A spider escapes to spin its web; we eat breakfast as a train rolls by

I leave for Nuuk, Greenland in less than four days and I have a great deal to do between now and then, so I suspect that I will be blogging lightly for the rest of the week - although one never knows for sure with me.

So I won't write much about Kalib or about any of these pictures. As you can see, he is playing in the yard. What more do you need to know?

I suppose it would be helpful to know that these images were taken Father's Day afternoon, this one shortly after Kalib's dad fired up the grill.

Lavina and Melanie than set out to cook bread on the coals, and peppers, too.

Here is the bread and peppers - Apache style bread, of course. It turned out excellent.

This was the first time I had ever seen Jobe eat solid food; I think it might have even been the first time that he ever did. Lavina or Jacob will correct me if I am wrong. He ate beef. Margie noted a study that she had read about that indicated that when a baby eats beef for his first solid meal, it helps further that baby's brain development.

Rex brought a piece of art work with him that he was very proud of. He has been working on some kind of project to renovate a day care center and a five year-old girl who is a student there has become very fond of him. She was sad when he had to go, so she gave him these pieces of art that she had made especially for him.

Okay - left to right: Kalib, Jobe, Jobe, Lafe, Kalib.

After we had eaten, Kalib went out into the front yard to play in the dirt and I followed, to make certain that he did not run into the road when a car was coming. Later, his dad came out and found a nice little critter to show him.

The critter escaped and ran up his dad's arm.

This is the critter - a spider and a rather cute one at that.

Kalib scrutinizes the spider as it dangles beneath Jacob's hand from a string of web.

In the evening, as usual, everybody left. Muzzy would run for the first block.

I had planned to drive Margie into Anchorage this morning so that she could begin her week of baby-sitting Jobe. Jacob called just as we were about to leave and said Lavina would be working at home today and so I did not need to bring Margie in until tomorrow.

Instead, I took her to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, where we had the first of what should be several free breakfasts.

Yesterday J2KLM2 Hess gave me a $100 gift certificate to Family Restaurant for Fathers Day.

J2 = Jacob and Jobe, K = Kalib, L = Lavina, M2 = Muzzy and Martigne.

As we were sitting there, eating our free breakfast, the train came rolling by.

It was thrilling. How could the breakfast experience get any better than this?

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.

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!

Rex takes me to the concert, where a puffin flies over the orchestra, and moose, too

Just as I said I would, I ate breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant and so did this couple. I did a number of other things throughout the day and took pictures of various subjects, ranging from mountains to airplanes to a dog running directly in front of the car going in the same direction as me, but I've got to get to the concert, so I will skip all that.

Rex bought a couple of tickets to the Saturday night performance of the Anchorage Symphony and invited me to join him. So I drove into town, parked the car and walked over to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, where I saw a family who identified themselves as the Barnes passing by on the sidewalk.

Other people were looking at the ice sculptures that adorn the plaza adjacent to the Performing Arts center. I heard a story on NPR this afternoon that explained why the Lower 48 and the mid-latitudes of Europe and Asia have experienced such cold weather this winter while the Arctic - even the North Pole - has been unseasonably warm.

It is not just because of El Niño, as I had suspected, but because of the Arctic Oscillation. Normally, the air pressure at the pole is lower than elsewhere and so the cold not only forms, but settles in. This year, there has been a shift in the air pressure, which has been higher on the pole than normal and lower to the south and so the cold air that would normally linger in the north has moved to the south.

The guy said that the odds of it happening this way are about the same as being given one draw from a deck of cards to pull out the Ace of Diamonds, and then you pull out the Ace of Diamonds.

I went into the lobby and soon Rex showed up with the tickets. 

After we entered the auditorium and found our seats, I snuck up to the front real quick so I could get a shot of the bass players as they limbered up their fingers and tuned their instruments.

I returned to my seat as the crowd poured in.

Here I am with Rex, waiting for the concert to start. Rex told me that part of what he has done to cope with Stephanie's abandonment is to start attending concerts and such, so that he could hear music that he had heard growing up in our house and remember it.

A guy in front of us looks at his watch. He needn't worry. The concert will start on time.

The concert opened with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2. The fellow playing the trumpet is Linn Weeda. BBC#2 requires the trumpeter to blow his instrument up an extra octave from its normal range and, if what I was taught in college is true, in order to play it, the musician must have lung power strong enough to inflate a car tire.

This is kind of hard for me to imagine, and I am not certain that it is true, but it is what I was taught.

I would like to tell you that the performance was flawless, that not a note was missed nor rendered even slightly shrill, but that would not be an honest statement.

What is true is that I greatly enjoyed sitting there with my son, having all these musicians playing their instruments to send sound waves of Bach flowing over us. It was very good.

It reminded me too of when Margie and I were first married, and I would often take her to recitals and concerts - classical and rock and roll. Then we would come home and go to bed and life would be sweet. Those were good times.

Linn Weeda played the trumpet, Roxann Berry the flute, Sherman Piper the Oboe and Kathryn Hoffman the violin. 

They accept their applause.

This is Paul Sharpe, playing a solo on the double bass during the performance of A Carmen Fantasy for Double Bass and Orchestra Prelude by Frank Proto.

It is a fact that I could have gotten pictures of much greater technical quality with any one of my big DSLR cameras then I got with my pocket camera - and with a telephoto lens I could came in much tighter on the subject.

But... I could not have used such a camera at all in here. I could not have taken any performance pictures at all. The pocket camera is perfectly quiet and exceptionally discreet and so I could get away with taking pictures, without getting kicked out or rising the ire of nearby audience members.

And that is a big advantage of a pocket camera.

For his encore, Sharpe played the Alaska Flag Song.

After a bit of Debussy, the Symphony wrapped up the evening with Exposition on the Anchorage Museum, a commissioned piece by California composer Gregory Prechel - who has also composed music for The Simpsons and various shows and films.

Throughout the work, selected paintings, sculptures and carvings from the Anchorage Museum of History and Art were projected overhead, beginning here with Alvin Amason's rendition of a puffin, title "It's a Sweet Dream that Keeps Me Close to You."

The painting, "Easter Tableu" by Pat Austin.

The mask: Txamshem (Raven Man) by Jack Hudson.

Update insert: As I prepared this post early this morning, I had naturally planned to give credit to the conductor, Randall Craig Fleischer, who has done good things with the Anchorage Symphony. You see the time stamped at the top: 3:06 AM? That's when I opened Squarespace to begin constructing this post, not when I closed it. I closed at about 4:45 AM and I was so tired and so anxious to get this done so I could go to bed that I forgot to credit the conductor!

Very bad of me, but here he is, Conductor Fleischer, waving his baton beneath the picture of Hudson's mask.

Afterwards, I said goodbye to Rex under an awning that he had helped to construct.

And on the way home I encountered this crazy driver. I had set my cruise control at 65. When I first came upon this vehicle, it was doing about 50 in the left lane - a no no - and so I passed on the right. Pretty soon, it shot by me, doing 75 or 80.

Shortly after that, I again passed it on the right. Then it zipped past me. Then it fell back... then it passed me...

That's the kind of driver that was in control of this vehicle.

Notice the fog - how it engulfs the lights, but does not touch the ground.

There's lots more that I would like to write about the day that has most recently ended, but its almost time to get up and I have a big day ahead of me Sunday, so I think I had better stop and go to bed.

I should note, though, that of all the music performed, it is Bach that continues to play in my head. The other pieces have fallen silent. 

Bach rules!

Dinner with Diane just before PBS broadcast of For the Rights of All; Lullaby and Goodnight to Kalib; help Ann Strongheart help fight hunger

Last July, while fishing out of Homer with her Iraq war veteran and Wounded Warrior Olympic athlete son, Latseen, and grandson, Gage, Diane Benson caught a 300 pound-plus halibut. After giving us a chance to let the turkey settle down in our systems, Diane invited Margie and I over to eat part of that halibut with her and Tony Vita. Tony has been there for her and Latseen through the bitter, yet triumphant, journey through pain, recovery and politics that they have been on since Latseen lost his legs to a roadside bomb.

As to the halibut... ohhhh... it was delicious! Deep-fried and dipped in Diane's homemade tartar sauce, which just may be the best tartar sauce that I have ever tasted. We also had dried fish dipped in houligan oil, dried seawood, boiled potates and carrots, plus a mix of raw vegetables.

Afterwards, we spent a great deal of time talking about books and the writing of books and about the classes Diane has been teaching at the University of Alaska, Anchorage - in particular the class focusing on the fact that Native women face the highest incidence of rape and sexual abuse of any group in the nation and of ways to defend against it, both at an individual and societal level.

Tonight at 8:00 PM, KAKM public television will broadcast For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, the documentary filmed by Jeff Silverman in which Diane reprises her role as Alaska Native civil rights heroine Elizabeth Peratrovich that she originally created for her one-woman play, When My Spirit Raised it's Hands.

Those living in other parts of the US can check their local PBS stations to find out when the documentary will be playing in your town.

I saw it at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention. It is the most powerful work of its kind that I have yet to see. I would recommend it to all.

Scooter, the character in Diane's arms, was in rough shape when she rescued him a few months back, but now he is doing good.

Last night, I stepped into Jacob, Lavina and Kalib's temporary bedroom to give my little grandson a hug goodnight.

As he moved slowly towards sleep, the tune of Lullaby and Goodnight, played on a harp and woodwind recorder, softly played from the CD player.

It took me back to when I was about his age, in a darkened room lit by a dim light with my own late mother, as she held me and sang that same song to me. My memories of the time are dim, but of that moment strong in the sense of feeling safe, warm, and loved.

And then I remembered when Margie and I first brought Jacob home from the hospital. Mom came to the house, she took him in his arms and began to sing that same song.

I could not keep the tears out of my eyes - then or last night.

I say temporary bedroom because, yesterday, Jacob and Lavina closed on their new house in Anchorage. Very soon they will move into it.

What will Margie, Uncle Caleb and I do then?

Speaking of Native issues, the Southwest Alaska village of Nunam Iqua and other villages are facing tough times this winter, due to shortages of food and fuel. I had hoped that Ann Strongheart, who is coordinating efforts to bring aid to the village, would come to Anchorage between now and Christmas so that I might photograph and interview her, but she does not expect to come.

Anyone wishing to help can find out how to do so on her website, Anonymous Bloggers.