The wedding of Rainey and B-III, part 4 - final: the wedding party - flowers are tossed, praises given, bubbles blown, guns are fired

I have had to deal with many things today and once again I am way, way, waaaaay behind in putting up this post. And I have many things to do yet before this day ends. So, once again, I will move swiftly through the words, write very little and leave the photos to carry the message.

So, here we have the bride, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, posing with her bridal attendants.

And here is the groom, posing with his boys.

Rainey had been carrying her bouquet since before she entered the bridal hall. Now, she tosses it away.

The young ladies all lunge for the bouquet, but it is Nita Ahgook who lunges furthest and fastest to catch it. So, who will the lucky man be? Do they already know?

I don't know.

While it is not unheard of, a fresh cherry is not something one sees everyday in Anaktuvuk Pass. B-III's brother Andrew with his son Harlan.

The time came for making speeches, for saying good things about the bride and groom. Angela, Maid of Honor and sister of the bride had very good things to say, as did Byron Hopson, Best Man and brother of the groom.

After hearing the praise, B-III and Rainey did a high-five.

Elsewhere, three little girls were blowing bubbles - just as little girls tend to do at weddings all around the world. 

Community elders Lela Ahgook and James Nageak spoke of how glad they were to have Rainey as part of the community of Anaktuvuk Pass; how pleased they felt that B-III had brought her home.

Lela congratulates B-III for having done so well.

Among the gifts were many especially made to take out camping. The bride and groom are an outdoor couple, after all.

By the time guests left the wedding hall, the cold, windy, rainy, snowy, icy weather of the morning had broke and gave way to weather that was merely cold and breezy, meaning it was pretty nice.

So the couple posed outside, the mountains behind them.

Then it was time for the wedding party. There would be no orchestra, no dancing, no boozing. Instead, guests climbed into a variety of eight-wheeled Argos and at least one four-wheeler and headed out to tent city.

As we made the final creek crossing, the Argo that B-III drove and I sat in as a passenger along with B-III's Aunt Brenda Santos and Uncle Dennis Melick got stuck coming up the bank. The back part started to fill with water, so we three who were back there jumped ship. The women paniced just a little bit. Rainey says she likes to go boating on the ocean near Point Hope to hunt whales, but boating across rivers in little Argos scares her.

Very soon, with a little help, B-III had us unstuck.

After we got going again, Brenda excitedly recounted her harrowing adventure as she watched the water pour into the place where she had been sitting.

Clyde and Nuk got to work making a fire. Every year in the spring, before the snow melts, Clyde and his father drive their snowmachines forty miles to the south, to the tree line. They cut wood and then haul home sled load after sled load.

That's where this firewood came from.

Casey Nay offered her cabin as base camp for the party. There, she has a caribou antler that seems to have grown a human hand. That's poet Cathy Tagnak Rexford in the background. She is one of the four Native authors of the book, Effigies and is a 2009 recipient of a Rasmuson Award.

Casey's young son, Billy, did a little target shooting with a BB gun. He is learning to become a hunter.

Carl Kippi, a highly respected hunter in Barrow, wedding gift to B-III was a hand gun that shoots a .50 calibre bullet. B-III tries it out. He let everybody who wanted take a shot. Given the fragility of my titanium shoulder, I was a little worried what the kick might do to it, but it didn't bother it all. My wrist and forearm absorbed all the kick.

Then we all gathered around to look at the target. See that hole right in the center? I'm pretty sure that one's mine. It is true that when I pulled the trigger the gun jumped up just enough to block my vision from seeing where the bullet struck, but where else could it have gone, but right to the center?

B-III also brought out a semi-automatic AK-47 from his collection. His sister, Kayla, squeezed off five rounds.

I am not certain, but I think this is Casey's boy, Richard. If I am wrong, I will correct the name once someone corrects me. I think this boy is going to become a hunter.

A rabbit - snowshoe hare, technically - was spotted in the distance, so a few folks went off to see if they could get it and bring it back. They didn't, so we roasted hot-dogs and melted marshmallows instead.

It was a fun night.

Angela in the back of the Argo, after we got back to the village. The wedding certificate needed to be signed. She would sign as a witness.

Late into the night, people visited and ate more of the wedding food. Payuk provided the dinner music.

Payuk plays his harmonica.

Update, 9:07 PM: I forgot to put in my usual disclaimer. I AM NOT A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER. I am not for hire to shoot weddings. I just don't do that.

The wedding of Rainey and B-III, part 3: Rainey and B-III exchange vows; their first kiss as husband and wife

Naturally, there was a procession of bride's maids and groom attendants that preceded the couple and I wanted to run pictures of all of them, but I pulled aside far too many images for this post than I could practically use, so I decided just to get right to it. Following the entry of their entourages, the bride and groom entered together.

I know this is not how it is traditionally done in the US, but the father of the bride was unable to come down from Point Hope for the ceremony. As the couple saw it, they were giving themselves to each other and so they walked in together. As they walked, Clyde Hugo, sitting just beyond the far edge of the congregation, played "Here Comes the Bride" on his acoustic guitar.

I am running more than half-a-day behind in getting today's post up, so I will hurry right along.

Soon, with their entourages behind them, they stand in front of Reverend Warden, who reads the appropriate script as she leads them toward their vows.

They bow their heads as Reverend Warden offers the first of several prayers.

As the Reverend speaks about the special sacredness and partnership of marriage, they hold hands and look at each other.

They smile a lot.

It is just about time to exchange vows.

Rainey promises to love and cherish her husband.

B-III promises to love and cherish his wife.

Reverend Warden offers another prayer to sanctify this marriage.

B-III prepares to place her ring upon Rainey's finger.

He slides the ring onto her finger.

Now Rainey brings B-III's ring to his finger.

She slips it on to his finger. Now it is time for husband and wife to kiss.

They do. It is not a quick, shy, kiss, but one with feeling and passion, one that lingers a bit.

Even when the kiss ends, the couple continue on in a loving embrace.

Reverend Warden addresses the crowd to tell them that B-III and Rainey are now husband and wife.

Rainey's sister, Angela, cries, just as she did throughout the ceremony.

They pray again.

The ceremony is over. Everyone applauds.

Rainey and B-III hug the woman who wed them.

The people of the village come to embrace them.

As do visitors, who made them feel at home and welcome during the time they lived in Barrow and who are now welcome in Anaktuvuk.

Now Clyde Hugo vigorously plays his guitar as he sings, "You are my Sunshine."

Casey Nay also wept on and off throughout. Now, she lets it all go.

I want to add that this wedding felt exceptionally special to me. Exceptionally.

I will return tomorrow with Part 4, which will be the post-wedding celebration, the part that took place in the gymnasium and the part that happened at the foot of the mountains.

The wedding of Rainey and B-III, part 2: final preparations - the food looks appetizing, the bride, groom and wedding party look sharp in their Iñupiat clothing

The plan had been to hold the wedding in a valley up in the mountains, where the cooks would gather early and prepare much of the food over cooking fires. They tell me that it was 85 degrees in Anaktuvuk Pass the day before I arrived. Some readers may find it hard to imagine that an Arctic community in the mountains can get that hot, but when a high pressure system settles in and the sun shines 24 hours a day, some would be amazed at how warm it can get.

Meanwhile, on the coast, in Barrow, it had been snowing and was cold and the tundra was still covered mostly in white.

But, as we have already seen, by the time I arrived, the weather in Anaktuvuk had cooled down considerably. The wedding day itself began with a hard wind blowing and a cold rain falling. That rained turned to snow which in turn hardened into a thin layer of ice upon the roof tops.

All the food preparation had to be done inside - not only in the home of B-3 and Rainey, but in other Anaktuvuk homes as well.

Here, Neva and Joe Hickman prepare lake trout caught up in the mountains for baking. In the background, Rainey consults with her sister, Angela on the final construction of the salmonberry wedding cakes.

Angela works on the cakes. Everyone is busy.

Angela spreads a salmonberry glaze upon the bottom layer of a salmonberry cake.

Not only guests, but fruit grown in much more southerly latitudes also came in on the planes that brought people and provisions to the wedding.

Elizabeth Marino uses a traditional Iñupiat ulu to cut watermelon.

No whales swim anywhere near inland Anaktuvuk, but the Iñupiat people share and trade all of their foods among themselves and so it happened that bowhead maktak - the black skin with a bit of blubber still attached - had come down from the coast. Cathy Rexford of Barrow uses an ulu to cut the frozen maktak.

For those who may be horrified at the thought of eating blubber, please note that it looks very different and is of a completely different consistency than is the fat of the farmed animals that most Americans are used to.

Whereas the cholesterol in farmed animals is the bad kind that clogs arteries and leads to heart attacks, the cholesterol in maktak is the good kind that cleans arteries and helps to prevent heart attacks. Maktak is also high in vitamin c. This is the food that The Creator put in the north for the people of the north.

And when one is in the north, when one gets past the food prejudices that one grew up with, one can discover that maktak tastes delicious and when the weather turns cool will actually grave it, for maktak warms the body in a way that lentils do not.

Jana Harcharek of Barrow also cut maktak. 

Elvira Gueco, originally of the Philippines but now of Barrow, not only brought an Asian touch to the food, but a tropical one as well. She also prepared some chicken and caribou dishes in her Asian way and it would all prove excellent.

The bride mixes blueberries and salmonberries, picked from the tundra. She added a touch of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Even now, when I think back to the wedding feast, I want more!

After it was prepared, the food was taken to the school gymnasium, where, in lieu of the mountain valley, the wedding would now be held. There is a Presbyterian Chapel in Anaktuvuk, but it is tiny and did not have enough space for the wedding.

The population of Anaktuvuk Pass, by the way, is a bit over 200.

As such, it is the largest human community located within in the entire Brooks Range, which stretches from the west coast of Northern Alaska all the way across into Canada's Yukon Territory.

Once the food was all prepared, the time came to prepare the bride and groom. There would be no tuxedoes or fancy gowns at this wedding - it was Iñupiat clothing, lovingly sewn. Casey Nay and B-III's sister Kayla do some touch-up's on the groom.

The wedding party has now moved into some school-teachers quarters across the street from the school, empty now for the summer. Rainey puts on her wedding mukluks, which she made from white wolf leg skins, moose hide, leather, and beads.

This is only the second pair of mukluks that she has made in her life.

Angela takes a look at her sister, dressed now in her wedding clothes. "Beautiful!" she proclaims. Sarah Hopson, a sister to the groom, agrees with a big smile.

Rainey removed her mukluks before crossing the street to the school so that she would not get mud on them. At the school, she puts her mukluks back on as B-III pulls on the pair that she made for him from caribou leg skins, black and white calf skin, red deer leather, and native tanned moose hide.

"Not bad for my first pair!" she writes on her own blog, Stop and Smell the Lichen.

As for the tradition that the bride and groom must not see each other on the day of wedding prior to the ceremony, that is a western formality that Rainey and B-III decided not to follow. Presbyterian Pastor Mary Ann Warden had come down from Barrow to perform the ceremony. 

Reverend Warden always likes to have a prayer before the ceremony and this was the first time that she had been able to have one with the bride and groom together, rather than separate.

She liked it.

Members of the bridal entourage hold hands during the prayer.

Members of the groom's entourage hold hands during the prayer.

Now it is time for the procession to enter the gym turned wedding hall.

Yesterday, I stated that I would post the actual wedding today, but I was wrong, both because I had unexpected company (some of it still here in the form of Jacob, Kalib and Jobe) and because it is a pretty big task.

I will post the wedding tomorrow, barring any other significant distractions.

So be certain to come back.

The wedding of Rainey and B-III, part 1: getting there - I almost miss my flight; smiles, laughter and good food abound

I almost missed the wedding. At 3:23 AM on May 31, shortly after I arrived home in Wasilla from Arizona, I put up a post in which I noted that a spider had just bitten me and that I planned to go to bed for four hours, then get up, go pick up some distressed kitty cats, take care of some tasks, and afterward drive to Anchorage to catch a 1:00 PM Alaska Airlines flight that would begin my trip north, to Anaktuvuk Pass.

I arose at 7:40 and sat down at my computer at 7:50 to check my emails. I then decided to double-check my flight itinerary, just to be safe.

I opened it and damn near suffered a heart-attack. My Alaska Airlines flight out of Anchorage was scheduled not for 1:00 PM, but for 10:15 AM. It was my Wright Air flight out of Fairbanks to Anaktuvuk that was scheduled for 1:00 PM.

I dropped everything, grabbed my suitcase, still fully packed from Arizona, jumped into the car, made a quick stop at the place where the kitties were, gave them a pat on the head and told them not to worry, that Caleb would pick them up later in the day and then I would see them in just a couple of days more.

I then dashed off to Anchorage. I checked in for my 10:15 flight at exactly 9:15 - pretty much the last minute, if you have luggage.

Here I am, sitting in my seat, looking out the window at Denali, enroute to Fairbanks. Given the cloud cover, tourists down on the ground would not be able to see our great mountain.

I caught a cab from the main terminal at Fairbanks International to Wright Air on the other side of the airport and it cost $20. The driver turned out to be James Albert, the little brother of my friend, Rose Albert.

At 1:00 PM, I boarded the Wright Air flight along with half-a-dozen other passengers - everyone of whom was on their way to the wedding.

Those seen here in front of me as they pay rapt attention to the pilot's preflight briefing include Rainey's friends, Beth Marino, Joe Hickman and Neva Hickman.

I was kind of wishing that I had been the first passenger to board, so that I could have taken the right-hand seat. That way, if the pilot passed out or something, I could have flown the plane.

I really wanted to fly the plane.

I thought about asking, but then the pilot would have told me, "no!"

I would have felt silly and embarrassed.

Payuk Nay, cousin to B-III, was ready with his in-flight Wonder Classic White Sandwich Bread.

Soon, Payuk pulled out his harmonica and provided us with some in-flight entertainment. Elvira Gueco of Barrow grins from the next seat.

Beth Marino, a friend of Rainey's from college, looks out the window at what little she can see of Alaska's great interior.

She couldn't see much, because many wildfires were burning. As we flew north, it only got worse - so bad that we could not see the ground, not even the Yukon River.

After about an hour-and-a-half, the pilot flew into the pattern in preparation to land at the AKP airport.

The pilot brings us down on final.

After the wedding guests exit the airplane, Rainey hugs her friend, Beth Marino

Elvira Gueco gives an enthusiastic hug to the groom to be, Ben Hopson, III, who also goes by "B-3" and "B-III," both of which are pronounced exactly the same. Elvira is originally from the Philippines, but lives in Barrow now. She and her husband Ralph have befriended many Iñupiat. She is well-known for her cooking skills and would bring a touch of Asian to the wedding feast.

I should know the name of this little character welcoming Payuk home, but you know, my brain gets older every day.

The groom to be - B-III.

Just like Payuk, we all caught rides to our destinations in eight-wheeled Argos, the main form of summer transportation in Anaktuvuk Pass and countryside. 

The road system in Anaktuvuk Pass is pretty short - to the north, it reaches for approximately two to three miles to the dump and to the south it follows the runway and ends maybe a bit more than a mile from the village.

Even so, on a windy, 50 below day, a ride in a car, even just for a few blocks, is welcome.

Soon, I enter the house of Rainey and B-III, where I will spend my two nights in Anaktuvuk. That's Rainey's younger sister, Angela, to the right. Angela works out of Anchorage for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and used her frequent flyer miles to get me to Anaktuvuk. Thank you, Angela!

The fellow standing in the background is Rainey's brother, Sonny. Altough she occupies but a tiny spot at the left side of the screen, Casey Nay had done and would do a great deal of work and cooking to help make this wedding a success.

Payuk stirs come caribou stew. Soon, I would have a bowl. Superb, par excellence, exquisite. Not even in the finest restaurants of New York City can one find cuisine such as this.

Some readers may think that I exaggerate, but I don't.

No food is better than natural, wild, food, prepared right - and this was prepared right.

At this wedding, there would be no fancy, multi-tiered skyscraper cake with a plastic bride and groom standing in the frosting at the top. Instead, there would be wild salmonberry cakes, with salmonberry glaze, being made here by Sonny and Angela.

Even with all this cooking going on, there were war games to be played.

Rainey got out a pile of my old Uiñiq magazines to show me. The one on top is an issue I did in 1991 on Point Hope, the village where she was born and raised. Both she and B-3 were living in Barrow six years ago, when Rainey found herself pursued by many suitors.

One day, B-3 showed up at her house with two caribou that he had just shot. Then he took her for a snowmachine ride on the tundra. It was no contest after that. B-III was her man.

A year ago, they moved here to Anaktuvuk Pass, B-3's home village.

I should have used this picture in yesterday's post, when I explained what I see as the rather amazing connections that have brought Rainey, Dustinn and the family of Vincent Craig and myself all together as friends.

Just before 5:00 PM, we all left to walk to the cemetery to take part in the village Memorial Day service and feast.

Please do not suspect that I exaggerate the happiness that everyone felt this day. This is how it truly was. Smiles and laughter abounded. I saw no one get angry, I saw not one scowl nor sour face.

Life is not always this good, anywhere, but today, here in Anaktuvuk Pass, it was.

It would be tomorrow as well - despite the fact that Mother Nature would not exactly cooperate with the original wedding plan.

Later that evening - the two sisters, Rainey and Angela.

The wedding of Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee to B-III would take place the next day. If all goes according to my plan, readers can view that wedding tomorrow, right here.

My trips to Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass - the connection; on the home front, Jobe, a horse, and some kids

As regular followers of this blog know, I was recently in Arizona, where I journeyed to see my friend Vincent Craig just before he died, and then stayed for his funeral and to visit family. I traveled straight from Arizona to the Brooks Range Alaska village of Anaktuvuk Pass to attend the wedding of Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee to Ben Hopson III (B-III).

I have mentioned that there is tie between the people I gathered with in Arizona and those whom I joined in Anaktuvuk Pass.

You can see that connection right here, in the above photo. This is Velma Kee Craig, Vincent's daughter-in-law through his and Mariddie's oldest son, Dustinn. I took this photo inside the Fort Apache LDS church house during the lunch that was served to family and friends of Vincent right shortly after his burial.

Please note the necklace and earrings that Velma chose to wear to her father-in-law's funeral. Both were made by Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee, whose wedding I would photograph in Anaktuvuk.

The moment that she saw the necklace in an online ad posted by Rainey, Velma loved it and wanted it. "Sorry," Rainey informed her. "That necklace has already been bought."

She did not tell her that it was Dustinn who had bought it. Dustinn had sworn her to secrecy.

In the summer of 1981, two months after Margie, little Jacob, Caleb, Rex, baby Melanie and I rolled into Alaska, I found a job at the Tundra Times, a now defunct weekly newspaper that served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities. I started as a reporter/photographer and then became editor/reporter/photographer for a short time.

Back then, each October during the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, he Tundra Times would host a banquet. Entertainment would usually include at least one Native American act from Outside. In 1984, I suggested to those planning the banquet that they consider bringing Vincent Craig up to perform and that is just what they did.

Mariddie came with him and they stayed with us in our Wasilla house throughout the convention.

Vincent and Mariddie wanted to take a memento of Native Alaska back to Arizona and so they purchased a pair of mukluks - caribou, if I recall correctly - at one of the arts and crafts booths that are always set up at the convention. They were very pleased with those mukluks.

One night, as I drove them back to Wasilla from convention happenings in Anchorage, the Northern Lights climbed in a glowing green arc over the Talkeetna Mountains, and then divided into various curtains to shimmer, dance, and flash in different colors. Vincent and Mariddie were fascinated

"Dustinn would love this," Vincent said. "He would feel awe."

That's Dustinn above, with Velma and their four children, Chance, Ashlee, Tristan and Kraig. I took this picture in their home, approximately five hours before his father died.

As Dustinn grew, he would often look at those mukluks. He would touch them, smell them, feel the texture of the fur. He would wonder about the place they came from, the people who made them. He would feel a sense of awe and fascination. His dad would tell him they came from Alaska; he would tell him about his friend, me, who lived in Alaska, who had his own airplane that he flew all about his mysterious, northern, land.

After Dustinn became a filmmaker, the primary center of his work became centered on Arizona, primarily on his Apache people, but he also branched out elsewhere - into Northern Alaska. 

In the image above, he is showing me his "Freshwater Ice" film. It tells the story of how, when a loved one dies, Iñupiat people will sometimes venture out onto the salty sea ice to find a certain kind of clear, blue, coveted piece freshwater glacial ice that yields the purest, sweetest, drinking water to be found.

They will chop it up, bring it back to the village, melt it and this will be the drinking water that will quench the thirst of those who gather to bring comfort to the deceased's family.

It is beautiful. It was also a bit amazing to me, to sit in his living room in Mesa, Arizona, and to watch this film that he made, people with faces and voices from Arctic Alaska, all well-known to me.

Dustinn was also hired to teach a film-making workshop at Barrow's Ilisagvik College. One of his students was Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee and another was Iñupiat filmmaker Rachel Edwardson. The three were all about the same age and after class got to spend a good amount of time visiting. 

Dustinn later got to work with Rachel on a film in Point Hope. Here is a trailer showing some of Dustinn's Point Hope work.

They discovered that, as young Native artists working to make a life in Native society that for them was different even than it was for their parents, they faced similar challenges and had much in common. They all became good friends.

And here is Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, who made the necklace and earrings that Velma Craig wore to her father-in-law's funeral in Arizona, on the evening of the day that she got married in Anaktuvuk Pass.

With her is her sister, Angela and her new brother-in-law, Byron Hopson.

I have a number of pictures and stories yet to post here from my trips to Arizona and Anaktuvuk. Now you will know how the two tie together.

In time, I intend to bring Rachel into this blog as well.

I don't know how to state this without sounding like I am bragging, but it is part of this story, part of this connection, so I have to say it. When I got to Rainey's home, she showed me her stack of the battered Uiñiq magazines that I made and she saved. She told me that she grew with my pictures, that my inspired her and that is why she kept the magazines, why she wanted me to come and photograph her wedding. That is why, after I made my final stop in Arizona at the home of Dustinn Craig to visit he and his mother, I got on an airplane and began the first of the four-leg that would take me to Anaktuvuk Pass.

Now, a little bit from the home front:

Yesterday, I had to go into town to take care of some business. I stopped at Jacob and Lavina's to visit Margie, who is babysitting Jobe. Jobe was asleep in his cradleboard.

Another view of Jobe.

Late in the evening, I took a ride on my bike. I had not gone far before I came upon this group of young people. The girl on the horse told me her name, but I was so certain that I would remember I did not bother to record it. I have forgotten. I do not know the name of the horse, either.

I should have lingered, spent a bit more time with them, learned a bit about that horse and how the girl feels about it and what the kids on the bikes think.

But I didn't. I just quickly stopped, told them what I was doing, got the name that I would forget and then pedaled quickly on.

Update, 11:35 AM Friday: AKponygirl left a comment and identified the horse-riding girl as Marcella. Thank you, Akponygirl!