With her vision going bad, Rose Albert opens her last Iditarod Show; how she came to wear her famous beret

When I was in Barrow for Kivgiq, I received an email from my friend, Rose Albert, telling me that she would be doing her final Iditarod Art show. She invited me to come. 

So of course, when it opened, I was there. The show features her paintings from along the Iditarod Trail, but she also brought a box with her, made of different woods, include alaska yellow cedar that she spent much time searching for.

She carved the box in honor of Lance Mackey, whose Iditarod racing career had appeared to be at its end when he came down with throat cancer. Mackey fought off that cancer and last year won his fourth consecutive race.

That's Mackey above with his team in a 3D image that she carved out of the wood and painted.

Rose will be at the Iditarod restart in Willow tomorrow and she will have the box with her and it will be for sale. She told me the price, but I am not going to quote it here. By my estimation, the value of the box is greater than the quote, so if any reader is a person with a good budget for Alaska Art, that reader would do well to go to the restart and pick up this box from Rose.

The show opened yesterday evening at the Alaska Native Arts Foundation at 6th and E in Anchorage and will run for two months.

Rose brought some of her personal mementos to the show from inside the box. Among them was this belt-buckle that she earned when she ran and finished the race in 1982. Rose, who was born on the Nowitna River and grew up in Ruby, was the first Alaska Native woman to do so.

That's Jeff Schultz doing a high five with Rose. When it comes to photography, Jeff is Mr. Iditarod. This will be his 31st year straight following the race. Anyone who has seen much Iditarod photography has seen Jeff's work.

His image of Dee Dee Jonrowe mushing through the Rainy Pass area in the Alaska Range was chosen by the US Postal to adorn the Alaska Commerative stamp on the 50th anniversary of statehood.

Jeff and his wife Joan are numbered among Rose's best friends.

Rose and Jeff did the high-five after sharing a joke about the painting on the wall just behind them. It shows the village of Eklutna and was inspired by one of Jeff's photographs - as were the other works on display.

Also in the Mackey box was this picture of Rose taken during her Iditarod 1982 race. Riding the sled with her is her late brother, Howard. This is the only picture that Rose has of her historic race - the only one she knows of. I feel badly about that. 

I did not know Rose in 1982, but I did hear of her and when I heard that she was going to be the first Alaska Native woman to run in the race, I wanted to cover her effort for the Tundra Times. I was still new at the paper, had not yet gained much power there and the paper did not have much money.

My request to follow or do a photo essay on her training was denied.

The next year, Rose pulled back so that her brother could run again. By then, I had a little more power and the Tundra Times allowed me to go spend a couple of days with Rose and Howard at their trapping cabin 50 miles upstream from Ruby, at Barron Slough, fifty miles up the Yukon from Ruby. Rose's dad gave the slough that name after a barron moose cow that roamed there. "My happiest memories in life were spent there," Rose says.

It was a wonderful couple of days. Someday, when I write my big -wandering-Alaska-memoire, I think I might begin right there, at Kokrines Creek.

Even though I got to spend that time with them, the Times denied my request to allow me to follow Howard on the race.  I can't blame them. I had not yet learned to fly, I did not have my little airplane, we would have had to charter an airplane and that would have been extremely expensive.

Late the following summer, in a black and tragic moment, Howard left this life behind.

I badly wanted to go to his funeral in Ruby, but the Times said no, if the paper went to the funeral of one prominent Native, then we would have to go to the funerals of all prominent Natives and that would take up too much of our time and resources.

Among the paintings hung was this one of my friend, Mike Williams, who gained fame as the Sobriety Musher after he lost six brothers to alcohol abuse and used the Iditarod Trail to launch his personal war against alcohol and substance abuse.

And this is Rose's depiction of Mike Williams Jr., Mike's son, who will be racing again this year.

This is Trina Landlord, who works at the gallery and was overseeing last night's opening. Trina keeps a blog of her own, Eskimo to the World. 

So now readers who haven't already have two new places to visit - Trina's blog and the Alaska Native Art Foundation.

Among those who came to see the show was Glenn Elliot and his five year old daughter, Abigal. Glenn grew up in Bethel but now lives in Anchorage, but works as a guide in many of Alaska's wild regions.

As for Abigal...

...she had just lost her two front teeth and was pretty proud of it.

Alice Rogoff, cofounder and Chair of the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, purchased the painting behind them for herself. Alice is also coowner of the Alaska Dispatch. Most importantly to me, when Margie broke her knee and wrist in a bad fall that she took in Washington, DC on the day of President Obama's inauguration, Alice moved us into her Washington DC guest house and let us stay there for as long as needed for Margie to heal enough to travel back to Alaska.

It was a terribly hard trip, but it would have been so much worse without the help of Alice.

And it was Alice who invited me to present my slideshow last spring at the Alaska House in New York City, which, sadly, has since closed.

As she did last year, Alice will be following this year's race in her airplane.

Rose explains to Alice why she decided she must make this her last art show. Last fall, Rose began to see streaks of light in her left eye. Then, when she started to work on this show, steaks of light would appear in her right eye and a film of mucas covered it and would not go away.

It grew harder and harder to paint until finally she went to an eye doctor. He informed her that she had vitreal detachment in both eyes and this would cause her vision to change for the worse. She also had a virus in her eyes and is being treated for it. 

"The virus is clearing up but my vision definately got worse, making it harder for me to paint in fine detail even with glasses so I use a magnifine glass now. There is nothing that could be done for me at this point unless I start seeing shadows which would mean retinal detachment and they would have to do surgery," Rose told me in an email.

Rose's beautiful Athabascan mother also had French blood in her. By the time Rose was 16, her artistic talent and desire was clear to all of her family. Her father told her that in France, the artists all wore berets and that as she has French blood in her, she should wear a beret, too.

She took her dad's statement to heart. When she is working with and showing her art, Rose always wears a French beret.

I had parked right across from the Fur Rendezvous carnival. It was cold and windy, but before I drove off, I took a five-minute stroll through the carnival. I found these kids fishing...

And this young woman from Phoenix manning a balloon-darting booth.

These two rode an amusement ride. On the first year that we lived in Alaska, we came by the carnival on a day that the temperature stood at -17 F, (-27 C) and the rides were packed, going like crazy. It looked crazy. It seemed crazy.

It was warmer than that yesterday - the temperature was above our F zero but well below the C zero - and it was still cold.

Especially with that biting wind.

What can I say?

Alaska is just a crazy place.

No way around it.

I love this crazy place.

Even Anchorage.

Which is too big and crowded for me.

I knew that I was getting low on gas, and yet I forgot. As I approached the South Birch Creek exit, I suddenly noticed the message that I had five miles to go to empty. I thought I might turn off there and head back to Eagle River, just a couple of miles away, but there is a gas station at Peters Creek which I knew to be just under five miles ahead.

So I continued on. I was a little worried, of course, but when the gas station came into sight, the message said I had one mile to go until empty. I was in good shape.

Still, to get to the station, one must drive past the station a fair distance, take the exit, turn left, pass under the freeway, turn left again, and then drive over about a quarter of a mile to the station.

So that is what I did. But when I made the second left turn I was thinking about something else and not paying enough attention.

Then I realized, all too late, that I had turned left not onto the frontage road to the station, but into the Anchorage-bound lanes of the freeway.

Just as I got back onto the freeway, the fuel message switched to "O miles to empty."

OH NO!

The North Birch Creek Exit was less than a mile away. So I turned off there, then doubled back.

So I drove about two miles on O miles to empty, but made it back to the pump okay.

When I hit the Parks Highway, I found myself behind this wide load. There was no way around it. It was a slow drive. But in time, I made it home.

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Clark James Mishler posted a daily portrait each day in 2010; Ranju - three studies

Earlier in the day, before I drove to the Anchorage Museum of History and Fine Art to see a 165 image slideshow edited down from Clark James Mishler's "2010 Portrait 365," I took my usual walk - now part of my preparation to get fit for this summer's upcoming Brooks Range hike.

As I walked, this raven flew overhead.

Come evening, I did not want to drive to Anchorage. I just wanted to stay home and edit pictures. I am so far behind on editing pictures, I don't know what to do. I could spend all day, every day, for the next couple of months editing pictures and I would still be far behind.

But I wanted to see Clark's pictures and to give his project a plug in this blog. As for Clark himself, he needs no plug. I doubt that there is a better known or more successful photographer working in Alaska than Clark James Mishler. In fact, I think I can say almost without a doubt that he is the most successful editorial and commercial photographer in the state. He is a hard-working, intelligent, superb shooter and a good business man. He has earned every bit of his success.

Clark, btw, is the fellow that the sharper focus is on. But don't let the fact that Bob Hallinen of the Anchorage Daily News is in the blur mislead you into thinking that he is less of a photographer than anyone. He isn't. 100 years from now, when someone figures out what photojournalist created the most powerful and important body of photojournalistic Alaska work from our time period, I predict that Bob's name will top the list.

He'll be dead and it won't do him any good, but people of the time will study, ponder, and be amazed.

And Bob loves ravens.

It's just that this night the focus was on Clark's "2010 Portrait 365" Project, so I put the focus on Clark. One day, when the opportunity presents itself, I will put the focus of this blog on Bob.

From my own experience as I stuggle to make a post on this blog every day, I can tell you what Clark did was absolutely amazing. Each day in 2010, no matter what he was working on or what he was doing, Clark shot at least one portrait and every day posted a new portrait on his blog.

He did not miss even one day - and he is carrying the effort over into this year.

There were times when the day was drawing to a close and Clark had nothing, but he would always make the effort, if neccessary, to go out and find someone, stop them, get the picture, or shoot an assitant, or perhaps even himself.

At least one day came to an end when the only portrait that he had was of a dog. He wondered if it was right to include a dog in the project, but decided it was.

Of course it was right! Never mind that the dog's tongue was a bit gross and slobbery - it was an excellent image and that dog deserved to be in the project - and that dog would not be the only one to be portraited in this project.

A cat would have been good, too.

Hey! That gives me an idea of project for my own! 

2012 Cat Portrait 365 project!

It is already too late to take on such a project for 2011. The problem is, sometimes I will go into a village and there will not be a single cat living there (yes, I always ask). I will want to spend some of my time in 2012 in villages. I can't discriminate against a village just because no cat lives there.

Speaking of which, I did not succeed in posting an image in all 365 days of 2010. I think I would have, but I got into places that the logistics made it difficult or even impossible to post.

Even under the best of circumstances, it is a huge challenge to post an image every day - especially when you it must be one specific type of image, in this case a portrait - but Clark did it.

Even more challenging is to post a good portrait every day. Clark did this, too - and many, many, many of the images are simply excellent. The breadth and depth that he has captured is phenomenal. 

After he showed us the 165 selections from his 2010 project, Clark put on a quick demonstration of how he often uses a very small, compact, portable lighting system that he can carry just about anywhere.

Clark likes to play light against dark and that is what he did here, on the spot, with his simple lighting system.

While our fundamental subject is the same - Alaska and the people in it - Clark and I approach our work with philosophies that are in many ways the exact opposite of each other.

Clark is a sharp-shooter, and I am a quick-draw artist. I can sharp-shoot, and Clark can quick draw - as his photo of Joe Miller taking his one glance of the debate at which he otherwise refused to even look at Senator Murkowski so deftly proves. But basically, he shoots sharp and I quick draw.

Clark shoots with strobe and artificial light not only in his studio and at night but in broad, bright, daylight. In this way, he effectively creates a style that subdues the background and puts the emphasize sharply upon his subject. His colors are rich and vibrant, his contrast strong. He looks at a scene with an eye to making it look better and more visually interesting than it might appear to be at first glance.

While I have made a few exceptions, it has been almost dogma to me that I work only with the light that I find, as that is the light that the life I am photographing is taking place in. When the light grows dim and dingy, then my pictures grow dim and dingy and sometimes very noisy, too, because if I cannot properly expose an image at my highest ISO rating of 6400, then I will underexpose by one or two stops and then do what I can to recover the image from out of the dark frame.

Clark's images all seem to be perfectly exposed. He must blow one now and then, but it sure doesn't look like it.

As he showed his slides, I wondered just how wise I have been to stick so closely to this philosophy all these decades. The fact is, Clark had many excellent images in his slide show that, under my basic philosophy, I simply could not have taken.

I have this little project that I have begun on Iñupiat artists. I am thinking maybe I should artificially light much of it - but I do not want to carry big studio lights around. I think I will go visit Clark and see what more I can learn about his portable lighting system.

In this self portrait with me, Clark and Bob, I am reminded of western movies that depict the time period between 1890 and 1910 - you know, the movies where the cowboy, sheriffs and gun slingers that made their reputations in the days of the wild west have passed their prime and are headed toward old age.

But they don't know it. They don't accept the idea. They keep their guns loaded and woe be to the young hotshots who live by different rules and underestimate them.

A few minutes after the post-show conversations had concluded, I found myself sitting and waiting at a red light. My mind was elsewhere. I was unaware of my surroundings. Suddenly, I realized that this grader was about to flash through the intersection, ice flying.

Oh no! I was too late! There was no way I could get the shot! But I grabbed my camera from my lap and fired anyway.

Quick draw artist.

I would have hated to have missed this moment.

It was just too damned exciting.

And these three with Ranju of India:

I will stick to the theme of portraiture for my India pictures today: Sri Ranjani "Ranju" in the arms of her aunt, Sujitha Ravichandran, at the Bangalore wedding of Soundarya and Anil.

Ranju gets a better view of the world, thanks to Manoj Biradar, Suji's man.

Also in the picture is Bharathi Padmanabhan, Ranju's mom, and, at the right edge my daughter Melanie, who looked so beautiful in her Indian saree and, just barely, Brindha Padmanabhan. 

There is an event scheduled to happen between Manoj and Sujitha on February 28. I want to be there. Right now, it looks pretty impossible, but I am not ready to give up the hope just yet.

Bharathi and daughter Ranju.

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At the weekends important Alaska book signing: Jobe greets progressive Phil Munger in the gleam of Sarah Palin's smile; Jobe spills the coffee; Jobe rolls on the floor / Amazing Grace

Here is Jobe and Melanie speaking with classical music composer and Progressive Alaska blogger Phil Munger at the important Alaska book signing that took place this weekend. Phil's wife, Judy Youngquist, was one of Melanie's teachers during her days at Tanaina Elementary School, and sometimes Phil filled in and taught her, too.

Another substitute teacher that Melanie had at Tanaina was Chuck Heath. Undoubtedly by now, the reader has noticed the face of Chuck Heath's famous daughter, Sarah Palin, beaming out from the three books on the lower part of the shelf between Jobe, Melanie and Phil. Probably, cynical readers are imagining that I set this picture up just this way - but no, I didn't.

It's just how it happened. I didn't even realize Sarah Palin's face was in the picture until after I took it. I was rather pleased when I discovered this, because it gave me some opportunities to play with today's title a bit and thereby draw in those legions of potential readers who only stop by if there is a hint that Sarah Palin might somehow be on this blog.

While I have generally tried to stay away from Palin on this blog, Phil has not been so reticent. He has written a great deal about Palin, whom he has known for decades.

But I have begun with a distraction. I had come to this place, Fireside Books in Palmer, because a signing for a very important book about Alaska was taking place here.

The important book that was being signed was "Purely Alaska - Authentic Voices from the Far North," a collection of stories written by 23 authors, most of them Native, spread across the roadless regions of Rural Alaska. The writings were inspired, encouraged, compiled, and edited by John Creed and wife Susan Andrews.

The two both began their careers as journalists, but then became teachers of journalism and writing at Chukchi College in Kotzebue - an extension of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. They eventually set up a statewide, long-distance learning program conducted via the internet. The stories in the book come from their students.

They are the real thing, written for love, not money and driven by the human desire to communicate one individual to another, one culture to another.

So I would suggest that readers consider buying this book, just as did Heather McCausland, for whom John is seen adding his autograph to Susan's. It will be worth it.

John, Susan and family.

John photographs Jobe.

I met first met John in September of 1981, when I flew into Kotzebue for the first time. He took me to a fish camp in Noorvik and helped me in many ways. I came back again after freeze-up and it was a wonderful, glorious, thing, because Kotzebue Sound had frozen solid and thick but there was not a snowflake upon it - just miles and endless miles of clear, smooth, slick ice.

We walked out onto that ice and then could not stop ourselves from running and sliding, running and sliding, running and sliding, until we had ventured well beyond the limits of common sense and safety. We had no gun and had a hungry polar bear come along, we would have been defenseless.

But it was such great fun that we didn't care and we knew that the odds were in our favor.

Yes, there was another book signing this weekend, at Costco in Anchorage, and it drew a whole lot more attention than did this one.

Trust me, though - this book will be the better, most informative and enjoyable read. The power and strength of the stories in it will live on when those in the other book have fallen into their place as a political curiousity and trivia, lacking depth and substance; hyperbole - a memento of a strange fad that rose out of my own little town at a troubled time in America to place an absurd and perplexing grip upon my homeland for a limited number of years.

But if you want substance, not fad, then read "Purely Alaska." Read the other one, too, if you like and if you are up to the task.

After we left the book signing, Melanie, Jobe and I walked less than one block to Vagabond Blues to get some coffee.

I know - some are wondering how I could be so fickle as to go get my coffee here and not at Metro Cafe, but Metro is closed on Sundays and we were in Palmer, anyway.

You know what the lyrics to the famous rock-and-roll song say:

"When you can't drink the coffee you love, love the coffee you can drink."

Such is my philosophy on the subject.

We ordered our coffee, got it, sat down and then Jobe grabbed Melanie's and spilled it all over the floor. It was okay. She just got another and we proceeded on, unperturbed.

Jobe did not get a coffee. Jobe drank from a bottle of his own mother's milk. Then he and Melanie played with the bottle cap.

Jobe is a very bright fellow, by the way; observant. He takes in everything around him. He enjoys the magic of learning and each conscious moment is magic for him. He brings magic back into my own life, even now, at this time.

And to Sujitha, sister of Soundarya - he brings magic back to her as well.

Jobe found that the lid to a bottle of mother's milk can also make a nice hat. He was very pleased with his new hat.

I should note that when Phil Munger first came to Alaska, he piloted a fishing boat by the name of Jo-be, pronounced just the same as Jobe, from Ketchikan to Cordova.

The three of us lingered at Vagabond for probably close to an hour, every minute of it pleasant and wonderful.

Finally, we had to leave. I had driven to Palmer alone with Jobe. Melanie had driven out from Anchorage to meet us. We wanted to drive back to the house together, so we left Melanie's car in Palmer and I drove us home to Wasilla.

I didn't time it, but it usually takes close to half-an-hour, so I suspect that it did this time, as well.

When we pulled into the driveway, Jobe was fast asleep in his car seat.

The light was exceedingly dim, so, even though I was shooting at 6400 ISO, I had to drop down to a quarter or half-second exposure, - very difficult to do shooting free hand - so I took my time and took several shots.

I knew that from inside the house, all Lavina could see would be our headlights. She had not seen her baby Jobe since the day before. She did not discover that I had shanghaied him off to Palmer until she and Jake arrived at the house to find us gone. I knew that she was wondering why I was taking so long to bring him in. 

When finally we did go in, we found people baking, icing, sprinkling and eating Christmas cookies. I would have taken Kalib to Palmer with me as well, but he was asleep when I left.

Melanie observes Jobe as he rolls across the floor.

And this one from India:

This is just a few frames short of being the final picture that I took during the trip that Melanie and I made to India to attend the wedding of Soundarya and Anil. I took the picture as our cab driver approached the Bangalore Airport. As I have earlier noted, other than the wedding pictures, I have never had the time to sift through my take to see what I have.

It has now become very important to me that I do, even though the task seems immense and impossible, given my other responsibilities. I have put the entire, India, Part 2, take into my Lightroom editor and so I set out to skim quickly through to see if I could get some kind of idea of what I have - particularly when it comes to images of Soundarya, and of Soundarya and Anil, as well as the man who walked a scorpion, the monkey who jumped the gap and the dinner of bananas that Vijay fed to us.

I scrolled rapidly through the entire take over the course of maybe three hours, possibly four, bypassing hundreds of images at a time but stopping every now and then, especially when I would spot an image of Sandy.

As I did this, I had the radio tuned to KSKA. In the final hour, as part of whatever program was on the air, a female folksinger was being interviewed. Every few minutes, the interviewer would pause to let her perform a song. I was absorbed in the pictures and did not pay much attention, but she had a nice voice and it made pleasant backgroud music.

Then, to my dread, I came to the final series of frames that I will ever shoot of Soundarya. At the very moment - THE VERY MOMENT - that my final image of Soundarya appeared full-screen in my editor, the folksinger began to sing...

Amazing Grace...

...and she sang it beautifully...

.. she sang it for Soundarya, my cherished Hindu soul friend - she sang it for me, the rebellious, strayed Mormon who has chosen to walk an indeterminate path...

Here is Judy Collins, singing the same song, for any who might care to listen.

I have probably listened to it 20 times since coming upon that final picture. I am listening to it right now. My eyes are not dry.

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Little genius Mariah Ahgeak captures me

During the singspiration, two-year old Mariah Ahgeak, one of Warren Matumeak's great-granddaughters, walked up to me during a moment when I had taken a seat in a pew, had set my camera down and had pulled out my silenced iPhone to check the time.

Mariah was very interested in the phone and she knew that it was also a camera. I thought that she wanted me to take a picture of her and show it to her - as so many children do. So I activated the camera, took a picture of her and showed it to her - but that was not what she wanted. She wanted to take the camera and take a picture of me. 

I was reluctant to let her take my iPhone, because I feared she might not want to give it back - and it can be hard to explain to a two-year old why she must, but she was so determined and enthusiastic that I relented. I let her take a picture of me with the iPhone.

A bit later, she popped up in front of me again, this time holding a tiny red camera, which she also used to take my picture. She looked so cute and determined with that little red camera, but I could not photograph her because I had a big lens on my camera and it would not focus that close and my iPhone was  buried in my pocket.

Two nights later, the family invited me to dinner and she was there.

Again, she wanted to take my picture.

I gave her my iPhone. Here she is, studying her subject before she shoots.

Here she is, photographing her subject.

Now she studies her work.

And here is her subject - me - in the picture that she took during the singspiration for her great-grandfather at the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church.

I almost want to proclaim her a natural-born photographic genius, because in this simple snap, I can see everything that I was feeling - the deep, unrelenting sadness coupled with my joy and delight at seeing her determination and enthusiasm.

Soon, there will be no need for people like me because people like her are going to cover everything from the inside to a depth that has never been achieved before. Even so, I am glad that I arrived upon the scene in time to be of some use with my camera.

I think Mariah is a genius. I really do. Go back to the top, look into her eyes and tell me otherwise.

Jacob Kagak with his little niece, Theresa Cola Luafulu, Warren's granddaughter.

Darlene Kagak with her little niece, Theresa Cola Luafulu. Dorene took note of the fact that little Annie begun her life's journey at the same time that her grandfather's came to an end.

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," Darlene said.

And here are the iPhone images that I took of Mariah during the singspiration:

Mariah!

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I get an invitation to the set for "Everybody Loves Whales" and find that I have been there since the beginning - I wonder, what if?

Anyone whose memory reaches back to October, 1988, will remember The Great Gray Whale Rescue that took place on the sea ice near Point Barrow. For those whose memories do not reach back that far and who may not have heard of the event, freezeup came early that year and my friend, Roy Ahmaogak, found three young gray whales trapped in three small holes in slush ice that would soon harden.

What unfolded thereafter was the strangest, most bizarre, wonderful, nightmarish, magnificent, dreamy, spectacle of human good will, pettiness, compassion, selfishness, ingenuity, brutally competitive, cooperative display of kindness and love that I have witnessed - and it was driven by the fact that Everybody Loves Whales.

A most unlikely coalition of Iñupiat whale hunters, the oil industry, Greenpeace, the National Guard, the Reagan White House and the Soviet Union, plus a myriad of ordinary people from all over, came together to try and rescue those three whales.

For two weeks, all the other big stories of the world, including the heated political battle between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis to become the next President of the United States, receded into background noise.

Media from around the world poured into Barrow as the concern and attention of an entire planet of people became focused on those three whales and the efforts to save them.

And I had a front row seat to the drama. I guess I was part of the drama, as I may have been the first person to photograph those whales and I was absolutely the first media person to do so. I alone photographed the first human contact with the whales and the resultant images got onto AP and became the first images of the rescue to be seen in the world's newspapers.

Now, just over 22 years later, Universal Pictures is making a movie based on the rescue, directed by Ken Kwapis, starring Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Dermot Mulroney, Ted Danson with a supporting cast of Iñupiat and Yup'ik actors and extras, led by John Pingayak who plays a character loosely based upon the legendary Malik.

Among these actors is my good friend, Art Oommittuk, who has developed a firm relationship with Kwapis. 

A couple of weeks ago, Art suggested to Kwapis that he invite me onto the set for Everybody Loves Whales. Kwapis had spent time with my book, Gift of the Whale: The Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt, A Sacred Tradtion, and told Art that he definitely wanted that to happen.

So the invitation came. On Saturday, I was able to accept it.

When I stepped onto the set, I experienced Deja Vu to the extreme. There, in a small area in front of me, was a whale hole on a flat pan of ice rimmed by pressure ridges. When I turned and looked in the other direction, there was a section of downtown Barrow, painted in the very colors that I remember from 22 years ago. It looked so real that I kept wanting to climb the stairs up to Pepe's, go inside, and order some tacos.

I had not been on the scene for more than one minute when Art spotted me and waved. He couldn't come right over, because they were shooting a scene simulating the reaction of the whalers and other rescuers as the Soviet ice breakers rammed the ice nearby. Of course, I wanted to photograph this, but Universal Pictures does not allow any but their own official still photographers to photograph such scenes, so I had to stand with my camera hanging useless at my side and just observe.

After several takes, they took a short break and Art introduced me to Kwapis.

This is them - Art Oomittuk, Iñupiat hunter, artist extraordinaire and now actor, with Ken Kwapis, renowned movie director. He came across to me as a very down to earth individual. He looked like he could have been comfortable on the real ice off Barrow. I could see that he had genuine respect for Art and that he was truly interested in anything I might have to say.

Kwapis said he had been through my book many times, and that it had played a significant role in guiding them as they created the stage for the movie.

This is Hope Parrish, set designer, holding her copy of my book, Gift of the Whale, which she asked me to autograph. As you can see, it is well marked with yellow stickies and it is the most dog-eared copy of the book that I have signed.

She told me that it had been invaluable to her, to many people working on the film, that it was the primary reference for recreating the visuals of the rescue.

The reason that I have lightened, blurred, and distorted the background is because it shows a portion of that part of the set that shows Pepe's renamed, along with a portion of the Top of the World Hotel. Universal Pictures does not want anyone to show pictures of their set to the world just yet. They want the set to be seen for the first time in the trailers that will precede the expected release in early January, 2012.

I got mixed signals about how Universal might react to seeing this small portion of the set off in the background. Some thought it would not be a problem. Some thought it would.

So I decided just to blur and distort it, for now. 

Once the movie is released and I do the big series of Gray Whale Rescue blog posts that I plan to publish then, I will post the undoctored version.

We were soon joined by Sarah Regan, who also had a copy for me to sign.

An airplane flew overhead.

Ossie Kairaiuak, a well-known singer and performer in these parts, and David sing a few bars in Iñupiaq of a piece that several of the Native actors on the set spontaneously came up with one day. They were filmed performing and the song is expected to be included in the movie.

Of all the stories that anybody has ever told me regarding their experience with Gift of the Whale, none have moved me more than David's. David has roots in Point Hope, but grew up in Palmer. After he read Gift of the Whale, he decided that he had to go back to Point Hope and go whaling. He did. 

He loved the way the experience connected him to his people. He plans to keep doing it.

This is Sarah Conliffe, who I met in the warmup room, where there is much good food to eat, from fresh raspberries and blueberries to peta wraps, delicately braised slivers of beef, rolls, coffee and tea.

Sarah is the costume designer and she, too, wanted me to sign her book.

She, too, described it as an invaluable resource to her - her costume Bible - I believe she said.

Unless I am getting her words mixed up with Parrish's.

I feel like maybe I am coming across as arrogant and boastful, here, and letting all this go to my head.

But it's how it happened.

I was also told that Universal did not want anyone to publish photos of the star actors taken on the set, but that it would be okay if I got personal pictures of my friends in a way that did not really show the set or the big stars.

I was in the process of taking just such a picture when one of the big name actors saw what was going on and jumped right into the middle of the picture.

Again, I got some conflicting advise - some thought it would be okay for me to publish the picture straight, some thought maybe not - so I did it like this. I could make it look better, but I have to catch a plane to Barrow, where, as usual, I will be staying with my friend, Roy Ahmaogak, the man whose discovery launched the episode that led to this movie.

Please come back after the movie is released and then I will show you who the actor in this picture is.

This is Reynolds Anderson, assistant to Ken Kwapis. It was she who met me after I reached the set and who served as my guide for the first hour or two that I was there.

I felt very badly for her at times, as she spent a lot of time just standing patiently by while I talked to other people. Plus, although the day was very warm for this place this time of year, it was not at all warm to a young woman from Southern California.

A young bald eagle flew over head.

This is cinematographer John Bailey. He also came across to me as being a very down to earth, curious, helpful person and he took the time to talk with me over several breaks.

He, too, had kind things to say about my book - and he gave me an idea and said he would help me with it in the future. I have learned never to get my hopes too high about anything until it actually happens, but it sounded good, so I will take him up on that and see if it can be made into anything.

This is Nelson, who also has been doing set work. He showed me a picture from my book that I had taken inside a home where women were sewing skins and told me how he had worked off that picture to create a living room that will appear in the movie. It will not exactly the same, but the element will be there.

I autographed his book, too.

I feel badly, and I thought I entered it into my iPhone, but I cannot remember the name of the woman with him. She also has my book, but did not have it with her. Others told me the same.

To the left is Sandra Murray, who turned the tables on me and interviewed me about my experience during the rescue. Whatever parts of the interview they might find worthy will be incorporated into the DVD and HBO package of the film. Jeff Feller manned the camera and Paul Lawrence handled the sound.

After the interview I hoped in a white van that took me to place where a cajun lunch was being served. I met Heidi there. She had papers for me to sign, stating that it was ok for them to use the interview in their package.

And now, the what if:

Everyone that I met on the set treated me wonderfully. It was flattering and it was good to see that they had been impacted by my work as a team and as individuals and had found inspiration and guidance in it to help them carry their own work forward.

This felt good to me - and it was fun. Yet, I cannot help but wonder, what if?

After my book was released, my publisher, Sasquatch Books, attempted to sell the movie rights to it in Hollywood, but the effort didn't pan out. Later, my niece, Shaela Cook, who is making a career in Hollywood, decided that she wanted to make a movie based on Gift of the Whale.

She worked hard at it, and presented it to various people in Hollywood and got some responses that were, at first, encouraging, but that ultimately led to nothing.

So what if?

What if either of these efforts had succeeded?

The story Hollywood settled upon is a love story, based loosely on one that actually happened during the rescue, one that was written up in another book.

I am not certain about this, but I understand that a photographer also plays a significant role in the film - a photographer who documented the rescue effort from beginning to end. I am not certain if this is a still photographer or a video photographer - or even if there truly is such a character - but there was only one photographer of any kind who was there at the beginning and at the end of the gray whale drama, and that was me.

Many others, from all over the world, joined in between the beginning and end points. But I am the only one who shot the beginning, the middle, and the end. The only one.

So what if it had been my book that had been made the focus of the story?

There is a pretty good chance that I would now have the necessary resources to spend a year or so trying to figure out how to build this blog and its evolution into what I would like it to become.

That's what if.

But it did not happen that way. There is no point in lamenting.

So, when the movie is released, I will go and enjoy. It will not matter to me that the story is a different story than the one that I saw unfold. I will enjoy it.  I have this feeling that the movie is going to be good - perhaps even excellent, a huge hit. I will take Margie and we will eat popcorn, and chocolate covered peanuts.

The movie will give me an excuse to do what I always wanted to do but never did - to tell the gray whale rescue story indepth, as I saw and experienced it. I did not tell it in depth in Gift of the Whale, because I had space enough only to devote one chapter to it.

There will be space enough in this blog - or whatever this blog has evolved into by then. I will spread the telling out over two weeks - the same approximate time as it took for the rescue effort to unfold.

I will tell the story then - in early January, 2012, or whenever the movie is released.

So please come back then.

The bridge above, by the way, crosses over the place where the van took me for the Cajun lunch, which was excellent. I saw Art and some of friends in there and was going to join them, but the publicist asked me to join him, as he had many questions for me.

I did my best to answer all of them.

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