From a boat off Point Hope, a little less than one month ago

Finally, I did run all the pictures from my last trip to the Arctic into my Lightroom editor and began to prepare the series of pictures that I was unable to post while I was traveling. There are many pictures in that take to sort through and I also have a major project that I must get proof ready in less than two weeks, so I gave myself just two hours to do a bit of editing.

When I started, I decided that whereever I was at in the editing process, I would stop right there once I had been at it for two hours. This is the photo I reached, right at the two-hour mark. I took it in the umiak of Rex Rock, Sr.

Tomorrow morning, I will continue the editing process for one to two more hours and then I will stop again, so that I can get back to my project. Probably by sometime this weekend or maybe Monday I can actually start posting the series.

In honor of Dr. Walter Soboleff, who has left after more than 102 years amongst us

Yesterday afternoon I learned that Dr. Walter Soboleff had passed away in Juneau Sunday at the age of 102. So I have postponed for tomorrow what I had planned for today in order to dedicate this post solely to his memory and honor.

I am not going to write much about him right now, save to say that he was truly one of the most honorable, decent, and gentle men that I have ever met and that he was a truly a giant in shaping those parts of modern-day Alaska that are good. It did not matter if one was Native, white, black, Asian or other - in the presence of Dr. Walter Soboleff, one felt only love and warmth - and this was true even if what Dr. Soboleff was doing was fighting for Native rights.

I know, because I personally felt that warmth and love and I could see that all who came into his presence also felt it.

As a member of Yeil (Raven) moiety, L'eeneido (Dog Salmon) clan, he loved, respected, protected and advanced his Tlingit way of life and culture, but embraced that which he found good in all cultures. He became a Presbyterian minister at a time when segregation was strong in Alaska and church congregations were divided by race - white only, Native only...

Yet, he invited anyone of any race to join his congregation and so created the first integrated congregation in Alaska.

He was a leader in the Alaska Native Brotherhood and in anything related to the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures and happenings of Southeast Alaska. He was a chaplain in the Alaska Army National Guard, from which he retired after 20 years as a lieutenant colonel. In 1989, he was named AFN citizen of the year.

I cannot recall exactly in what year, but just as I had the recent honor to cover Katie John receiving her honorary Doctor's Degree from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, so too was I able to cover Dr. Soboleff when UAF bestowed the same honor upon him and Dr. Kenneth Toovak of Barrow. Even before that, in 1968, he had received an honorary doctorate of humanities from the University of Alaska and in 1952 an honorary doctorate of divinity from the University of Dubuque, where he had earned his bachelor's degree in 1933.

Once, before that time, I received a letter from Dr. Soboleff out of the clear blue. It had been years since I had spoken with him, yet something prompted him to write to me to tell me that he appreciated my work and to encourage me to keep it up.

I know this sounds a bit like I am boasting, but to receive that letter from this man for no other reason than that one day he decided to write it touched me deeply and indeed it did encourage me and continues to to this day.

I took the above photo at Celebration 2004 in Juneau, as Dr. Soboleff took his place for a panoramic photo of all the dancers and singers present. At that time, he was a young 96 years old.

Thank you, Dr. Soboleff and to your family, my condolences. What a privilege it must have been for you to have been raised and shaped by this wonderful man. Thank you for sharing him with so many.

Breaking ice to keep this blog alive and hobbling along

Due to the impossibility of truly looking at photos on this malfunctioning laptop, this is a random "grab" from a series of ice-breaking shots that I took either late last night or early this morning, I can't remember for certain. Night and day tend to blend together and become to seem as one, this time of year.

I will explain later, when I can sit down at my home computer with a monitor that works and do it right.

I had planned to fly out of Barrow for Anchorage tonight, and then drive home to Wasilla, so that I would have two days to square things away and maybe get a little rest before getting up early Friday morning to make the six hour drive to Tok.

But I think now that I will stay here, mostly on the ice, until tomorrow night. 

I have just come in after three days on the ice to recharge my camera and phone batteries. I will head back out, shortly.

Today, btw, begins the time when the sun remains above the Barrow horizon 24 hours a day, from now until August 2.

Keeping this blog alive and holding with Marilu Pai, a man from Mangalore, India, who I found at a bowhead whale landing on the Arctic sea ice

This is Marilu Pai, origingally of Mangalore, India, but now of Barrow, Alaska, in a photo that I took somewhere near 2:00 AM this morning. Mr. Pai is a wildlife biologist and a veterinarian who just this past winter landed a job with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management.

Although on the whole it was a very warm winter for Barrow, Mr. Pai was shocked by the cold when he arrived. Yet, he was thrilled to be here and he has toughed it out and says he is greatly enjoying his job. Come August, his family plans to leave India and join him.

"Nowhere else in the world could I get an apportunity like this," he told me. He said he loves the big, wild, open country of the Arctic Slope and the sea, and all the animals that live thereon and therein, especially the big bowhead whale.

Those ropes behind him are part of a block and tackle system that the Iñupiat whalers are using to hoist a huge bowhead, landed by the Little Kupaaq crew of Harry Brower Jr., ever so slowly out of the water and onto the ice.

Pai came out with a host of other scientists and researchers to make measurements and take samples.

He also spent many, many, very cold hours helping the whalers pull on the ropes. I do not know what the temperature was, but probably right about 0 F (-18 C), which is not too bad but there was a stiff, biting, wind behind it.

It is the whalers and the Iñupiat people of the Arctic Slope, Mr. Pai explained, who he sees himself as working for. So he wants to be low key, never pushy and he wants to help all he can.

As any reader can see, this blog is still in a barely surviving, holding pattern and it will be for a few more days yet.

I will probably wait to make my real series of blog posts from this trip to Point Hope and Barrow until May 17. This coming Friday, I must be in Tok and the Sunday thereafter in Fairbanks. The story that I will be doing in those two places is one that cannot wait until later to be posted, so I will do it immediately upon shooting and then get back to my Arctic work.

I supposed that it is possible that things could suddenly fall into place and I could post this Arctic series before I leave for Tok, but that would really surprise me.

It would be a happy surprise, though.

Keeping this blog alive in a holding pattern with one pic of Chukchi Sea sunset

The wind here in Point Hope has shifted to the west and south and is forecast to stay that way for four days. This brings the pack ice back, closes the lead, and pretty much brings the bowhead hunt to a pause until the wind shifts back to the Northeast.

As I am scheduled to leave here for Barrow Thursday, this means that I am probably done taking pictures at Point Hope whale camp for this year. It also meant that I found myself with a little time to do some blogging and so I decided that I would tough out this malfunctioning laptop computer screen and would put up a full blown post.

But when I tried, I just could not beat the screen. I could not edit the pictures. I simply could not tell enough about what I was looking at, so I gave up and just grabbed this one sunset-through-overcast-and-light-fog picture, which I took two nights ago, right about midnight, Alaska Daylight Savings Time.

Maybe after I get to Barrow, if I find the time, I can borrow a computer and do some serious editing. If not, then, except for "keeping this blog alive" single pic entries such as this, it will just have to wait until I get back to Wasilla in about one week.

Obviously, I need to do something about this screen. I had earlier taken it in to my local Mac store for an estimate and that came out to a bit over $500. I called Mac itself, and they said the odds were good that they would be able to replace it for their standard fee of $300 - which is also their minimum fee - but they could not say for certain until they checked it out.

It seemed to me that it would be better to put the $300 - $500 towards an iPad, which I could then use both as an iPad and as a screen for this laptop, rather than into this old laptop itself, but the full price of the iPad has eluded me so far - although I suspect that I have squandered more than enough money on breakfast, hamburgers, tacos and such since this malfunction began to have covered the full price and then some.

But I've got to do something. This is absurd. It really cripples me in the field.

Right now, this laptop is good for little other than serving as a data transfer and storage device.