A boat ride on the Kuukpik River, a harmonica at the Singspiration

Immediately after I snapped this frame, I decided that it would be my one picture for the day, no matter what else I shot. It is Jimmy Nukapigak of Nuiqsut, who has just picked white fish from his subsistence nets and is heading up the Kuukpik (Colville) River to Niglig. 

Also visible is Fred Brower, also from Nuiqsut, and Darin Morrey, from Anaktuvuk Pass in the Brooks Range mountains.

Jimmy lived in Barrow when I first met him, but Nuiqsut sits in his ancestral homeland and he moved back several years ago. He does not miss Barrow. He prefers village life, and enjoys being able to get out on the river and to head into the country, just like that.

Morrey was very impressed with the size of the river and of the fish, because the waters that flow through Anaktuvuk, which sits atop the continental divide between the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea are streams - shallow, cold, swift and pure.

Me, I was most impressed with the fresh-grilled whitefish that I ate at Nigliq. It had been cooked with bacon and...aaaaahhhh... food in town never tastes that good, not even when cooked by the finest chef in the world.

I know - this makes it two pictures. My discipline has been lost. It's just that after I placed the river picture, I got to thinking of another of Jimmy that I took Wednesday night as he played his harmonica at the Singspiration held at the Nuiqsut Presbyterian Church, even as others sang, played guitars and spoons, too.

I wish that I could tell you what gospel song was being sung at this moment, but I can't remember.

I can tell you this, though, in every song there was power and spirit. The one that moved me the most - right to the point where I could not stop tears from coming down my face - was How Great Thou Art. 

Elvis Presley may have made this song famous, but until you have heard the Iñupiat sing it, you have not yet heard it.

I am not proselyting here, because the fact is when it comes to religion, God, and death, it is all a great mystery to, an unkown for which I do not claim to know any answer. For those few of you who may have known me way, way, way, way back when I was a missionary myself, this statement may come as a shock, but it is the truth. 

It is all a mystery to me.

And to the rest of you who know me but did not know me back then, the revelation that I was once a missionary probably comes as a shock to you.

Sooner or later, I will get into this subject.

But when I hear the Iñupiat sing Gospel, I believe - 100 percent - in the power and strength that comes straight out of the heart and spirit of those who I hear sing.

Tomorrow, I go home. As always, with mixed feelings - so eager to see my wife, family, cats and Muzzy, too.

So sad to leave the Slope.

I hate to sound silly and sentimental, but in this hard, tough, cold place where nature is so brutal, there is something special, something warm and it belongs to this place and people and it cannot be found anywhere else.

Just here. And when I leave, I will miss it.