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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The Gwich'in grandmother who lived to be perhaps the oldest person in the world; the grandson she taught with his fish wheel and King Salmon

After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that before I start posting my various little photo stories from the Gwich'in Gathering, I needed to set the context, to run a photo spread that says something about the traditional way of life for the Gwich'in as it has evolved into modern times. Although the term most frequently used to describe this way of life is "subsistence," that word has always struck me as very wrong, for in most American minds it denotes poverty, ways of living that people suffer through only because circumstance has forced them; ways of living that they would flee to join the masses who live the suburban lifestyle if only they but had the chance.

I believe that the word "subsistence" has helped to create the justification that exists in the minds of many Alaskans, Alaskan politicians and writers of Alaska law, most of them urban residents of Fairbanks and Anchorage, that, as citizens of the State of Alaska, they have every bit as much right to harvest the wild animals and fish that live with the Native people in the rural areas as do the rural, Native residents themselves, even if their doing so badly impacts the lives of those who have lived by these animals and fish for thousands of years.

So I decided to begin with a series of photos of Paul Herbert harvesting the salmon that have helped to sustain his Gwich'in people since time immemorial. However, it became clear to me that if I were to do it this way, I would not succeed at getting the essay up until maybe four in the afternoon. I feel a need to post something sooner than that.

So I went searching through my computer and found a photo that I took of Paul's grandmother, Belle Herbert, at an athletic event in Fairbanks in the winter of 1982.

When he was a child, Paul spent much of his life living in the woods with his Grandmother Belle. She is the one who taught him how to catch and cut fish, how to live off the land. She gave him a rich education and a rich life the likes of which cannot be found in any city or university anywhere.

This was the first and only time that I ever saw Belle Herbert, for she died not long afterward. She was said to be 129 years old.

During my first years in Alaska, it seemed that I would find a centenarian or two in just about every Interior Athabascan Indian village that I would visit. There are still a few to be found out there, such as Fort Yukon matriarch Hannah Solomon, now living in Fairbanks, who will turn 102 in October, but I don't find them everywhere the way I did back then.

I think it is because the traditional diet of wild animals and fish, supplemented with wild berries and greens as nature provides, is much healthier than the diet most of us eat today. I sometimes hear vegetarians claim that a vegetarian diet is much healthier than a meat diet but, no, I don't think so. If this were true, then these centenarians that I have met in Alaska Indian country, where a vegetarian would literally have died of starvation, would not have lived such long lives.

I think it's just that so much junk and so much unhealthy stuff has worked its way into our modern diet. It is not the meat, but the junk and the overindulgence that kills us.

This is he, the grandson, Paul Herbert still living from the foods and according to the knowledge that his Grandmother Belle taught him. It's a little tough right now because so far this summer the numbers of harvested salmon have been low.

Still, they have been coming and people such as Herbert have been harvesting them. On the day that I took this picture, this King Salmon was one of 15 that swam into the fishwheel that he had built two months earlier, out of the resources that surround him.

Tomorrow, I will post a series that will show a bit more of the process.

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Snook takes us upriver from Fort Yukon to Circle; Fat Cat comes along but does not accompany us on the drive to Fairbanks

Yesterday morning, I rode about five miles upriver from Fort Yukon with Paul Herbert, "Snook,"  to retrieve the salmon that had swum into his fishwheel, then we returned to his house where we ate a big breakfast of half-smoked salmon (....mmmmmmm.... as good as salmon gets!) coleslaw, apple pie and coffee and then I packed my stuff and we loaded up the boat and motored out onto the river with Fat Cat coming along.

That's Fat Cat, hunkered down near the door as we head upriver, headed east and south, from Fort Yukon to Circle.

Further upriver, Snook waved at the occupants of a boat headed downstream, towards Fort Yukon. You cannot drive a car into or out of Fort Yukon and, like most Alaska villages, once you get there you will find few roads, all very short.

But there is a wide-open, free-flowing, highway system and that is the Yukon River and its tributaries, such as the Black, Porcupine, Chandalar and the many other rivers and navigable creeks that drain into it.

Snook's wife Alma and another woman also traveled with us.

To travel on the beautiful Yukon River is a wondrous and marvelous thing.

After we had been traveling for what I believe was a bit over two hours, we came upon a man who had stopped his boat on the south bank. Snook stopped to see if he was okay. He was. I overheard the man say something about how he was going to be on TV, and how someone had lost her keys.

I mistakenly thought the TV reference was a joke in reference to me and my camera. I had no idea what the lost keys thing was about. 

Although a seasoned veteran of this trip, Fat Cat was a bit nervous. For maybe ten or 15 minutes, she found some comfort on my lap.

After what I estimate to be about two-and-half hours, we reached Circle, where the Yukon was very high and the drift had taken out a couple of fishwheels and nets. Before I transferred into the pickup truck for the drive to Fairbanks with Snook's wife, Alma, several people spoke of Jeanie Greene, famous throughout this state for her TV program, Heartbeat Alaska. She had documented the Gwich'in Gathering and just the day before, I was among those who waved to her as she set off by boat to Circle.

I learned that she was still there, because she had lost the keys to her vehicle and could not drive off to Fairbanks. She was making good use of her time, though, and was taping and interviewing people in the village.

Not long after I took this picture, Fat Cat jumped off the boat and headed into some dense brush just beyond the beach. Alma told me that this is what Fat Cat always does, but when it is time to go, Alma opens a can of cat food and out she comes.

Finally, Alma's pickup truck was loaded and it was time to go. She opened up a can of food but Fat Cat did not come. So Alma began to search for him, calling out his name. At one point, she heard him "meow," but he did not come. This brush is very dense inside and has an undergrowth that is twisted and matted - easy for a cat to move through but hard for a human.

Snook and I joined in the search. Knowing that it would hamper my movement through the dense brush and might prevent me from retrieving Fat Cat, I put my camera down on the grass just outside the thicket.  As Snook and Alma combed the sides, I went to the top of the thicket and began to slowly work my way down through it.

As I did, I spotted the fur of Fat Cat's lower back, very well camouflaged beneath the thick matting. She had gone to ground. I was happy, for I thought she would soon be in my arms and I would be carrying her down to the truck. She was one step out of my reach. "Fat Cat," I spoke in my most soothing voice as I slowly took that step and reached out for her. Before my hands could reach her, she dashed off.

I did not see her again. None of us did, although we searched and searched. To make it worse, for about five or ten minutes I could not find the camera that I had set down, but finally I did.

There was only a tiny handful of houses in the area and it seemed likely that Fat Cat would eventually show up at one of them. One of the occupants promised Alma that she would get Fat Cat and keep her until she could be returned.

There were more people at the boat landing area than usual, Alma noted. Maybe the number of people is what caused Fat Cat to go to ground.

So, with me feeling worried and frustrated - Fat Cat had been just beyond my finger tips and I had not gotten her, as Snook launched his boat back into the Yukon and headed towards home, Alma, her friend and I set off on the three-and-a-half hour drive to Fairbanks.

We soon crossed this tiny bridge.

Not long afterward, we spotted these people picking berries.

There was almost no other moving traffic on the road, but after about 45 minutes or so this amazing vintage pickup truck appeared, traveling in the opposite direction.

We spotted more people picking berries.

Alma sacrificed her own desire to pick berries along with her daughter, Melanie, who drove up the road from Fairbanks to meet us, just so she could get me to the Fairbanks airport on time to catch my flight to Anchorage.

Thank you, Alma. That was exceedingly nice of you.

Somewhere near milepost 50, where we stopped briefly, just to see if there were berries present. There weren't, but there would have been plenty not far away.

As we neared Fairbanks, two men on big Harleys zipped past, going north. This is the guy who was second in line.

Alma dropped me off at Alaska Airlines, pretty close to the last possible moment. Soon, I was on the jet, headed home to heavy rain, Margie, and a troubled sleep in my own bed.

Perhaps, even as I write this, Fat Cat is safe in that woman's home in Circle. I hope so. I think the odds are reasonably good, but for now I have no way to know.

Tomorrow, I will begin to earnestly post a series of images and such from last week's Gwich'in Gathering.

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Back online at Fairbanks International Airport, enroute AKP - to ANC

This is Anaktuvuk Pass, this morning about 8:00 AM. I will make a couple of good reports from Anaktuvuk -maybe three or four, perhaps even more, but this post is not one of them. This post has but one purpose - to let you know that I am back online and to get something up at a reasonable hour of this day.

I am online because I am at Gate 1 at the Alaska Airlines Terminal of the Fairbanks International Airport, where my plane is scheduled to board, shortly. The airport has free wireless - as, indeed, all good, full-service, airports should.

This is Nasuġraq Rainey, formerly Higbee, but as of yesterday afternoon, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, her cat, Harley and her sister, Angela. Eventually, I will prepare a good report on the wedding of Rainey and B-III, and I will also give Harley a post all of her own, because she certainly deserves, but I will not do so now.

Right now, I just have to get something up, so I can catch my plane.

And here is Payuk, with one of Rainey's puppies. The puppy's dad just might be a wolf, who Rainey spotted one day eyeing a penned dog in heat. Maybe the wolf figured out how to get to the dog.

And here I am, in the plane, wishing that it was my plane, as the pilot prepares to lift off the runway.

And here we all are, the pilot, me, Byron and Alvira, airborne, leaving AKP, headed to Fairbanks.

And here we are, flying through the Brooks Range.

There are wildfires burning and so the air is filled with smoke. Two days ago, enroute from FAI to AKP, the smoke was so thick that we could not even see the Yukon River when we flew over it.

Today, although hazy, we could at least see the Yukon.

And here we are, landing in Fairbanks.

This is all I am going to post for now. My plane is scheduled to begin boarding in 11 minutes. I want to get a treat before it boards.

Update, 2:45 PM:

Well, my flight has been delayed. By an hour-and-a-half.

Damnit.

Guess I will sit here and web surf.