Doreen makes a painting, Apache-Navajo filmmaker walks into Barrow's Osaka Restaurant; I go to Wainwright

Doreen Simmonds is the daughter of the late, truly great, Reverend Samuel Simmonds, the first Iñupiat to become an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. He also designed and painted the mural in the Barrow Chapel, showing all the peoples of the world under the care of Christ.

Doreen remembers being her father's "go-for" when she was small and he was creating the mural. She loved to help him and she loved to be in the church with him. She also loved to do art herself.

She did the painting above in 2002, after seeing a photograph of a mother polar bear with two cubs, one of them dead. Doreen was moved by the photo, but wanted to create a happier version and so she painted it with only the mother and the living cub - yet, she could not stop herself from depicting the sorrow that she saw in the mother.

Then, she added the dead cub in.

Two years later, one of her two sons died of cancer.

"How did you know?" friends who saw the painting asked her, "how did you know your son was going to die?"

This is Dustinn Craig, and if you are watching the series, "We Shall Remain" on public TV, be certain not to miss the May 4 episode on the Apache. Dustinn is the writer/director/producer for that episode and also did some of the shooting and editing.

You will also see some of Margie's country.

When Dustinn was small, from the time that he was a toddler, my wife and I sometimes baby sat him, and he often played with Jacob and Caleb. We lived in Whiteriver, Arizona at the time, the capitol of Margie's White Mountain Apache Tribe. Dustinn's father, Vincent Craig, Navajo, was also married to a White Mountain Apache and his parents were our best friends.

Today I was eating lunch in Osaka Restaurant in Barrow with Savik when Dustinn came walking in with local filmmaker Rachel Edwardson and her Australian husband, Dave.

He had just arrived in town to do a week's worth of work.

Little Dustinn Craig.

Soon I was on a plane, headed for Wainwright.

Self-portrait, me on the plane. 

Pic through the car window, as Bob drove me to the home that I always knew as the residence of the late Ben and Florence Ahmaogak, who always made me feel at home, like family. Bob is married to their daughter, Mary Ellen.

"Hello brother,"she greetedc when I entered the door.

"Hello sister," I greeted back.

Who could even imagine such a warm, muddy, day, here, now?

Folks, I prepared a few more images for today's post, but for some reason the connection between my power cord and this laptop has gone on the blink and my battery is just about dead, so...

It rained today in Barrow

I was the first one up this morning, so, very quietly, I put on my jacket and slipped outside to walk to Pepe's for breakfast. And it was raining! In Barrow, Alaska, on April 26! And then the temperature broke all heat records and topped off at 39!

In the years when I hung around up here regularly, you could pretty much count on temperatures being anywhere from about -10 or 15 to +15 or so right now.

The wind blew, hard. When I walked back from Pepi's, the rain had stopped. I could see open water out in the sea. Some whaling crews had already gone out, but with the rain, the warmth and the hard wind, they pulled back. The weather is improving now, though and at least a couple have gone back.

If conditions continue to improve, more will follow and a whale may well be landed soon.

There is thin, jumbled ice out there to make things dangerous and difficult.

Maybe some of it blew away with the hard wind.

This is Dawson, napping on Savik's snowmachine. People keep asking me if I have come to photograph whaling, but that was not my purpose this trip. If I had more time and if I were not still battling injuries that make driving a snowmachine or hanging onto a sled impossible, it would be different.

We will see.

As I was going into the store, Melba and her little son were coming out. She told me his name and I was certain I would remember, but I don't. I just have to start writing these things down. The old days are gone, but everytime, I think I can get them back.

And this is little Allen. He likes to hang out with me. His mom, Shareen, says she has never seen him take to anyone the way he takes to me - except for people his own age.

What happens when a soldier meets a nurse; Willie Hensley signs books in Barrow

Over half a century ago, when Savik Ahmaogak was stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage, he saw Myrna, who was working at the Alaska Native hospital, dressed in her white dress and white cap. "Wow!" he remembers.

Today, the couple celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary. Here they are, about to have a lunchtime breakfast at Osaka Restaurant in Barrow.

Later, children and grandchildren hosted a dinner for them. Afterward, KBRW's famous "Birthday Program" came on the radio. Each day for one hour, people from all across the Arctic Slope call in to give birthday and anniversary greetings to friends and relatives.

Here, granddaughter Kellen is on the phone, sending her grandparents a happy anniversary over the radio, as they listen in the next room.

Kellen leans against her Dad, Allen Snow. Savik and Myrna's daughter Corrina listens from the couch.

James and Kellen hug their grandparents goodbye. Thank you, Savik and Myrna, for rescuing me from the expensive hotel, for always being good hosts and treating me like family.

Willie Hensley, Iñupiat land claims activist from Kotzebue, who has been one of Alaska's strongest leaders, especially on Native issues, did a book signing at the Tuzzy Consortium Library, where he gave a speech and presented a historical slide show.

His book, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow (Farah, Strauss and Gereaux), chronicles his experiences and observations of the fight Alaska Natives had to make - and must continue to make - just to hang on to pieces of what was their's to begin with - from the land that nurtured their bodies to the songs and dances that sustained their souls.

As a young man, Hensley saw a society taking over everything even as it pretended that Alaska was an empty place there for the taking, as if the original occupants did not even exist.

Ten thousand years of experience and knowledge, held by no one else, was being trivialized, treated as though it did not matter, had never happened.

"I just could not accept the notion that 10,000 years of our history, knowledge and, yes, religion, was somehow inadequate," Hensley stated.

Hensley autographs books at the library. 

I would like to write more about this, but it is very late and my bloghost, Squarespace, always a fright, is acting extra quirky tonight and has already wasted two hours of my time. 

So, buy the book, read it and find out for yourself.

This is now one of Alaska's, "must read" books. 

And if any of you are thinking about blogging, stay away from Squarespace!

AAAAAARGH!

Now, how am I supposed to sleep?

A post without pics

I hate to make a post without pics - and I shot quite a few today, 16 gb worth, but I have just begun to run them into my laptop and I am stuffed full of bowhead whale uunaalik (boiled blubber and skin) and chocolate chip cookies and I am exhausted and just have to go to bed.