual abuse. "How many of you have cried for hours without knowing why?" she asked, "and how many of you have drank or smoked weed or used meth ... because of a deep emptiness in your stomach?"

This is Etok, Charlie Edwardsen of Barrow, who was also an activist in the movement that led to the passage of ANCSA, but was very disappointed in how it turned out. When the Native leaders present were asked region by region whether they accepted ANCSA, the late Joe Upicksoun, the Arctic Slope Represenative, shouted out, "no!" 

Thus, Edwardsen has always maintained, all the land within the huge area of Alaska from the Brooks Range north to the Arctic Ocean legally still belongs to the Iñupiat, as they never agreed to cede it.

In the decades since ANCSA passed, Edwardsen has actively promoted the rights of Alaska's tribal governments. Don't ever try to argue with him, because you will never win. His brain is like an encyclopedia of Indian law and his voice... you could shout into a microphone and even without one he would still overpower you.

The PBS documentary film, For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, produced by Anchorage-based filmmaker Jeff Silverman, was previewed on opening day. It tells the stories of two Native women who played Rosa Parks-like roles in gaining civil rights for Alaska Natives: Iñupiat Alberta Schenck Adams and Tlingit Elizabeth Peratrovich. Schenck got arrested and jailed for sitting in the whites-only section of a movie theatre in Nome, only to go back and sit there again.

This inspired other Iñupiat to do the same and the theatre owner and police backed down.

Peratrovich stood up to a racist and bullying Alaska Territorial Senator to deliver the testimony that proved key to the passage of Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Bill in 1945.

Diane Benson, the actress, poet and playwright who originally put-together a one-woman play on Peratrovich, reprised that role in the documentary. Afterward, Sarah Thiele, an Athabascan living in Pedro Bay on Lake Iliamna gave this ivory paddle pendant to her.

Thiele said that she has had the pendant for many years. She knew that one day she would give it to someone, but did not know who. After she saw the film, she gave it to Diane.

"It takes work to paddle," Thiele explained. "She never stopped working, she never stopped paddling."

This is Gar Caldwell with his wife Emily and their new baby, Jessica Elizabeth Atkilaq. Let's be clear about one thing - I am not a wedding photographer. I would rather do just about anything than to be a wedding photographer. When people call me up on the phone and ask me if I do weddings, I tell them "no" - even during those times when I am flat broke and desperate for cash. But everynow and then, for a good friend or relative, I will photograph a wedding.

I photographed the Caldwell's. Now I have photographed their baby, too.

When Flore Lekanoff was in his teens, the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor and captured Alaska territory in the Aleutians, including Attu, where they killed two villagers and took the remainder of the Aleut population captive. 

Shortly after the bombing, Lekanof and his family were suddenly evacuated from their home in St. George on the Pribilof Islands and sent by ship to a camp in Southeast Alaska. Aleuts from several villages in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands were evacauted and then housed in old, dilapidated fish canneries and mining camps, where the government abandoned and left them long after the Japanese threat had been eliminating.

St. George lost 25 percent of its population to disease and hunger. Lekanof's sister and grandmother were among them. Flore, however, managed to use the experience to gain broader knowledge of the world and its workings and went on to become a prominent leader.

This is he, with his wife Mary, who I used to work with at the now defunct, Tundra Times.

When I flew my airplane into the trees at Mentasta, Charles David Jr., witnessed the crash. He came running to me and I saw the look on his face go from worry to relief. 

Many people told me that I was lucky, but it is hard to feel lucky when you have just destroyed the symbol of your identity and the foundation upon which you were building your life. Such was the case when I crashed The Running Dog.

Still, it was kind of comforting to see Charles rushing toward me after it happened because, as you can see, he is a strong man.

Charles embraces George Attla, 10 time winner of the Fur Rendezvous World Championship sprint sled dog race and eight time winner of the North American Open. As a boy, Attla suffered a crippling bout of tuberculosis as a boy.

Few believed that he could succeed when he took up dog mushing. His story was told in the film, Spirit of the Wind.

This is Robert Heinrich, commercial fisherman and President of the Native Village of Eyak in Cordova. There is a big story behind this tribal government, but I don't have time to tell it right now. 

In years past, I did some work on contract for NVE. Heinrich, better known locally as "Moose," was a fun person to hang out with. He was in Mentasta the evening that I crashed. The first thing he asked me when I saw him at AFN was, "do you have another airplane yet?"

No, I said, I don't. I have not been able to afford it.

He said that when you have to get something, you just got to do it. When he decided to buy himself a crab boat that cost $250,000 (or was it $450,000?) he didn't have any money but he bought it, anyway.

Yes, that's how I got the Running Dog in the first place - that's how I've done virtually everything that I've ever done, but it's really, really, hard right now. Hard to communicate how hard.

"But I've got to get one, somehow," I told him. "I have no idea how. But I've got things to do."

"Yes, you do!" he said. "And you can't do them without an airplane."

Among the first villages that I traveled to after I got my Alaska start-up job at the Tundra Times was Kwigillingok, a tiny Yup'ik community near the mouth of the Kuskowim.

I had not yet learned to fly and I came in on a commercial flight just as a severe September rainstorm struck the village. Nobody was there to pick me up. I walked through the rain to the post office, where the Post Master lady told me that the man who was supposed to meet me and help me out with the project that I had come to do had left the village and would not be back for a week.

I did not know what to do. The rain was coming down harder and harder and there would not be another plane for three days. I had no place to stay, no food to eat.

So I sat down on a wooden bench to think about it and, as I did, an elderly woman walked into the post office. She looked at me, then began to speak in Yup'ik to the Post Master. They spoke for awhile and several times, the woman looked at me. I knew that I was the subject of the conversation and I imagined that it was not friendly, that she was saying something like, "look at that stupid white man stuck in our village! We don't need him here! What's he doing here, anyway?"

After a few minutes, the Post Master came over to me. "She wants to know if you would like to go to her house and eat dinner with her," she asked me.

So, yes, I went and had dinner - soup, with eyeballs floating in it and it was hot and good.

For the next three days, that Elder woman's home was my home and she was wonderful to me. My trip proved successful.

This woman, master basket weaver Lena Ath, is also from Kwiq.

As you can see, her work is very beautiful - as is the Native spirit of her village. May that spirit never die.

The man in the white shirt is US Senator Mark Begich, Democrat, dancing in an invitational with the Kuugmiut Dancers of Wainwright.

US Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican, follows the lead of Kuugmiut dancer Iqaluk Nayakik. Long-time readers will remember Jason Ahmaogak. He drums behind Senator Murkowski and Iqaluk is his special lady.

Now I do not know what to do. I have enough material like this from this year's AFN convention to make daily posts of this nature for a week - but I can't afford the time to do it.

But I will make a least a couple of more posts, but will make the text even more brief.

I take a short break to post five pictures of Melanie and her cats, from today; I will get back to the AFN images tomorrow

Here is what happened: both Melanie and Lisa filed a complaint that Grahamn Kracker had not put up a new post on the No Cats Allowed blog for far too long. So, today, while I was in Anchorage on what was the final day of the AFN convention, we all had a late lunch together and then I swung by Melanie's where I photographed Slick and Diamond - this being Slick, or Bear Meech, as Melanie usually calls him.

We then went to coffee with Rex and Lisa, and then to Lisa's, where I photographed her new kitten, Zed, as well as the young adult, Juniper.

I then prepared these five images, as well as six others of Lisa's cats, for Grahamn Kracker to post on his silly blog.

But I am so tired and so desperate to go to bed and sleep, that I decided to allow Grahamn Kracker to only post the Lisa cat pictures and I would post Bear Meach and Diamond here.

Tomorrow, I will get back to the pictures I took at AFN and will put up a few posts - because I can't cover it in one.

Melanie, Slick and Diamond.

Diamond leaps over Bear Meach.

Diamond, Melanie and Slick.

Diamond.

That's it. I'm going to bed.

Goodnight!

She dances, then speaks of the cancer her doctor said would kill her six months ago - now she has the support and prayers of the Native community

Mildred Martinez, Tsimshian from Metlakatla, (left) had been dancing strong at AFN's Quyana Alaska Friday night, but then the dancing stopped and she told the crowd about her fight with cancer. What started out as breast cancer had migrated to her spine, into which a metal rod was inserted, and then two tumors went to her brain.

In February, her doctor told her that her situation was hopeless, that it would be futile for him to treat her further and that she should just go home and prepare to die, because she would not make it past April.

Yet, here she was, six months past the deadline her doctor had given her, dancing with a group of Tlingit and Haida dancers from Juneau.

She spoke of how she had not given up just because her doctor said she was done, but had fought on and had found a physician in the Lower 48 who believed she could still make a fight of it. He began to treat her and so she is still here.

"Everyone has the right to fight for their life," she said.

Her fight is not over. Although she still lives, the cancer is still with her and she will soon travel Outside for chemo treatments.

Martinez expressed her faith in God, and stated her belief that He will help her through this.

Out in the crowd, hands lifted up in prayerful support.

Her fellow dancers gathered around her and sang, "How Great Thou Art."

When the song ended, the box drummer returned to his drum. The booming sound that he created was one of power and strength.

After she danced down from the stage and moved in traditional style toward the exit, a hand reached out to her. It would not be the only one.

She danced toward the exit.

Before stepping through the exit into the hall, she received a hug.

She joined in (back row, far right) with her fellow dancers as they waved through the TV cameras to their relatives and friends down in Southeast Alaska, and to well-wishers in every part of Alaska.

So many people who this morning did not know who she was now pray for her. In the Alaska Native community, that means a great deal.

As for me, I am in the same situation I was last night, but it is even later, I am more tired, my headache is worse and there is simply no way I can even look at the bulk of the day's take.

It seems a small matter. It will all hold. The pictures of all these people that I have been meeting and photographing will be there for me to run another day.