Leaving Tikigag: the flight from Point Hope to Barrow

As always happens, the time soon came when I would have to leave Point Hope and it came earlier than I wanted or would have planned - were it not for the Era schedule. Era is the only air carrier that links Point Hope and Barrow and they only fly twice a week - Tuesday and Thursday; $410 for a one-way ticket. This will give you an idea how expensive it came be to travel about the Arctic Slope.

I wanted to stay at least through the high school graduation on Friday but I needed to be in Barrow no later than Monday, so I had to go Thursday.

At nighttime before I left, I saw Jesse Jr. walking home. 

He and his brothers would now get their room back.

Many decades separate us, but Jesse and his brothers all felt like friends now.

On May 5, immediately after taking the picture of the Tikigaq Harpooner Three-Peaters, I barely caught a ride to the airport in the truck of a man who runs a little on-demand-cab service. If someone needs a ride to the airport, or anywhere else reached by the villages very limited road system, they can call and he will come and pick them up.

So Krystle called for me.

The cab was full of his family.

I thought I wrote down the names of everybody, including the dog, but I can't find them. Still, if you find yourself in Point Hope and you need a cab to the airport or someplace else, just ask anyone and they will direct you to the driver and then he and his family and his dog will come and pick you up and give you a ride and then when you ask how much he will answer, "whatever you want to pay."

Be as generous as is practical for you. His fares are not like those of a city cab driver, but come only sporadically - mostly when an airplane lands.

The cab driver's daughter, the little dog and the airplane. 

Once airborne, we passed over the Lisbourne, the last bumps of the Brooks Range, which themselves are the final northward extension of the Rocky Mountains, which come to an end just before they reach Point Hope and fall into the sea. 

Pans of ice floating in new ice forming below.

We landed for a brief stop in Point Lay, to drop off one passenger, plus this four-wheeler and to pick up a couple more passengers.

And here we are, landing in Barrow.

Some new readers who have come over as a result of the piece in the Lens blog of the New York Times may be feeling a little confused right now to find me flying in someone else's airplane instead of my own.

What the Times said about me being a bush pilot is true, all right, but for some reason they chose not to mention the part about how I crashed my airplane in Mentasta and, for now, anyway, must fly in other people's airplanes.

Originally, I had intended to blog my time this trip in Barrow pretty much the same as I did Point Hope and I have every bit as much material to work with. However, I had also intended to have the whole package complete at least three weeks ago and here I am, still muddling along.

Realistically, I do not have time to do a decent edit of the Barrow pictures right now, although in time I will, for other purposes than this blog. I think what I will do is, on Monday, after returning this blog to Wasilla over the weekend, I will just put up anywhere from one to half-a-dozen images from the Barrow portion and then get back to blogging the present, but only briefly most days, as I have tons I must do this summer, so, even though in my mind I have no higher priority than developing what this blog has begun, for now, I must put the huge bulk of my time elsewhere.

Thanks for traveling with me!

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The boys come out for the weekend, Muzzy is shorn; the landing in Point Hope; the unsure takeoff

The boys came out this morning. They are going to spend the weekend with us so that their parents can work on their house.

It was their mom who brought them. She brought Muzzy, too. Muzzy had been to the dog groomers and now had a bit of the poodle look. Lavina and Muzzy couldn't stay, because Lavina had to get to work. So she opened the back door to her car and Muzzy jumped in.

He jumped right back out. So she had him jump in again. I think Muzzy enjoys making multiple jumps into the car.

And yes, my recent Arctic series is still in the works, still coming. To prove it, here is a picture that I took exactly one month ago today, right after we landed in Point Hope.

Anyway, the editing is going very slowly, because I don't have much time for it. Also, it just dawned on me that this is a holiday weekend and so my readership will be down - especially if the weather stays as beautiful, sweet and magnificent as it is right now. I will not bother to post the series until the holiday has passed and sunburnt readers come straggling back.

Perhaps I drive some readers nuts with my ever-shifting plans and frequent delays, many of which I just let slip unseen into the past as the present takes over.

Look at this way - you are getting to observe an experiment being conducted by a photographer/writer of at least some talent who has spent the past 35 years making a living in certain ways that he sees coming to an end. These ways of making a living have not ended for him yet, but the end is swiftly coming and it will soon be over and archived.

So he is looking for a way to both survive and create in the new reality that is ever shifting in front of him, dominated by bright, young, energetic and creative talent who understand current trends and digital code much better than he does.

This blog is not the vehicle that will allow him to truly survive in the looming new times, but it is a part of getting there, a part that he clings to as he struggles to find the solution, to take the next step, knowing just what he wants to do but not yet how to make it happen.

Will he succeed? Or will he fail?

I bet on success.

But it is a bet, a gamble, the outcome greatly in question.

So keep coming back, keep watching. Take a front-row seat and watch this spectacle unfold. In time, the answer will be clear.

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How yesterday's fictitious post oddly foreshadowed today's true one; shoe in the wire, death beneath the jet trail, the street sweeper and the King James Bible

Here's the truth - I completely made up that story yesterday about Margie wanting to eat Jim after she grew so hungry that she became somewhat irrational but came out of it after I fed her an orange. Yes - I hate to shock and disillusion my billions of devoted readers who dote upon my every word as absolute gospel truth, but yes, I made the whole story up.  

But, leaving Jim out of it, that story in some ways became true after we went to bed.

Somewhere between 3 and 4 AM, she woke me up with these words, "Bill, what is happening to me?" A story that is a little too long and complicated for me to tell here in its entirety then unfolded over the next 45 minutes or so. To keep it simple, she had been so tired at bedtime that she had slept right through the symptoms of impending diabetic shock that would normally cause her to wake up and treat them before they became a problem.

When she awoke me, she was deep into that shock - worse than at any previous time in her life. So much so that I feared she may have suffered a stroke. She was completely disoriented, her torso hot and her legs and feet cold and hardly movable.

In the end, I gave her some orange juice. She drank it.

It took a little while for the sugar to kick in, but once it did, everything was okay after that.

As to the shoe in the wire, we saw this astounding sight in Anchorage, where we had stopped at a red light on the corner of "C" Street and Sixth Avenue. The light turned green, just as I took the picture.

On our way to Anchorage, Margie had called Charlie so that he could meet us with a jacket that Melanie had been keeping for Margie to take to Arizona as an 81st birthday present for Margie's mom, Rose Roosevelt.

Having been spoiled by Alaska's Kaladi Bros. coffee and left unable to enjoy the coffee they can get locally, Lavina's family had also requested that Margie bring some down for them. So Charlie picked up two big bags and brought that, too. Our intent was to reimburse Charlie, but he refused to accept the reimbursement.

Those two bags probably cost at least $20.00 bucks each, but Charlie said Jake and Lavina had fed him plenty and there was no way we could force him to take reimbursement.

Here is Margie, waiting to check her bags in at Alaska Airlines. There is another complicated story here that I am not going to take the time to tell - save to say that, when it comes to air travel, I miss the days before paranoia became official policy.

Anyway, thanks to the very helpful lady at the Alaska Airlines baggage check in, everything got worked out, Margie entered security, got through, boarded her plane and, after a layover in Seattle, reached Phoenix a bit before 11:00 PM last night.

Her original ticket would have put her there a little over two weeks ago and she would have come home this weekend. However, Mariddie Craig, the wife of my late friend, Vincent Craig, called me a couple of weeks back to tell me that they were going to hold a one year memorial in the Apache way for Vincent on May 14 and she asked me to come.

So Margie changed her schedule so that she would get down there in time for her mother's birthday and then stay through the memorial. She will return with me on May 19.

A week ago last Sunday, at this very corner in Wasilla, I photographed an impending nightmare that I feared was about to come true. Indeed, yesterday, it did come true. Yesterday, we had to send in our income tax and we owed.

I fear we might wind up living on the street yet.

That fellow dancing at the side of the road while I wait for the red light to turn green is the Liberty Tax mascot. It would be his last day at this job. Unless he already had something else lined up, as of today he is out of work.

Before I reached home, I stopped at the Post Office. I did not find any mail in our box, but I did find this dog in this car, patiently waiting for its human.

That's what dogs tend to spend huge portions of their lives doing - they patiently wait for their humans.

Some dogs do get pretty impatient, though.

Especially little dogs.

After I got home, I parked the car, got my bike and went off on a ten-mile pedal, which included the usual stop at Metro Cafe. As I pedaled up the bike trail on Nelson Avenue, this guy commented about my camera so I stopped and we chatted a bit.

He said he is a commercial fisherman and fishes out of southeast. He speculated that I must have plenty of good things to photograph while pedaling around Wasilla - moose and wildlife, mountains, etc., and said if I had been here just days earlier, a young man had died just beyond from crack cocaine. That would have made some photographs, he said.

I told him the jet flying overhead with him standing just beneath would make a good photograph and he agreed. So here it is.

As to the death, I checked the police reports up to today's April 19 date as reported in the online Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and found no mention of it. However, the most recent date referenced in the April 19 report was April 10, so maybe the reporting is delayed. I will check future reports, but at the moment I cannot confirm it.

I suppose that I could call the Wasilla police department and see if I could confirm it, but that would be too much like I was trying to be a real news reporter here, instead of just a guy pedaling around on his bike with a camera, taking superficial note of this and that, interested more in impression than hard facts.

Anyway, I am too lazy and I have too many other things to do.

I will leave it to the Frontiersman and see if they come up with anything.

I had my iPhone with me, my headphones plugged in and I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR. There was a story on about the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible.

In recent decades, other language-dumb-downed versions of the Bible have become more popular, but none carry the beauty of language that can be found in King James. The reporter made that very point and showed how the language of the King James Bible has permeated the culture in everything from popular music to the speeches of Presidents in times of national crisis, from Lincoln to Obama.

Several quotes were aired and all were beautiful. At the very moment I pedaled by this street sweeper, the 2003 quote of President George W. Bush speaking to the nation after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster came into my ears:

'In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power, and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.'

I do not like much about George W. Bush. I do not generally like the sound and intonations of his voice.

But I have to tell you, in this instance, speaking these words from the King James Bible, I heard nothing but beauty.

Pure beauty.

After I got home, I gave in to temptation and opened up Facebook - an amazing tool but also the greatest time-waster and destroyer of productivity ever invented.

On the page of my friend, Allison Akootchook Warden, I saw a picture of her in the midst of other poets, including Leah Frankson, Iñupiat poet of Point Hope who now cuts my hair in Anchorage.

Under the picture was this title:

Epic gathering of Alaskan Poets in Palmer...

Whatever the gathering was about, it was happening at that very moment.

I was hot and sweaty from pedaling my bike and hardly presentable, but, without knowing what the gathering was about, I hopped into the car and dashed off to Palmer.

I missed most of it, but got there before it ended.

Check back tomorrow if you want to know what it was all about.

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Fun, taxing times - an airplane does touch and goes; Junipurr eats toxic lilies, Zed fetches a red mouse

I had planned to send my broken and malfunctioning camera equipment directly to the Canon repair factory, but instead I decided to take it into Anchorage and see if the guy at the repair shop at 17th and C could fix it. Margie came, too.

When we pulled into town, we saw this character doing touch and go's at Merrill Field.

I used to love doing touch and go's.

So much fun!

Damn!

Touch and go's.

Will I ever do touch and go's again?

Next, we saw a young man dressed up in a Statue of Liberty suit, trying to entice drivers to come into Liberty Tax to get their taxes done.

The problem that I have is with that damn sign behind him, "We make taxes fun!"

I don't want to accuse anyone of telling lies, so I figure the sign must be telling the truth. What I can't figure out is who they make taxes fun for - not the tax payer who brings them business, that's for sure. It is never fun for the tax payer, no matter how loyal an American he or she might be.

So... is it fun for the tax preparer? Perhaps. Maybe the preparer likes numbers and formulas and so has a great time pulling all this together. But then it must get pretty overwhelming as April 15 draws nigh. That could not be fun.

Maybe its fun for the business owner. Maybe it enables the business owner to go hang out in Hawaii for a month or two each year when tax season ends and to have fun there.

I don't know. Maybe the business owner does not even like to go to Hawaii. Maybe the business owner prefers to go to Chicago instead.

Maybe the business owner is a fan of the Chicago Cubs and finds it fun to go Chicago, buy tickets into Wrigley Field, take a seat, then jump up and down, shouting curses and insults.

That's about the only way I can see to make taxes fun.

So here I am at the camera repair shop at 15th and C. On the counter you can see the work that I have brought in. To the left is a 16 to 35 mm f 2.8 L series lens that I broke last spring while trying to photograph Jobe. Of all my lenses, it is my single most favorite (and it is also the hardest to use, because it can really make people look strange and distorted) and I have not taken a picture with it since spring.

I have just not wanted to spend the money on the repair.

But I want the lens at Kivgiq, which begins February 9. 

To the right you see my Canon 1Ds Mark III camera body, which went down in the rain at the Barrow Whalers final football game in Kenai last October.

After that game, the camera lost its ability to format a Compact Flash card.

I thought this might be a problem that would heal itself after the camera dried out, but it didn't. Several times between last October and now, I have tested it again and never would it format the card. The last time that I tested it was less than one month ago.

But guess what? When I tried to put on a demonstration for the camera repair man so that he would know what was wrong, it formatted the card, just like that!

I fired several test shots. They all worked.

So, I don't need to get it repaired.

I just hope it keeps working.

What I kind of wish now is that I could sell the Ds III before Kivgiq and buy a 1D M IV to replace it.

On one hand, I would hate to give up the large, full frame sensor of the DsIII for the smaller, cropped sensor of the D IV, but the D IV does much better in low light and I think that means more to me now than does the size of the sensor.

I don't think I can pull off such a sell and buy between now and Kivgiq, however.

As we drove through Anchorage towards a green light, we saw a homeless man walking away from the corner where he had been holding his sign to the stopped traffic when the light had been red. All of a sudden, as we neared the green the traffic in front of us came to a dead stop. The person who stopped at the green light shouted out to the homeless person, who turned around, came to that person and took the money that was offered.

I believe in helping out the homeless and try to myself, but I am not so certain about the wisdom of stopping at green light with heavy traffic coming behind you in order to give a man on a corner some money.

No. Actually, I am certain.

It is not wise. Someone could get hurt.

Maybe it would be better to keep driving and to drop the money off at Bean's Cafe, where you know it will do good.

On November 22, Lisa's birthday, when I was in Barrow, her boyfriend Bryce did what any thoughtful boyfriend would do and bought her some flowers at Carr's. He did not know what kind of flowers they were, but they were pretty, had not yet fully bloomed, which meant that Lisa could enjoy them longer as they came into full bloom.

He put them in a place where she could see them when she came home and indeed, she did see them, and she liked them.

Junipurr also saw them. Junipurr liked the flowers as well - not so much to look at, but to munch on as a dietary supplement.

When Lisa saw that Junipurr had been chewing on the flowers, she grew a little worried, because she knew that some flowers are toxic to cats.

She thought the flowers were lilies, but she was not positive, so she did some googling. She quickly learned that lilies were toxic and that if a cat were to eat them, it needed to get to the vet within 6 hours or its chances of survival would not be good.

As the flowers had not fully bloomed, she was pretty certain still not fully positive that they were lilies, so Bryce checked with the saleslady at the Carr's floral shop who had sold them to him. She confirmed that they were lilies.

She told him that she did not think the flowers were poisonous to cats, but not to let the cats chew on them.

Lisa and Bryce then rushed Junipurr to an animal hospital, where she was sedated, forced to vomit and to ingest charcoal to absorb as much toxin as possible. She was then put on an IV for two days to flush out her system.

After she had been taken back for treatment, the vet farted while as he explained all was happening and why.

They did not know quite how to react.

Well, everyone farts, every day. Vets - kings, gueens, popes and presidents, too.

If a vet can save the life of a good cat like Junipurr, then so what if he blows off a loud public fart now and then?

Lisa and Bryce did not come to see Junipurr during the two days that she stayed in the hospital, as they feared it would confuse her and upset her more if they came in and then just left again without her.

When finally they did bring her home, she got ornery with Zed, which she never does. Then she zonked out for four hours. After that, she was good.

Next time, Bryce says, he is going to buy plastic flowers.

My own thought is that florists should label flowers that are toxic to pets as such.

As we visited, Lisa tossed a little red fake mouse into the living room. Zed ran in and brought it back. Zed likes to play fetch, just like a cat.

Not like a dog. No, Zed never plays fetch like a dog.

Zed plays fetch like a cat.

Junipurr and Zed chase a string.

And this from India:

Cat at a truck and wayfarers stop in southern India.

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I break my absence with quick and cute: the dog who charged a polar bear cub and then got charged by a polar bear mom; two girls and pups; a special Charlie Brown plane in Nuiqsut

See the dog on the right? That's Ivory. I took this image of Ivory and friends right here in the Arctic Slope village of Nuiqsut, where I am right now, but a few nights ago, on Cross Island, I saw Ivory charge toward a polar bear cub that had wandered about 200 feet from its mom.

Then I saw the mom charge toward Ivory. Ivory then changed his mind and came running back to us.

Yes, I photographed the scene and I will share it, although I should warn you not to get your hopes too high, as the sun had already set, the sky was overcast, I was shooting a 400 mm lens handheld at something like 1/30 of a second.

I have not yet had a chance to look at the downloanded images, but I know they will be blurred. Still, I will share them.

I will comment more then.

Rochelle with cute puppy, right here in Nuiqsut. I might note that a little earlier in the day I had taken a long walk, missing Cross Island but glad that I could walk alone without carrying a gun. On Cross Island, one either carries a gun or walks with someone who is.

Usually, a warning shot will convince the bear to leave one alone.

Rochelle and Elizabeth, right here in Nuiqsut, with puppies.

And this is Lucy Mae, with puppy. Whale shares are being divided in the background.

Rochelle, loving puppy.

Everts Air on the Nuiqsut strip. I will have more on this plane in Uiñiq magazine.

Although it started with an immense personal disappointment, this has been a wonderful and amazing trip and I have shot many, many, pictures for Uiñiq. I have not had a chance to do any editing at all, but within my larger Uiñiq take there are three or four little stories that I plan to share on this blog - and yes, the polar bears are one. And I have what I think is a wonderful little story about an Eskimo drum - and, of course, there was that very brief stop at a haunted house that sits all by itself, right on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

Something bad has happened to my laptop. The screen image is rapidly vibrating, bouncing up and down. It is extremely annoying to look at it - just putting this blog together has given me a headache and made me dizzy! - and it is impossible to edit and process photos. I can't color balance them at all. I have no idea how the images I have placed here actually appear in terms of color, contrast and all those kind of things that photographers worry about.

I plan to be home Sunday. I may not, or I may, post again before then. It is just too aggravating to work on this malfuncting computer. I may just wait until I get back to my desktop computer.  I don't know, I don't know.

I'm not even going to attempt to proofread this, either. Words are jumping all over the page.

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