My final day in Utah - Julie and her family, minus the chipmunk; surprise birthday dinner with a silent Bacon scream; back in Wasilla - Carmen's new do; Mahoney horses

This is Matthew Oliphant, youngest son of the very first niece that ever came to me, Julie, and her husband Kerry. We have not spent a great deal of time together but, my favorite memory of him comes from the time period after Mom died. He was very small then and I took a picture of him eating a chocolate chip cookie. It was part of a batch that his mom and brothers and sister had made and brought over for Dad and those of us who were hanging out to mourn with him.

As the rest of us visited, Matthew kept eating those cookies and by the time they left, the cookies were all gone. It's possible his brothers and sister might have helped a bit, but Matthew was the real Cookie Monster.

I didn't see him with a cookie on this trip, but I have a feeling that he is still a cookie monster.

Julie is the daughter of my brother, Mac, Rex's tall twin. Mac got his tall genes from Dad, whereas his twin and the rest of us all got Mom's short genes. Mac grew to be 6'4", Rex 5'7".

The tall genes were passed down to Julie, who also married a very tall man. All of their children are very tall and whatever age they are, they are taller even then their grandpa Mac was at the same. Six foot is nothing to them at all. Even in junior high years, six-footers have always stood short beside them.

Matthew is only seven, but he already stands eight foot, nine-and-three-quarter inches tall.

Well... maybe I exaggerate a little bit... but give him a couple of years.

It takes a lot of cookies to fuel such growth, but Matthew is up to the task.

That's Kerry off to the side and the nine-year old hefting the two-by-fours is Charlie. 

And this is Chase - Chaseninja. Now, the thing is, I may be the short one, but I am still the toughest member of the entire family and everybody knows it.

Well... maybe I boast a little too quickly. At nine, Charlie weighs in at 156 pounds and plays tackle on his Pee Wee football team. If you doubt that he hits hard, notice the abrasions on his forehead. He wears a helmet, alright, but when he hits someone he practically shoves his head right through that helmet and right through his opponent.

That's what those abrasions are from - the impact of his forehead against the inside of his helmet.

And yet, tough as he is, when his mom mentioned that a neighbor had some kittens, he lifted his hands to the praying position and began to plead that she let him adopt one. I was a little slow and caught the moment just a second too late, after he noticed the camera lens was upon him.

The family, minus daughter Riley, in the backyard. Riley had been to the dentist and, as I noted earlier, felt like a chipmunk and refused to be photographed.

Next time.

Julie and Chase.

In the evening, just before I drove to the airport, turned in the rental car and boarded the jet back to Anchorage, I had dinner with Ada Lakshmi, Rex, Tom and all the children of Mary Ann except for the one who had gotten married the day before, plus their husbands and boyfriend. We ate at Thai Gardens, just blocks from the house where Mary Ann and Greg live. The wedding and all its preparations had exhausted Mary Ann, and so she and Greg had stayed home with the two dogs.

As to the son who had gotten married and his bride, nobody had seen either, all day long, even though they were not scheduled to leave for their honeymoon in Vermont until the next day.

I did not get to say goodbye to them.

Tom's children who had not just married planned the dinner as a surprise birthday party for their father. He was completely surprised, especially since his birthday is in September. His children had not been able to be with him then, so they celebrated it now.

As you can see, Tom is now four years old. Either that, or each candle represents 15 years.

Eric, Amber's adventurous, mountain-climbing boyfriend.

And then I found myself in Wasilla, once again, and totally exhausted once again.

In the afternoon, I went to Metro Cafe at the usual time and found Carmen at the drive-through window. She had done some fancy things to her hair and wondered if I would notice.

Of course I noticed.

Carmen's beautiful new hairdo, from the back.

Scott was there, working, too. His cancer battle has been rough, with radiation and chemo subjecting him to ordeals the description of which make me cringe and I will not pass them on here. But he is a fighter, determined to win this battle.

We talked a bit about our separate wanderings into the same places on the Arctic Slope. We thought it might be good to one day write up some of our stories, side by side.

Shoshana came to the window to say "hi, stranger," so of course I photographed her, too. She is not there on Mondays and Wednesdays, as she has class those days.

After I left Metro, I did the old drive, down past the Mahoney Ranch and the Mahoney horses. I don't know why it hasn't snowed here, yet. I hope it does, soon. I saw some footage from the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention in Fairbanks and there is snow there and of course there has been snow on the Arctic Slope for awhile now.

Some may wonder why I am not at AFN and why I was not at the Alaska Tribal Leaders Summit and the Youth and Elders conference that immediately preceded the convention. I have been going nonstop for months, traveling here, traveling there. I am exhausted. And I can't afford either the time or the expense to have spent this week in Fairbanks.

So I am here in Wasilla. I plan to stay put for a couple of weeks, if I can get away with it.

I have not seen Kalib, Jobe or any of my children except for Caleb yet, but I am going into Anchorage this afternoon, so maybe I will. If I do, then readers will, too.

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Airplanes, ice cream and the need to escape; the final picture of the living Royce

I just want to escape for a bit now - not forever, not for years, not for months, perhaps not even for weeks. Days would be good, but I don't have days to spare. Hours, perhaps?

Just for a bit - and then while I am in escape to imagine that this little bit is forever. I want to climb into my airplane as I once used to do and go up there, into the clouds, into the sky, as I witnessed someone else do here, above me, late yesterday afternoon or early evening as I pedaled my bicycle.

But I want to be more free than the folks in this plane were. They were in the air, but they were completely controlled by people down on the ground, people who gave them orders as to just what altitude, heading direction and speed they could fly.

I want to be in the air, my hand on the stick and my brain free to choose what direction to push that stick and if I should push it that way and then change my mind and decide I want to go the other way and climb or descend to a different altitude than that is what I want to be able to do.

I want to fly into the updraft and then just let go of the damn stick altogether and let the wind carry me; see how high it will lift me into the sky before it turns me loose, and then to see what the view looks like from that perspective. There will be many mountains to look at, I assure you, and fields of ice and snow. 

I know, because it has happened just this way before.

And if I should come upon an eagle, bald or otherwise, I want to push the stick so that the airplane goes into a hard bank, to fly a tight circle with the eagle at center, it's pivot point, close enough to my cockpit window so that I can see the eye that it locks upon my eye.

When this happens with an eagle, even though one is flying a 360 degree circle around it and it is matching the turn degree for degree, the eagle appears not to move at all. The only hint that the eagle is rotating is that the areas of light and shadow upon the eagle change. Only the rays of the sun mark its turn, for its eye stays connected with yours, it's eye looks right into your's, and does not blink. It's wings do not flap, it's body appears to remain stationary.

But my airplane is broken and I cannot do such things now.

Yet I must break away for a bit.

What will I do?

Will I ride my bike, on and on, never stopping?

No, I am not fit enough right now to do that.

Will I walk, hike, up in the mountains?

I don't know.

But I've got to break free for a bit, somehow.

Of course, there is always ice cream. We have a Dairy Queen in Wasilla and I love their soft ice cream. This is from one week ago. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe were visiting us while Lavina went to Homer with Sandy for Sandy's early bachelorette party. She is getting married September 4 at Lake Lucille, here in Wasilla.

So us boys went and got ice cream. The chocolate coated cone Jacob is grabbing is for him. The other one is for Kalib. The milkshake, strawberry, is for me. Poor Jobe! He got none.

He didn't feel bad, though.

It didn't bother him at all.

Kalib, with his ice-cream cone.

Remember the patch of dandelions in the black and white series that Royce defended from Happy the dog and then floated above? This is the very patch, 15 years later. And that's Kalib in it, the little boy that has emerged from the baby that Royce loved so greatly.

If Margie were not spending her week days in town, babysitting Jobe, there would not be so many dandelions here. She loves to spend the days of late spring pulling dandelions out by the roots. There have been years where it has appeared that she has gotten them all, but, of course, with dandelions, you never get them all.

The dandelions are always there, surviving, even when not seen, even when the ground is frozen solid and the snow piled atop it. The dandelions are there, preparing to proliferate again. To a young boy, this is not a bad thing.

To a young boy, it is a magical thing, one that supplies him with many tiny parachutes to launch into the breeze.

Oh, dear! I have gotten things completely out of order! Chronologically, this picture should have preceded the ice cream shots. In it, we have just begun the trip to Dairy Queen. Muzzy needs a little exercise, so he runs alongside the Tahoe as Jacob drives down Sarah's Way toward Seldon. When we reach Seldon, Jacob will stop the car and Muzzy will get in.

Then we will continue on to buy the ice cream.

Now I am in the car. I have just stopped by Metro Cafe where Carmen and Sashana presented me with smiles and a cup, plus a muffin and I did not pay for either one. Someone out there, one of you my readers who refused to identify yourself, felt badly when s/he read about Royce and so bought this cup and muffin for me.

It was a very nice thought and I thank you.

So I proceeded on, to escape as best I could while drinking from the cup and eating the muffin. I passed by Grotto Iona, the Place of Prayer, and there were horses there.

On my way towards Grotto Iona, I came upon a place where a vehicle had gone off the road and was down in the bushes. A tow truck had just arrived and there were a few guys there. Before I could safely turn on my camera and get it ready, the picture was behind me.

On the way back, I knew they were there. As I passed, I lifted the camera as high as I could, hoping that it would catch the vehicle down in the bushes, but it didn't.

Out of chronologically order again - here is Carmen, before the Grotto and the horses, before the vehicle off the road, even before I got my cup and muffin. I have not even reached the drive-through window yet.

Metro Cafe, headed to drive-through window study, #32.9: Carmen and Branson

Financially, though I have managed to go far and do many things, these past few months have been hell. But finally my latest contract has been activated and yesterday I got my first check. I took Margie to the movie in Eagle River - Jonah Hex. 

In many ways, it was an absurd movie and the bad guys came to predictable ends, but it was fun. It was escape and I enjoyed it. Afterwards, Margie and I dined at nearby Chepos.

The food was good and the atmosphere pleasant. 

And then, last night, as I was going backwards through my largely neglected take of the past week, I came upon this, the very last picture of Royce, alive and aware, that I ever took or ever will take.

Since his passing, Chicago has been a very needy cat. She wants to be with me constantly. As much as is practical, I let her.

My trips to Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass - the connection; on the home front, Jobe, a horse, and some kids

As regular followers of this blog know, I was recently in Arizona, where I journeyed to see my friend Vincent Craig just before he died, and then stayed for his funeral and to visit family. I traveled straight from Arizona to the Brooks Range Alaska village of Anaktuvuk Pass to attend the wedding of Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee to Ben Hopson III (B-III).

I have mentioned that there is tie between the people I gathered with in Arizona and those whom I joined in Anaktuvuk Pass.

You can see that connection right here, in the above photo. This is Velma Kee Craig, Vincent's daughter-in-law through his and Mariddie's oldest son, Dustinn. I took this photo inside the Fort Apache LDS church house during the lunch that was served to family and friends of Vincent right shortly after his burial.

Please note the necklace and earrings that Velma chose to wear to her father-in-law's funeral. Both were made by Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee, whose wedding I would photograph in Anaktuvuk.

The moment that she saw the necklace in an online ad posted by Rainey, Velma loved it and wanted it. "Sorry," Rainey informed her. "That necklace has already been bought."

She did not tell her that it was Dustinn who had bought it. Dustinn had sworn her to secrecy.

In the summer of 1981, two months after Margie, little Jacob, Caleb, Rex, baby Melanie and I rolled into Alaska, I found a job at the Tundra Times, a now defunct weekly newspaper that served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities. I started as a reporter/photographer and then became editor/reporter/photographer for a short time.

Back then, each October during the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, he Tundra Times would host a banquet. Entertainment would usually include at least one Native American act from Outside. In 1984, I suggested to those planning the banquet that they consider bringing Vincent Craig up to perform and that is just what they did.

Mariddie came with him and they stayed with us in our Wasilla house throughout the convention.

Vincent and Mariddie wanted to take a memento of Native Alaska back to Arizona and so they purchased a pair of mukluks - caribou, if I recall correctly - at one of the arts and crafts booths that are always set up at the convention. They were very pleased with those mukluks.

One night, as I drove them back to Wasilla from convention happenings in Anchorage, the Northern Lights climbed in a glowing green arc over the Talkeetna Mountains, and then divided into various curtains to shimmer, dance, and flash in different colors. Vincent and Mariddie were fascinated

"Dustinn would love this," Vincent said. "He would feel awe."

That's Dustinn above, with Velma and their four children, Chance, Ashlee, Tristan and Kraig. I took this picture in their home, approximately five hours before his father died.

As Dustinn grew, he would often look at those mukluks. He would touch them, smell them, feel the texture of the fur. He would wonder about the place they came from, the people who made them. He would feel a sense of awe and fascination. His dad would tell him they came from Alaska; he would tell him about his friend, me, who lived in Alaska, who had his own airplane that he flew all about his mysterious, northern, land.

After Dustinn became a filmmaker, the primary center of his work became centered on Arizona, primarily on his Apache people, but he also branched out elsewhere - into Northern Alaska. 

In the image above, he is showing me his "Freshwater Ice" film. It tells the story of how, when a loved one dies, Iñupiat people will sometimes venture out onto the salty sea ice to find a certain kind of clear, blue, coveted piece freshwater glacial ice that yields the purest, sweetest, drinking water to be found.

They will chop it up, bring it back to the village, melt it and this will be the drinking water that will quench the thirst of those who gather to bring comfort to the deceased's family.

It is beautiful. It was also a bit amazing to me, to sit in his living room in Mesa, Arizona, and to watch this film that he made, people with faces and voices from Arctic Alaska, all well-known to me.

Dustinn was also hired to teach a film-making workshop at Barrow's Ilisagvik College. One of his students was Nasuġraq Rainey Higbee and another was Iñupiat filmmaker Rachel Edwardson. The three were all about the same age and after class got to spend a good amount of time visiting. 

Dustinn later got to work with Rachel on a film in Point Hope. Here is a trailer showing some of Dustinn's Point Hope work.

They discovered that, as young Native artists working to make a life in Native society that for them was different even than it was for their parents, they faced similar challenges and had much in common. They all became good friends.

And here is Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, who made the necklace and earrings that Velma Craig wore to her father-in-law's funeral in Arizona, on the evening of the day that she got married in Anaktuvuk Pass.

With her is her sister, Angela and her new brother-in-law, Byron Hopson.

I have a number of pictures and stories yet to post here from my trips to Arizona and Anaktuvuk. Now you will know how the two tie together.

In time, I intend to bring Rachel into this blog as well.

I don't know how to state this without sounding like I am bragging, but it is part of this story, part of this connection, so I have to say it. When I got to Rainey's home, she showed me her stack of the battered Uiñiq magazines that I made and she saved. She told me that she grew with my pictures, that my inspired her and that is why she kept the magazines, why she wanted me to come and photograph her wedding. That is why, after I made my final stop in Arizona at the home of Dustinn Craig to visit he and his mother, I got on an airplane and began the first of the four-leg that would take me to Anaktuvuk Pass.

Now, a little bit from the home front:

Yesterday, I had to go into town to take care of some business. I stopped at Jacob and Lavina's to visit Margie, who is babysitting Jobe. Jobe was asleep in his cradleboard.

Another view of Jobe.

Late in the evening, I took a ride on my bike. I had not gone far before I came upon this group of young people. The girl on the horse told me her name, but I was so certain that I would remember I did not bother to record it. I have forgotten. I do not know the name of the horse, either.

I should have lingered, spent a bit more time with them, learned a bit about that horse and how the girl feels about it and what the kids on the bikes think.

But I didn't. I just quickly stopped, told them what I was doing, got the name that I would forget and then pedaled quickly on.

Update, 11:35 AM Friday: AKponygirl left a comment and identified the horse-riding girl as Marcella. Thank you, Akponygirl!

The Veterans and Apache cowboys who escorted Vincent Craig to his viewing

Early Thursday morning, Vincent Craig was driven by hearse to his home in Whiteriver, where many family and friends had gathered to follow the funeral procession to Fort Apache. I had driven down from Hon-Dah in my rental car, but the protocol was to keep the pallbearers together so when it came time to move out toward Fort Apache, I joined my brother-in-law, Emerson Craig and two others and rode with them. A police escort separated us from the hearse and there were many vehicles in that escort.

As we drew within what I estimate to be about one mile from the Fort Apache Mormon church house, I saw a group of cowboys sitting on horseback ahead in the distance. When the procession reached them, the cowboys fell in behind the hearse. Shortly afterward, an honor guard took their place in front of the hearse and we proceeded on at walking speed.

As we drew near to the chapel, I got out of Emerson's truck and hurried ahead, so that I could capture this moment of honor as Vincent's fellow veterans and these Apache cowboys escorted him to the chapel.

Afterward, we carried him inside for the visitation and viewing. Then, like a river that just kept flowing for seven hours straight, people came by the score, by the hundreds, by the thousands to file past his flag draped coffin to look in and pay honor and tribute to this Navajo-Marine-cowboy-policeman-artist-musician-humorist who now lay dressed in his white Mormon temple clothing, a green apron at the waist.

They then moved on to embrace and sometimes cry with his wife Mariddie, his sons Dustinn, Nephi and Shiloh and other family members. As they passed by a wall hung with many of his cartoons, they laughed, too.

I took many more pictures of course, most of which I have yet to download, let alone to look at. But it has been a long day, I am very tired and weary and must get an early start in the morning, to prepare for his funeral and burial.

So this is it for now.

I drive north to White Mountain Apache country, where I pass by the spaceship that brought Vincent Craig to earth and am greeted by Wild Woman

I knew that it was going to be a challenge to get a post up yesterday, but I had a plan and I thought it would work. I would take a few pictures with my iPhone from the car as I drove between Phoenix and Globe. I would get lunch in Globe and afterward would take a little time to make a post from my iPhone that would include some of those images. 

So here I am, following that plan, taking a picture of a Saguaro cactus as I cross the desert a bit beyond Phoenix.

And here I am, about to exit the tunnel that goes through a low mountain just north of Superior.

Now I am in Miami, a mining town just a few miles from Globe.

Miami, Arizona, as seen from my iPhone while I waited at a stoplight.

It had been years since I had eaten at a Jack-in-the-Box, possibly even a decade, although I doubt it. When we lived down here and had to travel often between Whiteriver and Phoenix, Margie and I would often stop here with the kids, so I decided that Jack-in-the Box would be where I would buy my lunch. Then I would put my blog together in my iPhone.

Now I am in Globe, passing by churches.

This is the last picture that I took in Globe. I then bought my Jack-in-the-Box hamburger. After, I opened up the Squarespace ap in my iPhone and set about to post my entry. I had used the iPhone to make a post once before, just a few days ago, but that post had no pictures in it.

But Squarespace has a horrible ap, and, after great struggle that resulted in not single picture being visible in my post, despite having been loaded, I gave up and drove north. From here on, I shoot with my pocket camera.

Here I am, going down the highway that winds its way through Salt River Canyon. Everything that you see to the left of the river is the San Carlos Apache Reservation, to the right - the north, is the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, home to Margie's White Mountain Apace Tribe.

In an earlier post that I made about Vincent, I recounted, among other things, the story of how I accompanied him on a rescue of a woman who had fallen on a cliff in this canyon and had broken her leg. That event took place up around a couple of the bends that you see before you.

Now I am on the White Mountain side, drawing near to Margie's home village of Carrizo. I will stop in Carrizo to see her mom, but she will not be home.

Now I am entering Whiteriver, passing by the old airport. When Dustinn was small, his dad would sometimes drive him past the airport and would show him the windsock extended in the wind. That was the spaceship that had brought him to earth, he would tell Dustinn.

One day, it would take him back again.*

This is the Whiteriver house where Margie and I lived. Jacob was a baby when we first moved in. Caleb soon followed and then Rex. Melanie came a bit later. Lisa was born in Alaska.

As I leave Whiteriver, this horse crosses the road in front of me. I drive on up the hill toward Hon-Dah.

Here I am in Hon-Dah, pulling into the driveway of Margie's sister, LeeAnn, where I am first greeted by her dog, originally named, "Wild Woman." When LeeAnn would step outside to call her in, she would shout, "Wild Woman! Wild Woman!"

She began to fear that someone might misinterpret the meaning of her shout, so she gave Wild Woman the nickname Wylie and that is the name she now shouts to call her in.

Next, Famous comes to greet me.

Wylie Wild Woman and Famous.

LeeAnn and Chewy. LeeAnn has rescued many, many, dogs over the years, several on the edge of death. She now has six dogs living with her.

Regular readers are familiar with the cradleboard that Jobe sleeps in and before that, the one that Kalib used. LeeAnn is the artist who made them, a talent passed on to her from her mother, Rose.

As you can see, I am way behind on my blogging. It has not been easy conditions to blog under and I have had unexpected tasks to deal with long-distance back in Alaska that have eaten up the time that I could have blogged.

And I have spent a lot of time just visiting.

I still fully intend to make a good tribute to Vincent. This will begin with my next post.

*I should note that this is stand-in windsock. Back then, there was a large, triangular, one that did, indeed, bear a strong resemblance to a spaceship.