Transitions - Chilly Barrow to hot Fairbanks to cool and wet Wasilla; Kalib and Jobe return to the blog

Among the things that I did on my last day in Barrow was to interview elders Wesley and Anna Aiken for Uiñiq. They grew up the old way and still express amazement that they can now wake up everyday in a warm house and with the flick of a switch turn on a light.

On April 8, they will celebrate 63 years of marriage and they have a host of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to celebrate with them. I can't say for certain, but I hope to be in Barrow at that time so that I can photograph the celebration.

This is from the night before, and you can see Wesley sitting right up front. I took this picture at what was a Slope-wide gathering to honor the bilingual teachers and others instrumental in setting up bilingual programs over the past five decades or so. The teachers gathered in every village on the North Slope and were joined together by teleconference and then all were honored with certificates and pins. Many were honored posthumously. 

Some, such as Anna Aiken, were not able to attend, but Wesley picked up her awards and brought them home with her. 

These are some of the people who have been working hard to keep the Iñupiaq language alive and vital in the face of TV, video and internet.

Van Edwardson called me on my cell phone to tell me that he had been tearing up the floorboards at his late grandfather's house to build anew when he found this seal-oil lamp beneath it. These are the instruments that people used not so long ago to both light and heat their extremely well-insulated sod iglus.

The lamp would contain seal oil and wicks.

Van notes that the house of his grandfather, Ned Nusunginya, had been there for all of his life and undoubtedly longer than that. "I'm 51," he said.

The lamp is made from soapstone, apparently from Canada and must have got to Barrow via trading and bartering. "This was used by my ancestors," he told me.

After he found the lamp, he took it to the Iñupiat Heritage Center, where it is being given museum care.

Some time ago, I can't remember precisely how long, the artist Vernon Rexford contacted me to ask for permission to use my photographs as the basis for some balleen scrimshaw etchings. I greatly appreciated the fact that he asked and told him to go ahead and just etch my name in there, somewhere. Not long after I returned this time, he was out on his four-wheeler when he spotted me, came over and invited me to come and meet him at the Heritage Center, where he has a full-length balleen hanging in the gallery, with his recreations and interpretations of my photographs from one end to the other.

It was an amazing thing for me to see, to think that what I did had inspired him and he had found a way to work my work into his own vision and create a new kind of life for it that I had never imagined.

He later took me to his work area in the Heritage Center and showed me this smaller piece, also based on my photographs, that he was still working on.

You can see that it is sitting atop a copy of one of my old Uiñiq magazines, with another one above that. The sketch is of his grandmother, the late Bertha Leavitt, and was drawn by Larry Aiken, son of Wesley and Anna, from a photograph that I took of her on the beach in July of 2006. There was a nice breeze blowing that day and it would sometimes catch and lift the hem of Bertha's parka and when it did, I would snap the shutter.

Now he was going to work off the sketch of my photo to etch the image of his grandmother, his Aaka, into his balleen.

I ate a lot of food in Barrow, so much so that when it came time to go, my jacket was feeling tight around the tummy. It hadn't felt that way when I had arrived. 

Due to the satellite problems that were putting the internet out of commission for many hours at a time, Alaska Airlines had been advising passengers to check in at least a couple of hours early because if they were offline, they would have to write tickets by hand.

So I went in two hours early, but the satellite was behaving, Alaska Airlines was online and I received my ticket in reasonable time. Now I needed something to do, so I walked the short distance to the Teriyaki House. I just wanted something light, so I ordered a bowl of soup - a huge bowl of soup, as it turned out.

You will remember Jessie Sanchez, the young Eskimo dancer and whaler who has become a Barrow Whaler football player. He is the kid who got hurt in the first Whaler game. Now the Whalers would soon board the same jet as I would to fly to Fairbanks to play their second game at Eielson Air Force Base. Jessie was feeling much better and he had gotten a Mohawk cut.

He was also getting a bite to eat at Teriyaki, along with his friend Lawrence Kaleak, who you saw dancing at Pepe's at the victory celebration.

After we ate, we all walked back toward Alaska Airlines. That's Jessie's girlfriend, who told me her name but I forgot. She would not be going to Eielson, but only to the Alaska Airlines terminal to say goodbye. For the past week straight, the weather in Barrow had been continually cold and windy, with periods of rain, mist and fog thrown into the mix.

Now, that we were all leaving, it was starting to improve.

Soon, we were all on the jet, football players, coaches and a whole bunch of other people including tourists, businessmen and women and people just heading out to visit someone or to return home.

That's Anthony Elavgak, sitting there thinking. What is it that Samuelu, Samoan, has in his hands in the row behind him? 

Why, it's a ukulele! He makes a nice sound with it. Before continuing on to Anchorage and then Wasilla, I got off the plane in Fairbanks and I did go to Eielson and photographed the game.

It was a very different game than the opener in Barrow. Whereas the temperature in Barrow had been in the 30s and the wind in the 30 mphs, it was hot in Fairbanks and Eielson - in the 80's. The game was tough and Barrow lost, big time, never got on the scoreboard.

But remember, they are a young team, with only four seniors. They never gave up. They fought to the end. And there was one young man, Adrian Panigeo, who really grabbed my heart because of the size of his heart. He was not the biggest man on the field - far from it - but pound for pound I think perhaps he was the toughest. Certainly, there was not one tougher, not on either team. Defense, offense - making tackles, carrying the ball, getting hit hard by bigger men, still to blast his way through for extra yards when it looked like he should have been stopped - that was Adrian Panigeo.

The announcer had a difficult time pronouncing his name, but he had plenty of opportunities to practice until he got it right, because Panigeo was key to so many plays.

Sadly, he was put out of the game before the first half ended and left the field in an ambulance, having taken a hard blow to the sternum and he got overheated.

Football is a new game to the Iñupiat, but to watch Panigeo play, you would think it had been in his genes forever. I haven't had time to edit and prepare my pictures of the game. Maybe I will put some in later, or maybe I will just wait and save them exclusively for Uiñiq.

We will see.

Early Sunday afternoon, I boarded the plane in Fairbanks. I didn't really want to. The high temperature in Fairbanks was forecast to be 85 degrees. I wanted to hang around, with nothing to do but whatever I wanted to do, and experience that 85 degrees. But I also wanted to see my family and I could not afford to stay in Fairbanks just to have fun, so I boarded the plane.

As it turned out, the temperature in Fairbanks hit 91 this day, a record both for the date and for this late in August.

The plane departed an hour-and-a-half late and there were a bunch of people on board with a tour group that was continuing on to Hawaii. They had to switch planes fast, so they asked all of us who were not going to Hawaii to stay in our seats until those who were had left the plane.

So all these folks you see standing and trying to get out were headed to Hawaii. Unless there's some cheaters in there, who were only pretending to go to Hawaii so that they could off the plane ahead of the rest of us.

After we landed, the voice on the intercom welcomed us to Ted Stevens International Airport. I had always wondered how it felt to Ted Stevens, each time he was on a plane and heard this same welcome.

Now, Alaska was preparing for his funeral. He would never hear that welcome again.

Anchorage had just set its own weather record - for the most consecutive days of rain, 29, I believe. It must be 31 now.

Margie was there to pick me up. As we exited the airport, we found ourselves traveling alongside this small tourist bus. We were in wild Alaska for certain.

Sunday night, Margie and I spent our one night in the same house together and then, early the next morning, I drove her into Anchorage so that she could spend the next four days babysitting Jobe.

Here's Jobe. My pocket camera battery died immediately after I took this picture.

The other day, I was looking at queries people use to get to this blog. One read, "Where is Kalib?!" 

Here he is, as captured in my iPhone.

An iPhone image of Margie, Muzzy, and Jobe. Muzzy recently had minor surgery that brought to an end all notions of perhaps breeding him. Now, he must not be allowed to lick himself in a certain place or to bite at stitches.

In the afternoon, I headed to Metro for the usual hot drink, then took the long way home. As I did, I was so overcome by sleepiness that I stopped at this secluded place, closed my eyes and feel alseep listening to All Things Considered.

When I sort of awoke a few minutes later, I shot this image with my iPhone.

I then drove home the even longer way and shot this image by iPhone, too. The battery was still dead in my pocket camera, that's why.

This was yesterday. I awoke this morning to the sound of more rain. Another weather record broken.

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I leave my family and cool and rainy weather behind and drop into sweltering, hot, Barrow where I find Dustinn Craig, teaching young people how to make movies

During my very brief stay at home, I took a number of pictures of my family that I intended to post so that I could let readers know a little bit about what we experienced in our short times together. Included among these were my son Rex with his special new friend, an adventurous young woman by the name of Ama from the San Francisco Bay area who has been out hiking, camping, and kayaking around Alaska.

Unfortunately, I forgot to transfer them into my laptop. This one, final, family image that I took was still in my pocket camera, which I put in my pocket before I left and so it came to Barrow with me.

As you can see, it is of Jobe, studying his dad as he shaves.

I often wonder how it is that Jacob ever learned to shave in the first place.

He sure as hell didn't learn it from me.

I haven't shaved in 92 years - well, maybe its been a little less than that, but not much.

Not long after I boarded the jet that would take me from Anchorage to Barrow, I heard someone call my name from a seat just a few rows behind me. I turned. It was Qaaiyan. For those of you who have read Gift of the Whale, Qaaiyan was the boy making coffee with a pick ax from freshwater ice that he had learned to find on the salty, frozen, sea. 

He was with Jamie and their new baby, Aagluaq. The "g" is supposed to have a dot over it but if there is a way to do that in this program, I do not know it.

For those of who have seen my latest Uiñiq magazine, Jamie is the girl taking the accidental dive, braids flying, off the blanket toss during the Point Hope Nalukatak.

As for Aagluaq, dotted "g," this is my first photograph.

Oh, wait - I think I also posted the picture of Jamie in the Point Lay series I put up on this blog in June of last year. Give me just a moment and I will go check for certain and I will find a link. Oh, heck - I am certain. She's there. I don't need to check, I just need to find the link.

So give me just a moment and I will go find it...

I found it, here it is.

Shortly after we departed Anchorage, the pilot spoke on the intercom to tell us what kind of weather conditions awaited us on our journey. He said it was 80 degrees in Fairbanks, which is not at all that unusual in the summer and it can significantly hotter than that, but when he said it was 70 degrees in Barrow, I wondered if I had heard him right.

It's not that this never happens in Barrow, but it doesn't happen that often. I know - some of you read "70 degrees" and laugh, but let me assure you that in Barrow, 70 degrees is hotter than it is anywhere else that I have ever been. 

When I arrived in Barrow, I found it simply sweltering. Roy Ahmaogak picked me up and brought me home. There, in his parent's living room, I found a a visitor, young Katilynn, desperately trying to cool herself in front of an electric fan. And if you look closely at the background, you will see a hand-fan in motion as well.

I should note that, as of today, it is much cooler: 43 degrees. It is raining and most people would probably consider it cold.

I hope it isn't raining during tomorrow's afternoon football game - the season opener. I plan to be there, taking pictures and I don't want to get my cameras all wet.

I was most happy that this trip to Barrow coincided with a visit by the Apache-Navajo filmmaker Dustinn Craig, the son of my late and special friend, Vincent Craig. I am also proud to call Dustinn my special friend. We were together at the moment of his dad's death and we share some things.

Dustinn was finishing up a two-week Media Camp where he had been teaching filmmaking to a group of young people from high school to college age who had gathered at Ilisagvik College from various Arctic Slope communities.

I dropped in a little more one hour before the students were to show their movies to the public. Most of the movies were finished and ready to be shown, but Gabe Tegoseak, the tall guy in the back, was still finishing up the editing on his - with Dustinn's help, to be certain that it would barely be ready to show.

Gabe's movie starred Gabe himself and it was a take off on a popular TV show about a guy who goes out into wild places to survive only off of what he can take from nature.

Speaking with a perfect Australian-Iñupiaq accent, Gabe leads viewers on a hilarious Iñupiaq survival adventure that begins in the local grocery store and progresses to the tundra, where he eats caribou poop that looks strangely like candy, drinks what appears to be a wildly-squirting fountain of yellow liquid created by his own kidneys and wrestles a dangerous creature from Iñupiaq lore that strangely looks and acts like a kitty cat with a sock on its head.

At least, there is a sock on its head for a few moments.

Damnit. I hate it when people give away the ending or the good parts of a movie and now I just did it myself.

Also pictured are student filmmakers Chris Ross, sitting next to Dustinn, and Joey Atkins. Chris created a dreamlike horror tribute inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Joey presented a soul-stealing wraith whose fearsomeness was accentuated by the special effects he worked into his film.

Both films were damned frightening, with some humor thrown in.

At points early in the process, these students had felt overwhelmed by the process they faced, but they got through that, had fun and created some good work which I hope is soon online.

Onscreen is Dominque Rose Nayukok of Atqasuk. She created a movie in which she used stills to tell the story of her home village. Unfortunately, her travel schedule had taken her back to Atqasuk earlier in the day, but we got to meet her onscreen.

Agnes Akokok and Lavisa Ahvakana of Wainwright both love to Eskimo dance and so they made Eskimo dance the subject of their movie. Each took their turns onscreen to narrate the action.

Each time that Lavisa appeared onscreen, offscreen she got to feeling a little shy and bashful. She did a good job, though - one that I would say has earned her the right to hold her head high.

As Gabe stands laughing in the background, the audience laughs at his survival film. This kid ought to be on TV performing his antics every week. I think he would be loved, far and wide.

Afterwards, Gabe asked Dustinn if he would help him record some of his own guitar playing and singing, so Dustinn did. April Phillip, who, among her other filmmaking activities played the main character/victim in Chris's Alfred Hitchcock tribute, helped out.

I shot this through the very dust-coated window of the class van as Dustinn drove April and I back into Barrow from Ilisagvik college, located at the old Naval Arctic Research Labratory three miles north of town. It was a beautiful, warm, night and many people were out on the beach, the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean behind them.

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A pocket camera glimpse back at the gathering before I get going for real; roadside scenes while on coffee break in Wasilla: Baby Jobe in green

That's Harold Frost of Old Crow, Yukon Territory, playing fiddle on the left and Chester Fields of Fort Yukon on base. Yesterday, I stated that today I would begin posting my Gwich'in Gathering images in earnest, but I am not yet ready to do that.

I was very lazy yesterday and it was the only day this week that I would have Margie home with me. I did not even begin to transfer the 360 gigabytes or so of high resolution, RAW images from my big pro cameras from the portable hard drive I took to Fort Yukon into what for the moment is my big working harddrive attached to my desktop computer, until about 8:00 PM.

Those images were still transferring when I went to bed about 12:30 AM. Now I must put them in my photo editing program and start the task of editing and processing and I feel completely overwhelmed. It feels like a task that would take a month to do right.

The very thought makes me feel like I just want to go back to bed and sleep for a year or two.

That's another thing that I really like about my tiny pocket camera - the Canon s90. Not only is it tiny and light, but there is no way to shoot pictures fast with it, so you don't get that many. The ones that you do get have nowhere near the resolution of those taken with my pro cameras, so they do not bog the editing program down and they are quick and easy to work with.

I didn't use the pocket camera much in Fort Yukon, but I did keep it in my pocket at all times and every now and then I did pull it out and shoot a frame or two - such as in this case.

There was a table in front of the fiddle player. I wanted to get a shot from under the table but there were speakers and other gear beneath it, so it was a whole lot easier just to reach under there with my pocket camera, frame it in the LCD and take a snap than it would have been to have crawled under with all that stuff with my big gear and then let rip with bunch of frames.

So for today, I am just going to use  the few scenes associated with the gathering that I did with the pocket camera. Once I get some editing done, you will see Harold and Chester again, along with a whole lot of other folks.

Harold did not come to the home of Ben and Carrie Stevens, my hosts, with his fiddle, but when we all gathered there we could still hear the fiddle music in our heads.

Little two-and-a-half-year old Alex, "Sunshine," must have heard the music very clearly and he remembered well how people had jigged to that music. So the sound and the memory went down to his feet, took hold of them and suddenly he began to jig in the kitchen. Soon, Sunshine had three women dancing with him.

I wish I could dance like that.

This is Jessica Black, who served as Miss World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in 2000. Jessica also spent part of the gathering camped out in the Stevens home in the room across the hall from mine. We became friends, just like that.

She received the scarf tied as a band around her head at a give-away held in honor of a deceased baby boy. After she put it on, she did a short dance, Gwich'in style.

My host, Ben Stevens, preparing moose-rib soup to feed to those gathered at the gathering. Mighty tasty. Excellent ribs. I wish I could have some now. I can't, so maybe I will go to Taco Bell instead.

Ben had to leave early to return to his fish camp far down river, near Stevens Village, his original home.

Just to remind you that I am now back home:

Yes, I am in Wasilla and yesterday after stopping in at Metro to say "hi" to Scott, Carmen and Sashanna, I drove away with an Americano and then took a short drive to drink it. Along the way, I saw this car, parked with its lights on at a corner.

And I saw that someone had rebuilt the memorial for the young woman and her unborn child who had been killed in a collision at Church Road and Schrock. Two crosses used to rise from this memorial, but vandals broke them and messed up the scene.

Now it had been put back together, but without the crosses.

On my last day home before I left for Fort Yukon, I took Margie to Metro and as we waited in the drive-through, a succession of police cars and emergency vehicles screamed by, red lights flashing. A bit later, on our drive, we had just turned off Schrock Road onto Lucille Street when we saw that the road was blocked ahead and red lights were flashing.

We detoured elsewhere through the neighborhood to avoid the scene and then I forgot about it. I did not know what had happened. I never thought about it again until yesterday, when I drove past it for the first time since my return. This is what I saw.

Given the location, my immediate thought was that it had probably been a four-wheeler accident and that the person who had died had been young.

I looked it up online after I got home. Indeed, 17 year-old Cheyanne Jorge had died after rolling her four-wheeler. Her passenger, also 17, was treated at the hospital and released.

Horrible.

Early this morning, I drove Margie into Anchorage so that she can spend the rest of the week babysitting Jobe. Here he is, dressed to match the bathroom colors.

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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?

I eat a tasty Apache-style green burrito, then happen upon two strong Apache women

I have a HUGE amount of material to blog. Hundreds of photos. Thousands of words to write. But I've got to go to bed, so we can get up early and head to the dance. And I am exhausted.

So out of the huge amount of material I have, I chose what I figured would be the easiest and quickest to get up and post. I will come back to the rest later.

As to the easiest and quickest, whenever Lisa comes home to the reservation, she must get her Friday lunch at Tailgate. That is a gathering that takes place in the parking lot at Basha's where vendors come to sell Apache frybread and beans, Apache burritos, Apache tortillas, Apache tamales, Apache hamburgers and Apache Rice Krispy treats.

So we went and I ordered an Apache Green Burrito with all the trimmings and it was so good that, even though I was full, I went back to the tent where I had bought it to buy another but they were sold out.

Margie has a cousin who works at a fitness center a short distance away, so we walked over there to visit her.

I found this kid just outside the door, hefting these barbells.

He assured me that, when the conditions are right, he can put them over his head.

Shortly thereafter, this lady, Charla Dazen, came by. With the help of the guy standing behind her, she strapped these weights to her back and took off running.

I should add that it was pretty hot. I don't know how hot, but quite a bit hotter than it was in Wasilla.

After she pulled the weights around for a bit, she flipped this big tire, said to weigh about 250 pounds, over three times.

After she finished with the tire, she picked up 70 pounds worth of weights then sprinted away with them. Then she sprinted back, still carrying them.

Then she went and grabbed a barbell. Do you think she was strong enough to put it over her head?

She certainly was giving it a good effort.

Yeah! She did it! Three times in fact. It took her a minute and 11 seconds to put herself through the whole course.

As it turned out, last summer Charla won the Strong Woman contest at the White Mountain Apache Tribal Fair, where she dead-lifted 315 pounds over her head and bested her opponents in a strength-testing, five-part, obstacle course.

And this is my cousin-in-law, Janis Joplin, hefting strong baby Jobe inside the weight room. Yes, Janis Joplin lives - although we call her Buffy. The first time I met Buffy, she was a tiny girl in the back of a pick-up truck and she was buried in crawling, squirming, squeaking puppies.

The last time that I saw her was right after Jacob and Lavina's wedding a little over four years ago. We did not know it then, but she was about to undergo a hard fight against breast cancer.

She is doing good now.

Buffy is a strong woman.