Country and Rock guitarist Dr. Aaron Fox, who, with help from Chie Sakakibara, has returned Iñupiaq songs to the people of Barrow; Tagiugmiut and Suurimmaanitchuat, at Kivgiq

This is Dr. Aaron Fox, Associate Professor of Music, Chairman of the Department of Music at Columbia University and repatriator of Iñupiat song and dance to the people of Barrow, as seen through my iPhone. I met him for breakfast at the Hudson Diner - a place that he recommended both because it was right around the corner from where the Alaska House and Alice Rogoff had put me up, and because he said it was one of the few cafes left in the area that cater to the working class.

Shortly after we sat down, I saw the potential for a good picture of Aaron in the foreground as two adults accompanied by a young girl paused in the background outside the window. I framed it in my pocket camera and shot. The image that flashed up on my my LCD looked good, but I shot a second and third frame to give me a couple more options. As they flashed across the LCD, they, too, looked good.

Afterwards, I tried to pull them back up so that I could show them to Aaron - but instead of images, the camera gave me this stark message: "No Memory Card."

Yes - no memory card. I had already downloaded the pictures that I took earlier that morning for my Easter Sunday post and had forgotten to put the card back into the camera.

Once again, I had to turn to my iPhone. 

So here is my portrait of Aaron Fox, shot with my iPhone.

Fox's title sounds pretty high-brow, but he is a country and rock guitarist and a former DJ. His favorite artists are are Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Aerosmith, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard.

He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from University of Texas at Austin and an AB in Music from Harvard and holds a deep love for the traditional music of Native peoples worldwide. Columbia has a large collection of films and recordings of Native music.

The Columbia collection includes the work of Laura Boulton, who, from the 1920's through the 1970's, traveled the world to record the work of traditional and tribal peoples. She visited Barrow for one week in October of 1946 and recorded 120 drum-dance songs and oral narratives, performed by seven adult male performers and at least three children.

When Fox became the Director of the Center for Ethnomusicology in 2003, a position now held by his colleague Anna Maria Ochoa, he also became curator of the Boulton collection. By this time, the matter of who owned Native song and dance - the non-Natives who recorded them or the Natives who created and performed them - had become a public issue, and the understanding had grown that the ownership rights of Native people were as important to them as they are to any artists who create music.

While by law the publication rights to Boulton's recordings were held by Columbia, Fox launched a process both "to clarify the cultural ownership" of the works and to set up a process to repatriate the rights back to the people who had created them. Although he had been impressed with the Barrow recordings, he began this work with the Hopi and other Southwest tribes, thinking that sometime in the future he would turn his attention to the Barrow recordings.

Yet almost immediately, he was contacted by Dr. Chie Sakakibara, then a graduate student in Cultural Geography, who had begun a National Science Foundation project to do her doctoral research on the whaling cultures and climate change in Barrow and Point Hope.

Sakakibara had become aware of the Boulton recordings and wanted to learn more about them. 

Aaron then asked Chie if she would help him locate living descendants of the singers Boulton had recorded. She eagerly agreed and set about to do so immediately. As she identified descendants and other interested Barrow Iñupiat, she sent their names and contact information to Aaron. He, in turn, sent CD's of the recordings to all who requested them.

Fox had anticipated that the process would be a slow one that would only develop into something sometime in the distant future, but as soon as the people of Barrow began to see the recordings, they took enthusiastic action themselves. Vernon Elavgak, a descendant of one of the seven drummers, his wife, Isabell, and Riley Sikvayugak, another descendent, organized a new dance group, the Tagiugmiut Dancers.

They listened to and learned the songs recorded in 1946 and began to practice motion dances put to those songs. The women designed beautiful, blue, outfits for their members, sewed them and then they began to perform in public, where they quickly proved popular. In 2007, Tagiugmiut won the Eskimo Dance category at the World Eskimon-Indian Olympics in Fairbanks and were invited to perform at the 2008 Gathering of Nations inter-tribal pow-wow in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Fox and Sakakibara traveled together to Barrow and did many extensive interviews with descendants and other Iñupiat who love dance. They gathered information not only on the performances that had been filmed, but also on a collection of photographs gathered at the time by Boulton, photos which now belong to the Indiana University Archive of Traditional Music. Many of the photos are believe to have been taken by Marvin Peter, a noted Iñupiaq photographer of that time.

Aaron showed me a few of the photos on his phone, including the above image of Alfred Koonaloak, one of the seven singers.

As interested as the people were in the recordings of the drummers, Fox found that they were even more captivated by the photos of their relatives and fellow Iñupiat, most of them gone now. Sometimes, a viewer would gaze upon and study a single image for close to an hour at a time.

Among the most popular was this image of eight women and a child, gathered outside Barrow's Utqiagvik Presbyterian church house. 

Aaron shows me a photo taken by Chie in which Mary Ahkivgak, daughter of Otis Ahkivgak, one of the 1946 singers, intently studies one of the photos from the Indiana University collection.

In another incident documented by Chie, the late Martha Aiken, a highly respected Barrow Elder, found a picture of her husband, who had already preceded her in death. She looked lovingly and longingly at the picture and then, through spoke softly through her tears. "That's my Robert," she said.

You can find the picture of Robert Aiken and the one Chie took of Martha viewing it right here.

So a partnership has now developed and is growing between the Iñupiat of Barrow and Columbia's Center for Ethnomusicology. The process of repatriation of ownership to be administer by the Iñupiat through The Iñupiat Heritage Center. While all rights will be held by the tribe, Columbia and the Heritage Center are working on an agreement that would license back usage rights for scholarly and teaching purposes, to be done in respectful ways.

Above is an image of the Tagiugmiut Dancers, that I took at Kivgiq 2009, as they performed a motion dance to a repatriated song.

Tagiugmiut. The woman at front center with the big smile is Isabell Elavgak, who helped her husband Vernon and Riley Sikvayugak to organize Tagiugmiut.

And that's Vernon on the left, during an invitational fun dance. The young man dancing alongside him is Ernest Nageak, son of Roy and Flossie Nageak, who has adopted into their family, as well as Chie as has another Barrow family, that of Jeslie and Julia Kaleak.

Jeslie and Julia have been active participants in the repatriation effort.

Tagiugmiut youth, performing a whale hunting dance at Kivgiq.

Aaron Fox in a fun dance with Tagiuqmiut after they invited him onto the floor.

Aaron is hugged by Josiah Patkotak of Barrow's Suurimmaanitchuat Eskimo Dance Group.

Barrow Elder Warren Matumeak in the midst of Suurimmaanitchuat. Matumeak has taken a strong interest in the project and has provided much information. At this moment, he is undergoing cancer treatment in Anchorage.

Suurimmaanitchuat - that's Mariah Ana Ahgeak-Fotukava and Maaku Matavale, beneath the drums.

On July 12 of last summer, Roy and Flossie Nageak, who have adopted Aaron into the their family and Pk-13 whaling crew as well as Chie, invited me to a 45th birthday dinner that they threw for him at their home in Barrow. I went, ate, and took photographs. I had planned to publish one of those photos in this article, but I must have inadvertently erased them from my card before I downloaded, because when I went to my folder dated July 12, all I found was three photos of the Alaskan husky, Dawson.

Fortunately, Bobby Akpik was there taking pictures as well. This one, of Aaron with Chie and the cake that she spent hours making for him, is posted on Sakakibara's Facebook page.

As can happen in small towns, when people saw Chie and Aaron going about the community together as they did their research, some speculated that perhaps they were a couple. Chie set the record straight on Facebook, as you can read in the photo.

Flying home, part 2: Study through Window Seat 1D, Alaska Airlines Flight 52: passengers boarding in Fairbanks

Study through Window Seat 1D, #1:  Many people got off the plane in Fairbanks, but all passengers traveling on to Anchorage were asked to stay on board. 

So I did, and then I noticed these two guys through Window Seat 1D.

Thus I began my study.

I am pretty certain that within 45 minutes of when I post, I will begin to receive calls from the most prestigious museums in the world, from places like New York, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, London, Rio De Janeiro, Delhi, Dubai, Adis Abeba, Rome, and Winnemucca.

They will all want to hang this study on their walls. And they won't even have to frame the images, because they're already framed.

"Thank you, Bill," the curators will praise, "for saving us the cost of the frames."

Study through Window Seat 1D, #2: Alaska Airlines employees remove the trash that accumulated on Flight 52 during the Barrow-Fairbanks segment.

Perhaps the empty bag that once contained the pretzels and nuts that was given to me free of extra charge by Alaska Airlines is in that bag.

If so, then this is a truly historic moment.

If not, then, so what?

Study through Window Seat 1D, #3: One of the two guys from Study #1 returns - the one with the long bill on his cap.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #4: The guy seems to feel slightly self-conscious about his tie - or maybe its cold out there and he is trying to cover a little more of himself with his jacket. Except for the cap, he looks like a pilot. 

Maybe that's a pilot's cap and I am just behind the times, and didn't know.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #5: The first of the Fairbanks passengers comes down the chute - and she is mighty cute.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #6: The woman who appears to be her mother guides her along her path. This is what mothers do.

I see another little hand behind her. Who could it belong to?

Study through Window Seat 1D, #7: Why, it's The Little Boy in Blue! He is well-prepared to take a nap.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #8: The woman who succeeded in boarding with three carry ons.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #9: If the situation had been reversed, had it been me walking down that chute towards the door and this gentleman sitting by seat 1D with a camera in his hands, then he could have taken my picture.

But that's not how it was.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #10: Some people carry their bag into the plane, some people roll them. This lady is one of the rollers.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #11: Not long ago, she was in the cold. Now she is about to enter the warmth of the airplane.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #12: You first. No, you first. No, you've got a rolling bag - you first. No, you - you're tall, and you might bump your head, so please go first!

They were both too late. It was the little girl in Study #5 who entered first.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #13: I thought that she should have brought one for every passenger on the plane and the pilots and stewardesses, too.

I wound up ordering cranberry juice. Even on the short hop from Fairbanks to Anchorage, you can do that in First Class. In coach, you have a choice of water or orange juice.

And to think, I wound up in First Class by chance, with a coach ticket, and got all this extra service that I was undeserving of.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #14: The girl in blue; the man in the green vest. For some reason, I think the man in the green vest likes to hunt ducks. But maybe he doesn't. Maybe he is a vegetarian and only eats tofu, asparagus and lentil beans.

Study through Window Seat 1D, #15: As do all studies, this one must come to an end and so it does, right here.

Yet, when one study ends, a new one can begin. Right after I took the final picture of the previous study, a couple, who looked to be in love, entered the plane. The woman sat down beside me, in Seat 1C, where I had been originally. The man sat down in Seat 1A, by the window on the other side of the aisle.

This did not seem right, so I offered to trade places with the man.

Once I took his seat, I lost the view of passengers exiting the chute to board the plane.

After all the Fairbanks passengers had boarded, this scene appeared before me:

Study from Alaska Airlines Flight 52, Seat 1A: Stewardess on the Other Side, After the Door Has Been Closed

Rex picked me up in my car, then he drove me to the driveway of his basement apartment and we sat in the driveway and talked for quite awhile.

Above, in Melanie's house, the lights were on even though it was after midnight. So I went up and visited Melanie and Charlie.

Then I drove home, got to bed about 3:00 AM, took a few hours sleep and then had breakfast at Family Restaurant.

As I waited for my food, this girl walked by my window. At the moment I took this picture, she is looked straight into my eyes, but the camera was out in front of me a ways.

I wonder what she thought of me?

I probably looked old and frightening.

This fellow must have been thinking about something happy.

Now I will post this and then drive to Anchorage to see my family members there.

My next post will include a Kalib/new-baby-in-waiting update.

Flying home, part 1: I see my Shadow in Barrow; Ethel Patkotak - Master of Indian and Indigenous Law; Little Alan; familiar faces on a jet airplane

Here I am in my town parka, still in Barrow, but leaving soon, walking under a street lamp that stands not over a street but a snowmachine trail. In one hand, I hold my laptop computer, in the other, my pocket camera, the very one that I took this picture with.

I took my big, pro, DSLR cameras to Barrow just in case something came up that I needed to photograph for professional reasons, but nothing did. I never removed those cameras from the bag. They were dead weight the whole trip.

I shot only the pocket camera.

I have already made it clear that I am not a wedding photographer and I do not shoot weddings for hire. Yet, a couple of years back, I did shoot the wedding of Quuniq Donavan to Ruby Aiken. Before I left Barrow, I stopped by for a short visit. 

Quuniq said the dog could be mean so he held him back as I went to the door.

Shortly before it was time for me to leave to catch the jet south, I was sitting at a desk that I hi-jacked in the North Slope Borough Mayor's office, doing a little work on my computer, when I heard a female voice. "I have your book. I paid an arm and a leg for it and I would like you to sign it." It was Ethel Patkotak, originally of Wainwright. It was after working hours, and everybody else had left.

I wondered how this could be. "How much did you pay for it?" I asked.

"$500," she answered.

No, I protested, this could not be, that is impossible!

So she explained. What she had done was to make a membership contribution at the $500 level to Barrow's public radio station, KBRW. Mayor Itta had contributed copies of the book to be given to those who donated at the $500 level.

I was blown away.

See the sash hanging on the wall behind her?

That is what Ethel wore with her cap and gown when she graduated with an advanced Law Degree from the University of Tulsa college of Law in December of 2008. She was an honor student and graduated with as a Master of Laws in American Indian and Indigenous Law. She is also an alumni of Northern Illinois University College of Law and Stanford University in California.

She is now working for the Borough as a Special Assitant to the Mayor, under the Direction of his Chief Administrative Officer, Harold Curran, an attorney. Her focus is largely on environmental and wildlife issues.

She also loves airplanes, just like I do.

Next I went back to Roy's place, to pick up my stuff, but before I left I dropped in next door to say goodbye to Savik, Myrna and all present. That included Little Alan, who you met two posts ago, playing a computer game as he sits with his mother, Shareen.

When I got on the plane, I did not know where to sit. The seat assignment was listed on my boarding pass, all right, but was hardly legible. It looked like it read, "1c," but I knew that couldn't be right, as that was in first class and I did not have a first class ticket.

So I showed it to the Stewardess. "It looks like 1c to me," she said. So I got to ride in First Class at coach rate. All I can figure is that it must have been a weight and balance issue, that they needed more people in first class than just those who paid for the luxory.

The blonde sitting by the window reading is author Debby Edwardson, who has lived in Barrow all of her adult life. Her most recent book is the novel Blessing's Bead, published by Farrar Straus and Gireoux, 2009. I am embarrassed to say that I have not yet read it, but I will, not only because Debby wrote it, but because it is a Barrow book and it has been well-reviewed.

She also authored the illustrated children's book, Whale Snow. She is married to George Edwardson, an Iñupiaq man who has taken on the oil companies in a fight to keep them out of the home of the bowhead whale.

Sitting behind her to the right is Rachel Riley, of Anaktuvuk Pass. Rachel was in the Barrow High Gymnasium on June 12, 2008, when I took my foolish fall and shattered my shoulder. So she was a witness to that event. When I first met her over a quarter a century ago, her house had caught fire. It had burned enough to be a total loss, but not to fall down.

Tom Opie was then the Chief of the North Slope Borough Fire Department, so he flew down to Anaktuvuk Pass to train local volunteer fire fighters. Several times, they set Rachel's house back on fire, and then went in and put the flames out all over again.

I got to put on a firefighter's outfit and oxygen mask and crawl into the burning house on my belly under the smoke with them. It was only a drill, but it was tough. It increased my respect for firefighters.

The lady sitting by the window behind her is Mary Sage, who is an excellent Eskimo dancer and a good photographer. She has had several photos published in the Anchorage Daily News. Sometimes, when I have had a photo I have needed to get identified I have contacted her on Facebook and she has helped me out.

I am embarrassed that the name of the lady sitting next to slips my mind. This is happening to me more and more.

As to the idenity of the man scratching his head, I haven't the slightest idea who he is.

This is how it is in Alaska when you board a jet plane. There will be strangers on board, but there are always many familiar faces.

Alaska is the biggest small town in the USA - perhaps the world.

And the Stewardesses are friendly - especially when you unexpectedly wind up in First Class. 

Shortly after this, I got what I believe to be a pretty neat series of pictures that I took while sitting in First Class, but it is late and I need to go to bed.

I will try to make a second post after I get up, before I drive into Anchorage to pay a visit to Little Kalib, his fish, his dad and mom - who, I am happy to say, has not yet had to go to the delivery room although she continues to experience low-level contractions.

Lisa and I are thinking about taking in a movie and Melanie has invited me to eat at a new Indian Restaurant, which actually serves South India food as well as North, and I believe Rex and Charlie will be there, too. So we will dine, and as we do, we will think of Southern India, of Soundarya and Anil, Sujitha, Ganesh, Buddy, Murthy, Vasanthi, Vivek, Khena, Vijay, Vidya and all the other members of our Indian family. I hear that the food is excellent and I do not doubt it. Yet, I do not think it will be quite so good as that prepared by Vasanthi, for Melanie and me.

I do not know what Caleb will do.

As for Margie, she remains in Arizona, completely snowed under by a series of huge storms that have dumped over four feet upon her sister's house in the White Mountains. They lost all power and for a full day I could not contact her by phone, because their cell service was gone, too.

Every time I tell someone that Margie is in Arizona, they say something like, "Oh! I'll bet she's really enjoying the sun and warm weather."

Buddy, a dog from Wasilla, makes good in Barrow; Flossie feeds me a good Iñupiaq lunch

As I walked from the far end of the sprawling Barrow neighborhood of Browerville, I passed by the Northern Lights Restaurant. I was hungry, and for a moment I thought maybe I would go in and buy some chow mien or Kung Pao chicken.

What a foolish thought! I was on my way to the home of Roy and Flossie Nageak and I knew that they would feed me - and it would be a bigger, better, meal than I would get in a restaurant. I needed to save room in my tummy for it, so I just walked right by Northern Lights.

Soon, I was sitting on the living room couch. Roy was out for a bit, but Flossie was there and so was Buddy, a half-dalmatian dog that came to Barrow from Wasilla.

Buddy was happy to see me. He wanted to know everything that had happened in Wasilla since he left as a pup, all these many years ago.

When I told him, he simply could not believe it.

I mean, if it wasn't something that we have witnessed, who could possibly believe it?

Roy and Flossie's grandson Amare Roy, a beautiful mix of Iñupiaq and Filipino, was there. He pedaled about as Flossie pulled together the ingredients for a good lunch.

Soon, she called me to the table. Laid before me was bowhead maktak and flipper, frozen caribou, frozen fish and seal oil. That's a frozen grayling that she is cutting with her ulu. 

When I was still new to this country, I once took a seat at an Iñupiat table and my hostess asked me if I needed a steak knife. "Yes," I answered, picturing one of those flimsy, serrated things that mainstream America calls steak knifes.

Instead, she sat a big, sturdy-bladed, razor-honed, hunting knife in front of me. This, and even better, an ulu, is the kind of knife it takes to slice up Iñupiaq food. Using what Mainstream America calls a steak knife, you could not possibly cut up the maktak you see on the other side of the knife.

I soon learned to carry a good knife with me at all times. This worked out well for awhile and I stayed well-fed, but then along came international terrorism and tightened airport security. I kept forgetting to take my $50 to $70 folding knives out of my pocket and the good folk of the Transportation Security Administration kept taking those knives away from me.

So now I must borrow a knife whenever I eat an Iñupiaq meal.

I had not had such a meal for awhile. This one was excellent - and the blubber that you see attached to the black skin is not at all like beef fat and it is healthy. It is full of the good kind of chorlesteral. The black skin is rich in Vitamin C.

It is the food of the Arctic, and it is the best food to eat in the Arctic - especially if you want to stay warm.

Plus, my tummy had been feeling irritated for a couple of days. This good, oily, food calmed it down and made it feel much better.

Flossie offers a piece of frozen grayling to Amare, but today he wants a hotdog.

Flossie slices up a hotdog with her ulu and then the three of us chow down. My fingers quickly became too oily to handle my camera, so I put it down.

After we had eaten, Flossie brewed tea.

And cookies go good with tea.

This is what it looked like out the window. The sun has been down now since November 18, but, as you can see, it is on its way back. It will rise for about half-an-hour on Saturday, January 23 - tomorrow. It's time above the horizon will then increase for about 15 minutes a day until midnight on May 10. It will then slide across the northern horizon of the sea ice and then not set again until early August.

Sadly, I will not be able to photograph the return of the sun. Lavina is having labor contractions, more than a month early, and while they are far apart and the hope is she can hold off for another week or more, I am going home. I have accomplished all that I needed to accomplish this trip and, as much as I would like to photograph the returning sun, I want even more to be there when my next grandchild is born.

I want Margie to be there, too, and Mary, Lavina's mom. So I really hope this new baby waits awhile - but, just in case these contractions grow strong and push it out, I am going home so I can be there.

After Roy returned, everybody gathered around my laptop to see a picture spread that I did with images that I took of them last summer.

Roy and Amare, with Flossie in the background.

Joe the Water Man pours coffee at Pepe's; Emily plays Little Dribblers as she prepares for surgery; Little Alan - his grandfather watches old Barrow movies

It was a good and productive day - but I took very few pictures as I have already done all the images for this project.

I did photograph Joe the Water Man, however, as he poured coffee this morning at Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant, where I ate a breakfast of ham, eggs, hash browns and wheat toast.

Not so long ago, there was two ways to get water into your home in Barrow. You could go to Freshwater Lake, cut out some blocks of ice, put them on your sled, bring them home, lug them into your house, put them into the water barrel to melt - or you could call out for the kind of service provided by Joe the Waterman.

If you called Joe, he would show up wearing no parka, no hat, not even a sweatshirt - it did not matter what the temperature was; even when it dropped into the minus 50's, Joe wore only a t-shirt and jeans (but always a good pair of gloves).

When I would see him this way, I always worried about the outcome should he break down somewhere on a truly bitter day, lose the heat in his truck and have too great a distance to cover on foot to the next heated structure to get there before the cold got him.

Praise be! It never happened.

He drove the truck for his mother, Fran Tate, and now he waits tables and helps her run Pepe's, which has brought her world-wide fame as the owner of the farthest north Mexican Restaurant in the world. Johnny Carson even brought her on his show once, and she brought an "oosik"... wait... wait... wait...

I should tell this story with a picture of Fran, who is now well into her 70's and still running the show.

I did not see her today, but maybe I will catch her before I leave. I don't know. I might, I might not.

Here's Joe at the cash register, where he just took my money. Concerning the characters on the shelf behind him, he said the seven to the right are the cooks who work at Pepe's and the paunch-bellied blonde to the left "is my mom."

A decade or so has passed since Joe quit driving the water truck, but people still call him and ask him to bring them water.

This is ten year-old Emily Brower, and she had stopped briefly at the home of her Aapa and Aaka, Savik and Myrna Ahmaogak, to pick Myrna up and take her to Wednesday evening church services.

Emily was born with a cleft-palette and has had five corrective surgeries and will soon be going to Anchorage for another. After that, she will get braces. She has made huge progress and I believe she will continue to do so.

Emily is playing Little Dribblers basketball. "I love it," she says.

This is Emily's cousin, Little Alan Beall, who is also going to church with his Aaka Myrna and his Aunt Jo-Jo Brower, Emily's mom.

Little Alan's mother, Shareen, reports that lately, Little Alan has begun making regular visits to the home of his Aunt Jo-Jo, Uncle Arnold and cousin Emily. He enjoys the feeling of independence that he gets when he leaves his mother behind and goes off to visit without her (Jo-Jo comes and picks him up).

Lately, his hair had grown long but he did not want to let anyone cut it. So he was told that if he wanted to keep visiting his aunt and uncle, he had to let Uncle Arnold cut it.

So he did. His hair is short now. His visits continue.

I spent some time tonight watching old Barrow films from the 40's and 50's with Savik, who recently returned from Anchorage where he had kidney surgery. "Now, I have to build up my strength," he told me.

Here, he watches as a woman from the days of his youth is tossed high off the boatskin blanket at the whaling feast of Nalukatak. When I first met Savik over a quarter-of-a-century ago, he was still recovering from having broken both legs doing the blanket toss in Wainwright.

At a different point in the film, we watched as people clad in their Sunday best parkas poured out of the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church. "There's Mom!" he said as several women exited together.

We also watched as a runner came into the village off the sea ice, carrying the flag of his whaling crew. This told the village that the crew had just landed a bowhead.

Today, the landing of a whale is still announced in this ceremonial way, but everybody knows as the news is instantly broadcast over VHF radio. Usually a youth carries the flag as he races to town on his snowmachine. 

In those days, Savik told me, the young man always ran with the flag. He did not even take a dog team. Trails can easily be ten, 15 miles long and the sea ice very rough.

Those runners were tough guys.

"Praying for you, praying for you,

someone is praying for you

Your path may be darkened

Your friends may be few

but someone is praying for you."

Savik has gone to bed, but his TV is still on - a recording of a singspiration in Wainwright, and the song from which the verse above comes from is being sung - first in Iñupiaq, then English.