Doreen makes a painting, Apache-Navajo filmmaker walks into Barrow's Osaka Restaurant; I go to Wainwright

Doreen Simmonds is the daughter of the late, truly great, Reverend Samuel Simmonds, the first Iñupiat to become an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. He also designed and painted the mural in the Barrow Chapel, showing all the peoples of the world under the care of Christ.

Doreen remembers being her father's "go-for" when she was small and he was creating the mural. She loved to help him and she loved to be in the church with him. She also loved to do art herself.

She did the painting above in 2002, after seeing a photograph of a mother polar bear with two cubs, one of them dead. Doreen was moved by the photo, but wanted to create a happier version and so she painted it with only the mother and the living cub - yet, she could not stop herself from depicting the sorrow that she saw in the mother.

Then, she added the dead cub in.

Two years later, one of her two sons died of cancer.

"How did you know?" friends who saw the painting asked her, "how did you know your son was going to die?"

This is Dustinn Craig, and if you are watching the series, "We Shall Remain" on public TV, be certain not to miss the May 4 episode on the Apache. Dustinn is the writer/director/producer for that episode and also did some of the shooting and editing.

You will also see some of Margie's country.

When Dustinn was small, from the time that he was a toddler, my wife and I sometimes baby sat him, and he often played with Jacob and Caleb. We lived in Whiteriver, Arizona at the time, the capitol of Margie's White Mountain Apache Tribe. Dustinn's father, Vincent Craig, Navajo, was also married to a White Mountain Apache and his parents were our best friends.

Today I was eating lunch in Osaka Restaurant in Barrow with Savik when Dustinn came walking in with local filmmaker Rachel Edwardson and her Australian husband, Dave.

He had just arrived in town to do a week's worth of work.

Little Dustinn Craig.

Soon I was on a plane, headed for Wainwright.

Self-portrait, me on the plane. 

Pic through the car window, as Bob drove me to the home that I always knew as the residence of the late Ben and Florence Ahmaogak, who always made me feel at home, like family. Bob is married to their daughter, Mary Ellen.

"Hello brother,"she greetedc when I entered the door.

"Hello sister," I greeted back.

Transition: Wasilla to Barrow, where I see watersky

This is what it was like in my yard before I left. It looks to me like Kalib is playing, "harpoon the whale." Hmmm... and there's Muzzy, pretending to be a whale.

It was really hard to leave him.

I had seat 9A, no one sat in 9B and Steve Scarpitta occupied 9C - the aisle. Steve is the assistant principal at Alak School in Wainwright and arrived for the first time in December, when the sun was down for 24 hours a day. He was enthralled by the mysterious beauty.

Now the sun is up most of the day and very soon will be for 24 hours. Steve also has a home in Homer, where he and his wife run Halycon Heights Bed and Breakfast, where you can get your own hot tub and sit there and soak while viewing a magnificent glacier. He recommends August, on the day of the full moon, as a prime time to visit.

Before moving to Alaska, Steve taught inner city kids from Los Angeles who were on the verge of dropping out or not making it. And now he is in Wainwright, Alaska, seeing a world and society unlike any that he had ever before been in. It is not always easy for him, especially with his wife running the business down in Homer, but he says he loves Wainwright.

He loves Alaska, every bit of it, and if you visit him at his inn in Homer, where he will spend his summer, he will pass on that love.

He had been up all night working and so he needed to get some sleep on the airplane.

Back in Barrow - the view from the second floor of the Top of the World Hotel.

A girl looks out the very same second story window where I took the previous picture.

The Arctic Ocean's Chukchi Sea. That dark area in the clouds is called "watersky." It is the reflection in the clouds of a lead open water in the sea ice below. People like to see watersky this time of year - because open water means bowhead whales.

All the umiaks are ready.

I fly south, drinking cranberry juice as I go; Summer stays behind in Barrow

Here I am in Alaska Airlines Flight 52, sitting in seat 20 F, watching the Stewardess come down the aisle, serving soft drinks and pretzels, and selling alcoholic drinks and "snack packs" that are not at all worth the cost. She cannot take cash, but only credit or debit cards. That is why she holds the glowing device in her hands - it is a credit card reader.

She and her partner reach my row, which is empty except for me. "What would you care to drink, sir?" she asks.

"Cranberry Juice," I answer. I feel quite inflated with myself - she called me, "Sir."

Her partner hands her the cranberry juice and a plastic cup.

The stewardess hands me my cranberry juice. I am thirsty and it tastes very good. I want more, but she never offers me more. Not enough time, I guess. This leg is from Barrow to Fairbanks and only takes a little over an hour to fly.

I become curious as to who sits behind me. I turn around and see a baby. It is six-month old baby Noah of Barrow, with his mother, Bobbie.

 

But Noah and Bobbie are not traveling alone. Sister/daughter Nancy, five years old, flies with them. It is not right to leave her out of the picture, so she joins in.

There is one more sister, Summer, age 2. She has stayed behind in Barrow. I have no choice but to leave Summer out of the picture.

After Fairbanks, we fly on to Anchorage, where I am greeted by 30 degree air - that's above zero. It feels shockingly warm. As I stand on the curb waiting for Lisa to pull up and pick me up, I find myself standing by a guy who flew in from Portland.

He thinks it is cold.

A warm front has blown into South Central from off the Pacific.

I hear about Chuck E. Cheese and the beautiful bracelet as I fly on Alaska Airlines toward Barrow; Barrow at -43, windchill -68

This is Allie, and the person that she is looking at with the big smile is me. She is telling me how she got to go to Chuck E. Cheese and that is where her mother, Monica, bought her the bracelet on her left wrist.

"And Chuck E. was there!" she told me.

She got a big kick out of it when I showed her this picture on my camera. It also got the interest of her mother, Monica, who takes pictures for the Air Guard out of Fairbanks.

Fairbanks is where they were headed, after a short trip to Anchorage. They have been in Alaska but a short time, having come from Maryland. Compared to their Maryland home, they find Fairbanks a bit sparse when it comes to shopping and dining activities and so they enjoyed their trip to Anchorage.

Monica is enchanted with the beauty of Alaska. Before coming here, she had thought that she would ultimately like to settle in Washington state, where she lived for a time, but seeing how beautiful Alaska is, she feels she must reconsider.

As for the miserable posture, this happened after we got half way to Fairbanks and then the pilot announced that the deicing system had malfunctioned and so we had to go back to Anchorage to get it fixed.

 

Once we returned to Anchorage, they told us it would take a few minutes to get the problem diagnosed and fixed, so naturally it took an hour or more. Of course, we had to stay on the plane and I was very hungry, as I had eaten nothing since my breakfast oatmeal.

Once, this would not have been so bad, because Alaska Airlines would have fed me a decent meal on the flight between Fairbanks and Barrow, but those days are gone.

Yet, we finally landed in Fairbanks. Allie and Monica got off the plane and other passengers boarded. One thing about flying by jet in Alaska that is different than Outside is that you always know several of the other passengers that you see. Sometimes, you know most of the other passengers.

That's Rachel to left, and Vera in the middle, from Anaktuvuk Pass, headed to Barrow to dance at Kivgiq. Vera told me the name of her tot, but I forgot. 

And this is Georgianna, who actually boarded in Anchorage in this seat. However, when the stewardess helped Allie to her seat and showed her mother where she had to sit, Georgianna felt bad, did not wish to separate mother and daughter, and so traded seats with Monica.

Once we got to Fairbanks, she returned to her assigned seat.

Her son, Steve, is a friend of mine and has taken me murre egg picking on the cliffs of Cape Thompson and he took me on other good adventures as well, from seal and duck and goose hunting to fishing.

Some of our adventures are recounted in my book, Gift of the Whale.

Georgianna is hugged by her friend, Sophie, of Kotzebue, who just boarded the plane and is headed toward her seat.

The fellow smiling at the tot is from Greenland. The tot and his dad have origins in Samoa and China, but now live in Barrow. Barrow, the coldest city in North America, has a substantial Polynesian community. 

The kid sees the light and reaches for it.

Inside the Alaska Airlines terminal at the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Memorial Airport in Barrow. Rogers and Post were killed in an airplane crash 12 miles soutwest of here.

The wait for luggage in Barrow always seems interminable. They do not put baggage out until the outgoing flight is fully boarded and roaring down the runway.

So you have to sit and wait for your bags for a full hour, at least.

 

This is Rex Nashookpuk, who did not come to Barrow by plane, but by snowmachine, from the village of Wainwright, just about 100 miles down the coast. The temperature was in the - 40's, the windchill about -70, but actually a whole lot more from the seat of Nashookpuk's speeding snowmachine.

Rex also came to dance at Kivgiq.

These are the buses and van used to take tourists touring about the local area come summer.

The ukpeagvik Presbyterian Church. Not so long ago, it was dark all day long in Barrow. After the sun went down November 18, it did not rise again until January 22. The days are still very short, but getting longer and soon the sun will be up all day long - from May 10 to August 2.

This is Anna, who lives on the east coast of Greenland. Anna came to dance at Kivgiq.

This bus will carry dancers from the many villages who have come to Barrow to dance at Kivgiq.