Our house; a few other images from today and nothing more

In case you are curious, this is our house - the place where I live and work, and keep this blog. We moved into this house 27 years ago this month. It was well below zero when we moved in and we had to keep the doors open to haul in our stuff, so the house got very cold.

So did our fingers.

I then sawed and split some of the birch that had been cleared to build the house and made a hot fire in the woodstove.

The heat felt very good as it warmed us from the outside.

Margie made some hot chocolate, which warmed us from the inside. 

Those were good days.

Really, really, good days.

We didn't know how good they were until they became the past.

This is my neighbor, from two houses down. I don't know his name. In February of 2001, I lost my black cat, Little Guy, who eight years earlier had passed from his mother's womb straight into my hands. On a day with about three times the snowfall you see here, he stepped out onto the back porch and I never saw him again.

I searched for him, long and hard. I knocked on every door. I asked everyone I saw if they had seen a black cat. I could hardly bear the loss. 

For weeks afterward, every time this neighbor would see me, he would always ask about that cat.

So I think highly of him, even though I don't know his name.

This is another view of my house, taken from down the street as I finished my walk. I usually come home through the marsh, but I did not feel like it. Margie does not like it when I track snow into the house and I did not want to be scolded, however gently she scolds, and so I came down the road instead of through the marsh.

I always take my shoes off at the door, but the snow would have stuck on my Levis, even up to my knees.

I did not want either to be scolded or to take my pants off at the door, so I came down the road.

I did not build that tall fence.

My neighbor did. He hates cats. He does not like to look at my wrecked airplane, so he built the fence. He often wakes me by revving up the engine to his Harley Davidson in the morning. He doesn't necessarily drive it anywhere, he just sits there and revs up the engine, again and again, so that it does not lock up on him.

We don't talk much. He works for the Alaska Marine Highway and is gone more than he is home.

A kid, apparently on his way home from school, but maybe he is going someplace else. I don't know.

It was warm today, teens and then 20's for awhile, but the wind blew.

I saw this boy, off to the side of Lucille Street, as I was coming home from Wal-Mart. Margie doesn't work there, anymore. She can't, because of her accident. I don't care. I want her to work for me. I work in constant chaos, even when all is calm around me. 

Maybe she can reduce the chaos and increase our income more than she lost by losing her job at Wal-Mart.

I don't know why the boy was down in the snow like that. Maybe he was skiing and fell down. That looks like a ski pole.

I didn't stop to ask. I just snapped and kept going.

I had things to do.

Martigny. She is never allowed to go outside. She doesn't even want to go outside.

Royce - 15 years old or so and the last of the indoor-outdoor cats. I hated to do it, but after Little Guy I never let a new cat go outside unchaperoned - and then only Jim. 

Now that he is growing old, Royce doesn't go outside much anymore and never for very long.

When its cold, he doesn't go out at all. He didn't used to care about the cold. He was born with a good cold-weather coat. Now, he doesn't like the cold.

And there you have it - nothing of consequence, just a few images from today, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Kalib suddenly walks - the series

I stood by the kitchen sink. Kalib stood about three feet away, where he leaned toward the cabinet against which he supported himself with his hands. Lavina rouched in the same position that you see here, about two feet away from Kalib.

He turned toward her, removed his hands from the cabinet, took one step, right into her arms. Suddenly, all the adults present - Lavina, Margie, and me, began to shriek, squeal, laugh and applaud with joy.

Kalib had taken his first step.

It was 7:28 PM, yesterday.

I did not have my camera in hand.

I ran into my office to grab it - the 5D 2, because of them all, it does the best in low light and the light was really low. It was not there. 

I ran outside, to the car. There it was.

Fortunately, it had not yet completely chilled as I had driven recently.

As I stepped back into the house, I saw Kalib, this time in the middle of the living room, take another step into Lavina's outstretched arms.

"His second step," she said happily.

His third ended in a dive onto the cat, Royce, but I promised Grahamn Kracker that I would him put the cat diving series on his blog, No Cats Allowed.

What you see above is Lavina coaxing him to take his fourth step.

He takes it - again, right into her arms.

The two separate, and Lavina again reaches out her arms to him - but Kalib suddenly becomes bold and walks away in the opposite direction. 

Soon the two move into the kitchen. This time, when Kalib tries to walk toward her, Lavina frames him in her camera, which she has set to video.

He is a little unsure of himself and thinks mighty hard about his next step.

He takes it, gains his confidence, moves a step closer to Mom and laughs out loud.

Soon, he is in the opposite corner, by the laundry, he turns back toward her, then totters. For a moment, it seems as if he will fall.

But Kalib doesn't fall! Kalib is a walker now. Mom starts to cry (see yesterday's entry as well),

And then, suddenly, he does fall - face first. He bumps his head on the floor.

Now Kalib cries. Mom picks him up. He knows that he has everybody's attention now and enjoys the fact that everyone is pouring sympathy upon him, so he lets out the loudest, most animated cry yet.

Grandma offers him a Grahamn Kracker. Kalib stops his crying and takes it.

We had already eaten when Kalib took his first step, so we waited until tonight to take him out to dinner to celebrate. Dinner took place at Jalepeno's, about three miles from the house. The rest of us drove, but we let Kalib walk, now that he knew how.

He even beat us to the restaurant - which is understandable, because we gave him a four-hour headstart.

After dipping a chip in his quacomole, Kalib surprised us all again, but uttering his first, complete paragraph, which he launched with an exclamatory.

"Damnit, Grandpa!" he launched. "Why the hell did you make me walk? It was snowing out there. I almost got hit by a snowmachine. A moose tried to jump on me. A little girl ran out of her house and kissed me. Why, Grandpa! Why? Why the hell did you do it? Damnit. Damnit, anyway."

I felt so proud!

My little grandson, walkin' and cussin'!

Following a fine lunch with excellent company, I witness the mercy killing of an injured moose calf

This day began hard. I had gone to bed at 3:30 AM, and the workshop in Anchorage was scheduled to begin at 8:30, which meant that I had to leave the house by 7:30. I seldom sleep well, and even worse when I must get up early. I tend to wake up within 15 or 20 minutes of whenever I fall asleep, just to check the time.

This happened repeatedly throughout the three-and-half hours that I was able to spend in bed. I figured that if I got up at 6:50, this would give me time to shower, get dressed, warm up the car and leave in time to stop at MacDonald's to buy an Egg McMuffin and hashbrowns to eat along the way.

So I got up right at 6:50, stepped into the master bedroom bathroom, then became aware of the sound of water flowing through pipes, and the spray of a not too distant shower. This meant that either Jacob or Lavina or both were already taking a shower in the other bathroom. 

I did not want to give whoever it was either a cold or hot shock by turning on the water to our shower, so I went back to bed and then lay there, listening, waiting for the water to be turned off.

This happened somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes later. The water was still hot when finally it began to spray on me, but it only stayed that way for about two minutes. My shower was short.

Soon I was on the road, with a mug of coffee that Lavina had made for me, along with a free Latte that they had given me at MacDonald's. I love McDonald's egg McMuffins, hash browns and regular coffee, but this McMuffin was dry, the hashbrowns too greasy and I did not like the latte, so I stuck to Lavina's coffee, which, as is everything she prepares, was excellent.

I arrived at the workshop just a few minutes late, and had to take a seat at the back of the class, which I hate. I like to sit right up front. A bit later, I noticed an empty seat three tables ahead, and moved to it.

I won't describe the class or the teaching, but the morning session was all about Lightroom and it was great. I learned many useful things.

The man in the picture is Charles Mason, who I have known since I first saw him climb off a snowmachine on the sea ice off Point Barrow during the great gray whale rescue of October, 1988. Charles is not only an outstanding photographer who knows how to photograph contrasting asses of distinction, but, as his Macintosh Powerbook Pro attests, is also a loyal, patriotic, American. 

Despite my interest in the class, I figured this day would have two highlights that would rise above the all rest. The first would be lunch, which daughter Melanie had committed to me.

We met at "Ultimate Thai." When she first suggested it over our cellphone connection, I thought she said, "Ultimate Pie." I had  wondered what kinds of pie they served.

Note the position of the band of sunlight as it falls upon her shortly after we first got together.

Now notice the shift in the band of sunlight, as our lunch nears an end. It is so good to have the sun back. Alaska's days remain the shortest in the nation, but spring rapidly approaches and the daylight is piling on fast.

Soon our days will be the longest.

It had been -5 at the house when I left, and in Anchorage it was a positive 23 by afternoon, pleasantly crisp. It felt kind of like spring was already here.

As for lunch, our conversation was pleasant and bore no significant import and sometimes, these are the best kind. She did express concern about my consumption of fast food. 

"I've been reading your blog, Dad," she said.

It was a good and pleasant lunch. I was sorry to see it end, but eager to get back to the workshop.

As I turned off the busy New Seward Highway into the driveway to the BP Energy Center, where the workshop was taking place, I was surprised to see police cars with flashing lights, and an officer wielding a shotgun.

I missed him, but did snap this shot as I crept by at about two miles per hour. My settings were still set for inside the restaurant and I badly overexposed. That is why it looks so strange.

Wondering what was going on, I turned into the parking lot, which is divided into two halves. The farther half is closer to the BP Energy Center door and, just as it had been in the morning, appeared to be full. I pulled into a spot in the first half, not far from where the police cars were parked. As I got out of the car, I saw three policemen advance slowly into the trees, their weapons held to the ready.

It had to be an injured moose. I soon spotted it, obscured by birch trees - a yearling calf, lying in the snow. As it's mother stood in protective watch, it struggled to rise from the snow. I felt a little sick inside, both to see it struggle in pain, and because I had the certain knowledge that, very soon, it would be dead.

In this photo, trees obscure two of the policemen, but if you look closely, you can see what appears to be the glove of one of them. The one that you do see points his shotgun at the moose calf. I assume it must be slug-loaded. The birch also camouflages the calf, but again, a close study will reveal its head, poking out from behind a tree, down in the lower left hand corner.

Although he is taking aim, he and his peers are being exceptionally careful. They are checking, double checking, triple, and quadruple checking.

A click on the photo will reveal a larger copy of the image.

As I shoot it, I hear the female officer, who is now in the same parking lot as me, but a bit closer to the entrance through which I just came, shout angrily at me, "Get back in your car! Get back in your car! Get back in your car right now!"

I was not about to get back into the car.

I told her that I am a photojournalist and that I had a right to document what is happening here. Again, she told me to get back in the car. She sounded very angry. I doubt that she believed me. I was not holding a big,  professional-looking camera, but only my tiny pocket camera, a camera that anyone might carry.

Most of the time, this pocket camera is great for blogging. I can carry it anywhere and it does not weigh me down or tire me out. It does not attract attention, the way my big D-SLR's do. I always know, though, that every now and then I will come upon a scene that the pocket camera is not really suited for. This was such a scene.

But when something happens and you have a certain camera in your hands, that is the camera you must use to do the job.

"You could get shot!" she yelled. "Get back in your car!" 

I was about 89 degrees from the impending line of fire. My car was about 90 degrees. I did not think that I would be a whole lot safe in the car. Anyone in the far parking lot would have been in greater danger of taking a stray slug.

"Come here! Come here!" she said.

I moved slowly toward her, studying the scene as I did. The calf had now risen to its feet. The apprehensive mom was checking it out. I found myself with a better angle to see them through the trees, so I stopped to shoot the above scene. This angered the officer. I did not want to anger her, but I had to take the picture.

If you look closely at the above image, you can see blood, running down the left-rear leg of the calf.

As it struggles to keep its injured leg suspended, the calf attempts to move away from the danger. Its mother momentarily steps toward the danger.

"I am trying to keep you from getting shot!" the policewoman said. "Do as I say! You do not want to mess with me!" The implication was clear. A mental image appeared in my head, of me leaving the scene in handcuffs, in the back of a squad car.

She was right. I did not want to mess with her. Yet, sometimes, when a person sets out to document the world around him, he must stand up even to the threats of a police officer.

I could sympathize with her, too. Anchorage has had many bad moose incidents take place because people do stupid things, like taunt moose, throw rocks at moose - occasionally, such an incident results in human death or injury.

Even though I was obviously safely out of the line-of-fire, perhaps she truly did worry that something could go drastically awry and one of those shotgun slugs could inadvertently slug into me, although it appeared to me that the officers assigned to euthanize the calf were advancing in a most deliberate and cautious manner.

The thought also occurred to me that she might not want her fellow officers to be pictured gunning down a moose calf. Clearly, it was something that needed to be done and no knowledgeable, rational, person could hold it against them. Still, someone surely will.

Even so, the Police are a public entity and their actions subject to the public eye. As long as I did not interfere, I had every right to photograph what was happening before me. I knew that I had to compromise, by shooting from a position closer to her, but I could not back down.

"Ma'am," I stated emphatically, "I am a professional photojournalist and I have a constitutional right to document what is happening here and if you prevent me from doing so, you will be violating my First Amendment rights."

"I'll worry about that later," she said. "Right now, I need you to do what I say."

"Later..." when it was all done... when there would be no photographs left to take... when, as far as the visual record was concerned, it would be as if it had never happened.

I climbed atop the snow berm that rose in front of her, and there took this image of the officers as they took aim.

The man in the suit studied the scene. He stood in the area where the police had first gathered. I was quite certain he was official - maybe police, maybe game. Perhaps he was someone whose name I have read in the newspapers. Maybe not. Maybe he was just a bystander - but I don't think so.

A shot was fired. It hit the calf, but did not bring it down. Limping on three legs, it hobbled off a short distance with its mother. She would have been accustomed to having her calf rapidly flee right on her hooves away from any perceived danger. Now the calf did not rapidly flee, but moved slowly.

Now, she held herself back to the pace of the calf.

The officers continued to advance toward the calf. More shots were fired. All hit their mark, but still the calf did not go down.

It was awfully damn hard to watch, let alone to photograph. I wanted to scream, "Get a rifle! Get a rifle! Get it over with! End this suffering now!" But a rifle would have been too dangerous to humans. An errant bullet would carry much farther than a slug, even after it passed through the calf. When I took this image, the cow was maybe 10 feet in front of the calf, but panic was beginning to overtake her.

I thought I counted six shots, but later got confused, and wondered if it was seven.

The mom finally panicked, and fled across the parking lot.

Please take note of the blue vehicle in the far section. I am not certain it is the one, but later a blue vehicle will enter the narrative. It could be that one. It might be another. All I know for certain is that it was blue.

She turned to watch as her calf went down and then did not get up.

She was angry. The man in the suit now stood right beside me and we both stood not far from the van you see above. "Be ready," he said in a friendly but earnest voice. "She's going to charge. I've seen it a hundred times."

I knew that he was correct. I took note of the nearest automobile in the direction away from the line between mother and downed calf (the van was closer, but toward the line). It was my car, and it was about 40 feet away. I started to move slowly toward it. Sure enough, the cow charged across the parking lot, reached this spot, kicked up the flecks of hard-packed snow that you see flying and from there came straight for us.

We skedaddled towards the car. I was worried that she might kick in the paint job, but she pulled up short.

"She's done now," said the man in the suit. "It's over."

She went back into the midtown, highway-bound, band of trees. 

Now I faced a bit of a dilemma. I wanted to stay; to take more pictures, to talk to the officers involved, to follow the process through to the end. I wanted to find out who the man in the suit was, what his job was, how he had come to see such a thing "100 times."

But I knew that by now, the afternoon session of the workshop had probably already begun. I had paid good money to attend this workshop and I needed to learn what was being taught in there. Missing just a little bit could make a huge difference in my comprehension of what would follow.

"What happened?" I asked one of the three officers who had pursued the calf through the trees, "Did the calf get hit by a car?"

"Yes," he said. "Hit and run. But somebody took down the license number. We're going to find the driver."

Anyone who lives in this area can understand how a driver could hit a moose. It happens all the time. I have almost hit a number myself, because they can suddenly dash out of the trees and be in front of you in an instant. Once, one did this to me and I slammed on my brakes to come to the most sudden non-crash stop possible. I came so close to smacking it down that in sheer fright it fell down flat on its side.

Virtually every day, a driver smacks down a moose - especially this time of year. So we all understand.

But to hit a calf and run, to drive off and leave it to what fate you do not know...

I quickly took this shot from a safe spot, then headed back to the BP Energy Center.

The hall on the second floor was both quiet and empty as I approached the classroom. Even though the doors were closed, I could hear the voice of instructor Kevin Ames coming through, so I knew that I was late. Class had begun.

I stepped inside and saw that he had his cellphone to his ear. He was telling someone that he had just begun class and could not talk now; he needed to go.

I had not really missed anything.

Not long after I came in, BP staff stepped in to tell us to be very careful if we went outside, as moose were about. Shortly afterward, we were asked if any of us owned a certain blue car. The back window of a blue car down in the parking lot had been shattered - shot out, he clarified, when asked.

For just a little while, it was a little bit hard to concentrate, but for a person who spends as much time in Lightroom, Photoshop and Adobe RAW as I do, it was riveting stuff, and I soon became absorbed in it.

As I mentioned in my last post, among Kevin's excellent images are many of beautiful women and all, no matter how much or how little they wear, are tastefully posed. 

About mid-afternoon, he pulled out a few of those images for a lesson on mask layers and smart objects. He showed us the original shots and in each case the woman was beautifully photographed. The images would not only catch the interest of any heterosexual man, but would attract women, too.

Yet, the women themselves had not seen the photographs that way. One gorgeous, seemingly perfect-proportioned model had looked at the original image Kevin had shot of her and saw someone who was fat and short. So Kevin showed us how he made her body appear slightly taller and thinner - just enough to make her happy but not to throw the viewer off. He kept her face and head completely in the original proportion.

Another model hated the way her left nostril looked, and she was not happy with the teeth that glimmered from the left side of her beautiful smile. So Kevin showed us the technique he had used to replace the left nostril and teeth with mirror images of the right, and how he had then modified the highlights and made other small adjustments to make it all look natural.

In this case, as you can see, he is working on the naturally striking eyes of a model. The photographer next to me is following along with his own laptop.

As for me, this is interesting stuff, but it is not what a photojournalist does. No, no, no...

For a photojournalist, there is a troubling side. The other day, I saw a striking image of a dog musher driving his team past Denali, at dusk, as the Northern Lights danced in the sky.

I didn't believe the picture. I thought it was faked. Yet, maybe it wasn't. Once, a man looked at a photo I had taken of an Iñupiat whaler harpooning a bowhead, and he congratulated me on my processing skills. He did not believe the photo was real. But it was.

And that is the downside to all this.

But Kevin's world of advertising and modeling is different. Nobody expects such images to be the literal truth. And I was glad to learn something about his technique. It improved mine, however I put it to use.

After the workshop ended, I shook Kevin's hand, congratulated him for providing an excellent learning experience, said a few "see you laters," then headed down the stairs and out the door.

Just beyond the doors I saw the above warning.

I then went to the spot where the calf had died. Drag marks stretched across the snow, leading away from big, blotchy, saturated, bloodstains to the parking lot - and there was this small tuft of fur.

From the spot where the calf had gone down, I twice punched the button on my auto-start. I saw the lights of the red Escape come on. I heard the engine turn over, then start; I saw smoke emerge from the tailpipe, then boil out into the chilly air.

I walked to the Escape, climbed in, then drove out onto the New Seward Highway, where the calf had been struck. As I braked for the next light, red, I glanced into my rear-view mirror and saw this truck coming.

Earlier, I stated that at the beginning of the day I had anticipated two highlights that I had expected to rise above all other experiences of the day. This is the second. I am in the apartment of my daughter, Lisa. She is dangling a toy mouse that Bryce bought for their new cat, which still does not have a name, other than "Deborah by Default."

I don't think even that temporary name is being used much anymore. Until what will become its final name reveals itself, she seems mostly to be called, "kitten."

The name "Juniper" did come to Lisa, and when she told me on the phone, I immediately liked it. Juniper struck me as a fine name, one that fit this cat.

Bryce does not like the name. So they await the revelation of a one that both can agree to.

Kitty finally catches her mouse. She plants a decisive bite on what, if it was flesh, would be its spinal column, then carries it to a place at the foot of the couch. There, she falls asleep with her "kill."

It is a sweet moment. 

How will I bear it, when 200,000 more people live in this valley?

Recent news reports advance the claim that by the year 2030, the population of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley will rise to 300,000. The thought, to me, is unbearable. When we first moved into the Mat-Su 27 years ago, the population of the entire valley was about 30,000, but exploding fast due to the influx of money and jobs that poured across Alaska as a result of the oil boom that followed the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. 

At that time, the same sorts of folks who put together this latest prediction were forecasting a population increase to 90,000, right about now. From what I gathered from listening to and reading the recent stories, about 100,000 people now live in this valley.

Way too many for me.

Naturally, there are many who get excited when they hear of such potential growth, as they see new opportunities to make money. Above all else, above open, wild, free country, the right to bear arms and freedom itself, money has been the force that has driven and ruled Alaska during the time that we have lived here. I am certain that it will continue to be.

Were it not for the much-loathed restraining hand of the federal government with its national parks and wildlife refuges, this place would have been ripped apart. Nothing that bore the potential of yielding a dollar would have been left unscratched.

To many, money equals quality of life, but to me, each time a new family moves into the valley to the increase of the population, the quality of life diminishes - perhaps imperceptibly with just that family, but devastatingly upon accumulation.

Please do not misunderinterpret me - I need money too and I do not begrudge any of these families who move here, hoping to improve their circumstance. I welcome each one. We did the same 27 years ago and yes, we diminished the quality for those of like-mind who preceded us.

For example, there was an old trapper's trail that cut right through our back yard. The trapper who had made it had long since disappeared from the country, but many recreational snowmachiners used to buzz up and down that trail and it was a real battle to convince the most bull-headed among them that, now that the trail not only went through a subdivision but directly through yards where children played, they could no longer use that trail.

When the population here hits 300,000, where will the recreational snowmachiners go? Their prospects will be greatly limited. Look at Anchorage right now. How much recreational snowmachining do you see going on in that town? Anchorage is about 300,000. Smaller area than the Mat-Su, true, but the reality will be largely the same.

Perhaps our arrival did increase the quality of life for the developer of our subdivision, who was a bright, energetic, ambitious, enthusiastic man in his forties - a jogger and a musician. We put more money into his pocket.

"I'm really not interested in the money," he told me one day as we drove through the newly burgeoning neighborhood, "what I want is just to be able to drive through here one day with my daughter and be able to tell her, 'when I first came here, there was nothing but trees, but your dad built this - and look at all these families who now make their lives here!'"

His heart killed him, not long afterward. They named a ball park after him and my boys all played American Legion baseball there.

As for the above series of pictures, I took them after I dragged Margie up from her position of convalescence upon the couch and drove her to Taco Bell, where we could eat in the car, just to get her out of the house.

There was no Taco Bell back then, no McDonald's, no Arby's, No Carl's Jr., no KFC-A&W, no fast food of any kind.

As ought to be apparent to anyone who has read much of this blog, and to the chagrin of my oldest daughter, I enjoy my fast food. 

After we ate, I stopped at the Tesoro Station on Seward Meridian and Palmer-Wasilla Highway to gas up the Escape. I damn near froze - not because it was that cold, it wasn't. It was about 18 degrees F., having warmed up from the -5 (-21 C) of the morning. But the wind was brisk and I was protected only by a light jacket.

I then climbed back into the car and took Margie on a good, long, drive. I thought about the cost of the gas and the added pollution and greenhouse gas that I was throwing into the air, but I drove anyway, because I really wanted to.

I need money, too, I really do. Maybe when they start the gas line up, some of the new dollars will land in my bank account. If I can get enough to buy, maintain, and gas-up another airplane, I can still escape the maddening crowd.

Even if by chance these two break all records for feline longevity and are still around in 2030, they will not be bothered by the population increase.

If the economy stays bad in the Lower 48 but the gas line becomes real here - wow! It will get completely crazy! People from all over will pour in up here looking for jobs, just like they did during TAPS construction and the oil boom. Most of them, probably 70 or 80 percent, will not find jobs, but they will still need to eat, they will still need a warm, dry, place to lay their heads and country to play in. The influx will be disproportionately male; they will need females, however they can obtain access to them.

Everyone here seems to be excited about the prospect of a gas line; it just can't happen soon enough.

This picture of Royce and Chicago is one of a series of pictures from yesterday that appeared on Grahamn Kracker's No Cat's Allowed Kracker Cat blog.

The old, internal, battle that I must always wage: home vs. home; Wasilla/South Central vs. Barrow/Arctic Slope

I have written before about this battle that forever causes turmoil and tumult to boil within my calm exterior - this battle of home vs. home. And now that I have just returned to my wife and family home in Wasilla after having spent nine wonderful days in my communal home of Barrow and the Arctic Slope, that battle rages.

My desire to go back is strong, to live again the life represented by the mask worn in this dance performed by my friend, Steve Oomittuk of Point Hope, during *Kivgiq. It is a life where people dwell with whales, polar bears, seals, walrus, caribou, wolves, ducks, fish and other creatures in the most intimate sort of way; in a land and seascape that is stark, harsh, and so bitterly, bitterly, cold, yet so abundant and all this binds people together in a way that I have seen nowhere else.

I find something there that I can find nowhere else.

So I want to go back to this home.

Yet, look at this! My two daughters, Lisa holding the cat that she just adopted, Melanie kissing that cat, my wife Margie looking on from inside the car. She is healing, yet her injuries still make it difficult for her to get up and walk about. This was the first time that she had been out of the house since February 2, but she felt she had to stay in the car.

This is my family of marriage and creation; my blood and my soul mate. They are never going to live on the Arctic Slope. Each winter now, Margie's longing to return to her Apache homeland in Arizona grows stronger and stronger and even this southerly part of the north bears down harder and harder upon her.

Do you see the dilemma?

I took this picture yesterday. Anyone who wants to know more about how this kitty came into my family can find a more complete account here, on the No Cats Allowed Kracker Cat blog.

Here I am, walking down Momegana Street in Barrow, the night before I left. 

And this is from today, as I headed down Lucas in Wasilla.

Back in Barrow, looking towards Osaka Restaurant. Just beyond that is the Chukchi Sea, frozen, broken, and jumbled. Bowhead whales will soon pass by, swimming through the open lead.

And this is Lucas again, from the other side of the same hill.

Once, maybe 100 years or more ago, an Iñupiat Eskimo who delivered the mail by dog sled all along the Arctic Coast built this house from the timbers of a wrecked, tall-masted, Yankee whaling ship. He raised a daughter here, who grew up to become a school teacher. 

McGee was a gracious Elder when I met her, and she kept her door open to people like me and always there was hot coffee, cake, cookies, and both Eskimo and Taniq (white man's) food waiting behind that door.

She lived with a tuxedo cat and a blue-billed parakeet and if ever I got to feeling lonely, all I had to do was drop in. She is gone, now, and so is the cat and the parakeet.

And this is my neighbor from across the street, right here in Wasilla, earlier today. He is plowing the soft, warm, snow that fell this day.

I do not even know his name.

I knew the name of his dog, though, "Grizz." I have not seen Grizz for several months, at least. I assume he, too, has passed on. There is another dog there, an Irish Setter, just like Grizz, but I do not know that dog's name. And there are two orange cats. I am quite fond of them. They used to come over and visit me, as did Grizz, but then a woman moved into the house and after that the animals were no longer allowed to leave the property. They visit me no more.

*More than 48 hours ago, I wrote that I would post a series of Kivgiq pictures within 48 hours. Maybe I will still post a sample series, maybe I won't. It will take me weeks, maybe a month, spread out over how long, to edit that four day take. I am working on a book on Kivgiq, starting from the first of the modern events, held in 1988, through this one. Plus, although there is no funding for it yet, I will probably get to do a Uiñiq magazine specifically on this year's Kivgiq.

I will post at least one more Kivgiq picture, because one night when i stepped into the Teriyaki House to have dinner, I met a 12 year-old boy who danced at Kivgiq and he had a couple of pretty good stories to tell, about adventures that most 12 year old boys could hardly imagine. So, if nothing else, I will post his picture.