Jesse Sanchez: the Barrow Whaler who showed up at the championship game wearing pink

Jesse Sanchez of Barrow wore pink gloves onto the playing field last Saturday when the Barrow Whalers met the Nikiski Bulldogs in the state championship game.

Sophomore starter Sanchez did it to remind spectators - and anyone who happens to see this photo - that October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to encourage them to support both the battle against cancer and the women afflicted by it in any way they can.

His own mother has had two bouts with cervical cancer, so Jesse knows what the fight is all about.

So does his sister, Mariska, a Barrow cheerleader, who got into trouble for wearing a t-shirt in support of breast cancer patients emblazoned with the words, "I love boobs" to school.

As readers know, the Whalers lost that championship game.

Yet, even within that loss, they scored their little wins here and there.

Jesse's pink gloves was among those little wins.

Now, as for me, my time is so full and I have so much that feels so impossible that I must accomplish over the next four or five days that I am putting this blog on "one picture a day" mode. Don't be surprised if I miss a day or two altogether - like I did yesterday.

Once everything is out of the way, I anticipate having a brief period of time when I can go at this like it is really what I do.

After the game tears were shed

click to enlarge.

This is not the trophy that the Barrow Whalers football team had hoped to take home to Barrow. This is the State Runner-Up 2011-2012 trophy. They wanted to take home the State Championship trophy. I wanted them to, too. Badly.

Instead, Nikiski, a team that the Whalers had previously beaten, took that trophy home.

Still, the Whalers accomplished something that had never been accomplished before. They are the first Barrow Whaler Football team ever to go to state - and they won their division championship.

That's North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, who presented the trophy to them, standing with them and he told them the same thing. On the left is assistant coach Brian Houston.

I took quite a few pictures at the game, but other than to grab this, I haven't looked at them yet. I suspect my very best picture(s) will not be of the action - although I hope I got a couple of decent ones there - but of the emotion and tears at the end.

If I should publish one or more pictures of these tears on the printed page, and I suspect I will, do not be embarassed, Whalers. The tears you shed today did not come from weakness. If you had been weak, you would not have fought on this field in the first place. If you had been weak, you would not have cared enough to have shed tears. These were tears brought on by strong desire, passion, hard effort, hard work and struggle.

As painful as they were, it is good that you could shed such tears.

And one day, those who follow you in future seasons will take that championship trophy home to Barrow.

I hope I am there to photograph it.

The Barrow Whalers travel 1,023 miles to Nikiski, where they lose badly in the first half, but fight back hard through the second

I met the Barrow Whalers at the Wal-Mart near the Dimond Center in Anchorage at about 8:30 PM. I had planned to meet them shortly after 6:00 PM, the time that their Era Aviation flight from Barrow had been scheduled to land at Ted Stevens International Airport, but that flight was over two hours late.

As the coaches bought a good supply of water and Gatorade for the next day's game, the Whalers ate Subway sandwiches on the hood of one of the three vans that had been rented to take them to Nikiski - over three hours away.

The Whalers hit the road a minute or two before I did. My electronic gas gauge showed that I only had 150 miles to go before empty, so I would have to stop and gas up. I wondered if I might possibly catch up to them before they reached Nikiski.

Unless they stopped somewhere, it seemed unlikely. Coach Voss told me that the plan was to drive straight through - as even that would not put them there until after midnight. Then they would need to haul their gear into the school, down through the hallways and up the stairs to the wrestling room and there establish their beds.

Their Nikiski hosts planned to bring breakfast to them at 8:00 AM. The game would be at 11:00.

When I pulled into the Girdwood Tesoro station, 50 miles out of Anchorage proper but still with the municipal boundaries, I found that they had stopped there, too.

They left even before I could turn on the unleaded regular pump. I spent at least ten minutes gassing up and buying a few goodies. Still, there were hills to climb ahead, I figured they would not be going that fast and thought I would catch them.

After I got going, I discovered much of the route to be covered with heavy fog. 

Traffic was light. I passed a total of four or five slow vehicles and no one passed me, but I did not catch the Whalers. As I neared Kenai, Sally Go Round the Roses came on to station 91.5. I had not heard this song at least for years and think more likely for decades.

Maybe two decades, possibly even three.

When I heard it, in my mind I instantly saw the streets, buildings, vegetation, houses, hill, bay and ocean of Eureka, California, as these things had looked in 1963, when I was 13 and the song popular.

I had always liked it, been enchanted by it - and this was as I heard it on my transistor radio of the time, and on our tiny AM car radio.

Now, it was being played in stereo on our modern, much superior radio and I was totally entranced. Mesmerized. I did not want it to end, but to play and play.

This morning, I downloaded it off iTunes. I have probably listened to it 20 times today, as well as other versions by Grace Slick and the Great Society,  Question Mark and the Mysterians and Pentangle and some other versions as well. I enjoyed them all - but none of the other three could compare to the original by the Jaynetts.

When I reached the Nikiski High School, I expected to find the vans there, but I did not. I found only a surprisingly large high school enshrouded in fog so thick that it could not be seen from across the parking lot.

About 20 minutes later, at approximately 12:30 AM, the vans rolled in. They had pulled over at a rest stop along the way but, given the density of the fog, I had not seen them.

I had felt so tired as I drove through Kenai that I briefly thought about abandoning my plan to stay with the team in the school and go for comfort in a hotel, but decided to stick to it. I brought an inflatable bed and pump that Jacob and Lavina had lent me. 

After I had picked these and things and Margie up at Jacob and Lavina's on Thursday, I drove to Melanie's house to drop off a table that she had found in Wasilla on Craigslist. Melanie, Rex and Charlie had removed the table from the car and one of them had set the pump down in the driveway, meaning to pick it up afterward, but nobody thought about it again until I drove over it while backing out the driveway.

It did not appear to be damaged, but when I tried to inflate the mattress the pump would not work. So I borrowed another, but there were players waiting behind me. I felt guilty, because they needed their sleep to prepare for the game, so I stopped inflating the mattress a bit before I should have.

The bed sagged in the middle. This impacted the quality of my sleep.

I got out of bed somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30 and found coaches Igou and Battle going over plays the whalers would use this day.

Coach Battle briefs the offense.

Just before it was time to go on the field, I found quarterback Eddie Benson adjusting the foam protection that Coach Houston had helped him place over the cast that protected his broken arm.

Football is a team sport, yet, before each game, a player must go alone into his own mind, into his own psyche and soul to prepare for the battle ahead.

The fog had begun to ease a bit, but was still heavy. The grass was wet and cold. Darius Samuelu prepared to don his helmet and join his teammates.

As the Whalers warmed up and stretched their muscles, Roger Ferguson passed in front of my camera.

Then, the older, more experienced, bigger, heavier, deeper Nikiski Bull Dogs broke through the fog and charged onto the field.

Team captains Lawrence Kaleak, Nathaniel Samuelu and Eddie Benson took the field for the coin toss. The Bulldogs won. They chose to receive.

One could look at images such as this along with the final score of 47 - 7 and conclude that the Bulldogs trounced the Whalers.

No doubt about it, the whalers took some hard blows - including one to the shoulder of Jacob Harris.

Yet, after falling behind 40-0 by the end of the first half, they listened when the coaches told them to look at the second half as a new game, reach into their souls for their inner strength and go out determined to fight and win that two quarter game.

They regrouped and hit hard.

Despite the bleak score, they did not give up and made many excellent plays, including this one when Benson hit James Snow with a fifteen yard pass. 

Snow snatched the pass...

...he turned...

...and charged forward for a gain of I don't know how much, as I have not seen the stats, but he did gain a first down.

Blood was drawn on the face of Ulu Tuai.

A bit later, a swath of skin was torn from his arm, just above the elbow. As coaches Battle and Houston patched him up, Tuai urged them to hurry, as he wanted to get back into the game.

Even before Houston could finish binding his wound, Uluakiaho wanted to get back on the field.

They were down by 40 points, but... hey! Do the Whalers look like a football team? They do to me.

The whalers got on the board when Jones hit Jhonel Moreno in the endzone for six. Jones then kicked the extra point. 

I am proud to say that although the Whalers did not win, they fought through every minute of the game and they tied the second half, 7-7. Victor Unutoa carries the ball.

Afterward, as they always do, they gathered for a prayer.

And they raised their helmets, just like they did last week, when they won.

As I walked from the field back to the school to gather my stuff together, I saw two dogs, riding through the parking lot in the back seat of car.

Soon, I was on the road and in Kenai I saw these two young women in a convertible that must have a permanent Alaska license plate by October 13.

These days, there is no way to know for sure, but I suspect that even before that date they will cease to drive with the top down.

That van in front of me? That's the final vehicle of the caravan of Whalers, driving back to Anchorage where they will overnight and leave early in the morning back to Barrow.

What a beautiful drive it was!

I should note that during the game, the emcee announced that the Barrow whalers had traveled 1028 miles as the crow flies to play this game.

Next week, they play Delta and I sorely want to go, but I have a commitment in Barrow and will not be able to.

They must win, because although I have concluded that I cannot finish this essay to the depth that I want this season and will have to find the way to continue it through the next year or two, I want to photograph them again this season.

If they win next week, they will go on to the playoffs, October 2 in Kenai. I talked to them. They do plan to win. I plan to be in Kenai.

I can't quite explain it, as I do not know any of these young men that well, but I find that there is something that I like about them.

I missed Adrian Panigeo - number 15. He was out on crutches - for the rest of the season. I have never seen a tougher high school player with any more heart than Panigeo, so I hope to photograph him some more in in the future as well.

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On my way home, I stop in Fairbanks to watch the Barrow Whalers play football; a man paints lines at MacDonald's

On my way home from the Arctic Slope, I stopped in Fairbanks to catch the Barrow Whalers football game against Monroe Catholic School. The date, September 11, kind of added a little impact to the traditional playing of the National Anthem that proceeds football games.

The Whalers won, 26-14. I have not yet had time to edit any of my photos from this trip and I have a huge edit to do, but I remembered seeing quarterback Eddie Benson blasting his way with a cast on his arm through the Monroe defense on the Whaler's final touchdown drive, so, for this blog, I went straight to that photo and this is it.

The touchdown came on the very next play, when Benson hit Trace Hudson with a 10 yard pass. Readers can find a more complete account in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, right here.

The end of the game came dangerously close to my departure time out of Fairbanks International Airport and I should have left maybe 10 minutes before I did, but I pushed my luck and stayed put just to capture this scene.

I then rushed to the airport, checked in before it was too late and then returned the rental to Budget. There was one woman ahead of me and it took the guy behind the desk about 15 minutes to serve her. Finally, with little time to spare, he handed her the keys to her rental car and she left.

I stepped to the counter, anxious to complete the transaction so that I could go through security and board my plane, but before he could help me, the phone rang.

It kind of felt like someone had cut in line ahead of me. The guy then spent several minutes with this person as I grew ever more anxious, as departure was now less than 20 minutes away.

After he took my keys, I headed for security and as I was finishing up, I heard the final boarding call for my flight. "All passengers must now board." I put my belt back on, cinched it, then slipped my feet half-way into my shoes, grabbed my stuff and ran toward the gate.

All passengers but me had boarded. There was one ticket scanner, sitting by the gate waiting for me.

I handed her my ticket. She scanned it. I boarded the plane. They shut the door behind me, fired up the engines, we were giving the pre-flight speech and then we left.

Margie picked me up at Ted Stevens International in Anchorage. I had not eaten since lunch, so we stopped at MacDonald's, nearing midnight. As we sat in the car eating our hamburgers and drinking our fruit smoothies (see... MacDonald's can too be healthy - FRUIT smoothies) this guy drove up and started to paint fresh parking lines.

Now, I will see if I can get a little rest and then try to make a small account of what was a big and interesting trip.

I might add that when I was on Cross Island, I heard no national or international news at all, very little when I was in Nuiqsut, but began to learn of what has been going on in my nation during my few hours in Barrow. Now I am home, awash in the flood of news. All I can say is - my country has been going nuts.

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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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