I have created my own Arctic winter day of night, right here in Wasilla; the new Uiñiq - front cover

I think I must be homesick for Barrow and the Arctic Slope, for those long nights that extend all the way through the day with no sun ever rising; those all-day nights during which, if one wants, one can slip into the comfort of a warm cacoon of darkness, hidden and protected there from the glare of world.

I think I must be homesick for this because, to the degree that is possible, I have converted Wasilla into a place where the winter sun never rises. Actually, it does, for just a few hours, but I go to sleep before those hours begin and wake up after they have passed.

So I do not see the sun. It is as if it never rose at all.

Today, I arose at 3:38 PM, pretty much right at the moment of sundown. It was time to head out for my regular afternoon coffee break, even though I had begun no task that I needed to take a break from, and to head to the drive-through of Metro Cafe, which is exactly what I did. I took this picture along the way. Admittedly, this is not a very good picture - I missed the good picture by a few seconds. It happened while I was too far back to get it, although I could have if I had had a bigger lens on the camera.

In the good picture, the one that I missed, the school bus had stopped and all of a sudden a whole passel of kids shot out and in a line sprinted through this little patch of light.

Oh, did it look neat!

By the time I got close enough to take that excellent shot, it was gone. A straggler got off and headed through the light, so I took this picture, so that I could tell you all about the one I had missed.

A couple of hours later, Margie was about to fix dinner. For some strange reason, I felt very hungry and decided that this a night to go out for steak - something we do maybe once every couple of years or so.

So we did, and here were are, at Denali Family Restaurant, where we had never tried dinner before. Margie had a chicken fried steak. They had a special that covered their New York steaks - $3.00 off but still pretty darned expensive, so I ordered one. The baked potato was very good, the roll was delicious - tasted like it might have been fresh out of the oven - and the once frozen half-ear of corn on the cob tasted the way corn on the cobs that have been frozen tend to taste.

The New York steak - it was okay. Not great, but okay and being okay it still tasted good. One would not call it "superb," "exquisite," "mouth watering" or anything like that. It was okay. Good enough.

Afterward, our waitress asked us if we wanted dessert, but we declined and went home, where I scooped up some Rocky Road out of the carton and made myself an ice cream cone.

I am happy to report that my shingles are diminishing. They are still there, but to a much lighter and more bearable degree than just two days ago. Maybe by this time next week, they will be gone altogether. My need for copious amounts of sleep still remains, however. 

Now I need to see if I can a little work done, so that I can finish up today's tasks in time to go to bed before the sun rises.

And here is the cover of my latest Uiñiq:

This is whaling captain Billy Oyagak of Nuiqsut, standing in the middle with members of his crew on Cross Island, balleen from their whale behind them. Other successful captains and crews that fall season of 2010 were Herbert Ipalook, Thomas Napageak and Edward Nukapigak, who hosted me.

That season happened very fast. The crews left Nuiqsut almost at the very end of August and arrived at Cross Island to find the weather perfect and whales passing by in good numbers. I could not come until September 2. Originally, I thought they might possibly have landed a whale or two by then, but that there would still be at least two, maybe three strikes left for me to follow.

As it happened they had landed all four before I even got there. They were still cutting and putting up the whales, and there were polar bears wandering about. I had a good time, took lots of pictures, but still fell far short of what I had hoped to do.

So I want to go back, get in a boat at Nuiqsut and ride out to Cross Island with them. Stay for a month, come back at Naluktak and a few other times, too. I had hoped to go back this year, but irony of ironies, I could not because I was working on getting this Uiñiq done. Nuiqsut/Cross Island was the first story that I laid out and originally I laid it out huge - my first layout filled up almost the entire 120 page magazine. But then, as I worked other storeis in, I had to keep cutting it back and cutting it back and so in the end it wound up at 17 pages.

That still left it as the largest single spread in the magazine, but 17 pages wasn't enough to even begin to do Cross Island-Nuiqsut justice. I couldn't even leave my polar bear shots in, and I had a couple of magnificent polar bear shots and a fun story based on polar bears coming into and passing by camp. Elsewhere in the magazine, I had a double-truck polar bear shot I took on the sea ice off Barrow, and that took up all the space I could afford to give to polar bears in this Uiñiq.

So I hope to go back and somehow find the way to produce either a Uiñiq or a Uiñiq sized or bigger publication wholly on Cross Island and Nuiqsut. In fact, I would like to do that with every village on the Slope - and some off the Slope, too, like Fort Yukon and Arctic Village.

But how do I all this? The decades are flying by. I still think of myself as a young man, fit and strong enough to do anything, but in fact I am on the verge of becoming old - and this bout with shingles that I have just about but not quite won is kind of a telling sign. And this work is not easy to do. It is hard - both in the field and back home, when it becomes necessary to put in 20 hours, 24 hour, 30 hour and even 40 hour days to ever get it done.

I do not wish to listen to this sign the shingles have given me. Yet, if I don't, and just keep living in the manner that I have so far lived, I might just get taken down and not get anymore done at all.

And there was a great deal of material that I gathered from all over that I did not manage to get in at all. I don't why, after all this time, but when I set out to make a 116 page publication (which is what it was budgeted for but I pushed it up to 120 at my own expense) I think that gives me enough space to cover the whole world.

So I shoot this, and I shoot that; I go here, I go there, I interview this person and that person and all the time I am thinking I can work it all in and then when it comes down to it, I can only work a fraction of it in.

That's one of the reason I plan to create on online magazine. I could work it all into an online magazine. I remain at a bit of a loss on how to go about it. I have a colleague who is expert at online publishing and he says he will help me set it up. He's booked solid until January. Once he helps me set the format I want, then how do I fund it?

It ain't cheap to travel around Alaska, you know.

Still, we will see what happens then.

For sure, I need a new airplane. I don't merely want one, I need one. It seems impossible right now, but I know it's not.

Well, I've been rambling, writing more words than most visitors will ever read. Guess I'll stop now.

I've got some things I must do and I had better get at it if I want to get to bed before sunrise.

Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon!

This is Robert John Gordon and today is his seventh birthday. Happy birthday, Robert John Gordon! We share birthdays, you and I. Robert lives in the Brooks Range village of Anaktuvuk Pass, but I took this picture in Kaktovik, outside the community center, just a little before midnight on July 8, the day that I arrived in Kaktovik.

Here is Robert again, standing amidst loved ones at the graves of Thomas K. and Simon Gordon. The woman wearing the parka and standing behind Robert is Mayuin Gordon, wife of Thomas and adoptive mother of both Simon and Robert. She had been out on a hunting trip with her family on August 1 of 2008 when her husband slipped on a steep bank and fell into a deep pool of cold water that he could not get out of.

Twelve-year old Simon followed him into the inescapable water, and it is my understanding that he did so in an effort to rescue his father.

Kaktovik has a population of just under 300 people and when Mayuin returned driving the boat without her husband and son Simon, the entire village came to her and then went back to the scene to find and recover the bodies.

Thomas had been a leader in the village and I can tell you from my own experience with him that he was an exceptionally warm and kind man. He was beloved in the village and the people also had high hopes for Simon, as they watched him grow.

Their loss left the community in deep and lingering sadness. Thomas had been a guitar player, and loved to perform gospel music. So, last summer, both to honor Thomas and Simon and to bring healing to the community, the village held the first Thomas K. Gordon Memorial Gospel Jamboree. Yes, there was gospel singing, but also community games, played on the beach and at the community center; there was a feast, a bonfire, a talent show, snert tournament and an Arctic char fishing derby.

The healing extended beyond Thomas and Simon to all those who had lost loved ones and families.

People cried, but they also laughed.

Had I have known, I would have been there, but I knew this year and so came for the second jamboree.

It was a wonderful experience. Needless to say, I took lots and lots and lots of pictures and it had been my hope to do a decent summary on this blog. However, deadlines are weighing heavy upon me. In addition to the healthy communities Uiñiq that will include this story, I have another Uiñiq on Kivgiq that is JUST ABOUT press ready.

What I have discovered is that JUST ABOUT - layout all done, most of the photos adjusted, most of the text written - can still mean days, even a couple of weeks, of work ahead and once that is done I must go to Kotzebue to do a job that has nothing to do with Uiñiq. Sometime in August, I plan to visit Atqasuk and maybe Arctic Village and then, somehow, I must have this healthy communities Uiñiq press-ready by the first week of September.

So I think I will wait until after Uiñiq comes out to post this story. By then, I hope to have figured out how to make and present the electronic magazine that I want to create. If so, then I plan to go back and rework some of the Uiñiq stories for that. This way, the stories can be shared with people who will never see Uiñiq magazine. 

As for those who do see Uiñiq, I will be able to share more pictures that space will have prevented me from including in Uiñiq.

So that is my plan. 

There is no way to know what will actually happen until it happens.

That goes for tomorrow and the next day, too. 

The fence beyond the graveyard is a snow fence - built to catch the constant fall, winter and spring drift so as to lessen the amount of deep drifting within the village.

I should note that when I first met Thomas Gordon, in September of 1986, he was living in Mayuin's home village of Anaktuvuk Pass. Each September, the people of Anaktuvuk eagerly await the migration of caribou that pass through and by their village.

Before passing through, the caribou tend to gather in herds just to the north of the Brooks Range. By their own traditional law, no one is to disturb or shoot a caribou until the first group enters their valley and passes by the village. This is because a gunshot or disturbance might frighten the lead caribou and cause them to change routes. Once the leaders have passed through, the rest will follow, no matter how many shots are taken. In that year, the people had observed the caribou gather as normal, but they did not come to the village. They chose another another route to the west.

There had been sport hunters camped down where the caribou had gathered. They did know of local, native, traditional law nor did they care about it. When they saw the caribou, they did not wait for the leaders to pass by and enter the valley.

They shot.

So, without caribou, Thomas and his friend Harry went out to hunt moose, and I followed. We did not find any moose. It was frustrating, but Thomas never grew angry. He did not swear. He did not say anything bad about anybody - not even the sport hunters whose shots may have turned the caribou from the village.

He was sad, but his humor remained good.

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Tikigaq: Journey to the Killigvuk whale

The snowmachine and sled ride depicted in my post of two days ago took us to the whale camp of Rex Rock, Sr., where we would transfer to the umiak for the trip to the whale taken by Isaac Killigvuk and crew - as soon as the harpoons and darting guns were made ready. The weapons would not be used on this trip, as a "cease fire" was in place until the Killigvuk whale was landed.

Just before we boarded the umiak, some belugas swam by.

This was the first time not only on the ice and at whale camp but certainly in an umiak for Al Sokaitis (left in white) and Mike Hajdukovich (right in black) of Challenge Life Alaska. The boat rocked a bit when we launched which caused Mike - who in his college days was one of UAF's 10 all-time lead scorer at basketball, to shout out in slight panic. Even when it rocks, an umiak is a very stable boat and there was no real danger that it would tip over.

When the hunters go after a bowhead, they paddle the umiak but this would be a long ride with no hunting be done, so the boat was powered by a small outboard motor.

In addition to his work with Challenge Life Alaska, Sokaitis is the head coach for the Post University men's basketball team in Waterbury, Connecticut. He has also coached at Western State College, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Southern Maine, and North Adams State College and he coached the Alaska Dream in the ABA for one season.

Eider ducks flew past as we cruised through the Chukchi.

That's Rex Rock, Jr. His father had things to do onshore, so Rex was in command.

We came upon a seal...

...and a male eider duck swimming.

A bowhead blew and then glided through the water not far off starboard.

Rex Rock, Jr., surveys his country. The Rocks have replaced the bearded seal skins that once covered their umiak with fibreglass.

Shorefast ice.

Another bowhead, in the distance, beyond the eiders.

Eiders over the ice.

In time, we reach the landing site. The bowhead is still in the water. The block and tackle have been attached to its tail. Isaac Killigvuk, the successful captain, is the second person to the right of the paddle. The man standing next to him in blue is Popsi Tingook, captain of the first Point Hope crew to land a whale this season.

Preparations to pull up the whale have been made. The skin-covered Killigvuk umiak is pulled up onto the ice.

Those present join together and pull and pull on the block and tackle, until the whale is pulled onto the ice. For a large whale, this process can take many hours, even a day. This is a small bowhead and comes up quickly.

The whale is landed. Isaac is joined by his wife, Sally. They are very happy to have this whale give them the honor of taking its flesh to feed to their community. They haveprayed for the whale. Of all the many sources of food natural to the Arctic - caribou, beluga, seals, walrus, ducks, geese, fish, berries and such, the bowhead is the most important in every way that one can imagine - food, nutrition, spirit, identity.

Year round, the activities of life focus first and most importantly upon the bowhead.

The flag of the Isaac Killigvuk crew.

We stayed for the early part of the butchering, but with the whale landed and the process of cutting and dividing it well underway, the hunt would soon begin again. So Rex Jr. took his boat back to the Rock camp and I followed.

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One month ago - flying to and settling into Point Hope; Yesterday in Wasilla

I again back up one month ago to begin anew my oft-delayed series of posts on my recent travels to Point Hope and Barrow - both of which are much colder towns than is Wasilla. I start on the Era flight that took me there on a one-way ticket that cost $410. Later, I would purchase another one-way ticket from Point Hope to Barrow and that would also run $410. 

Then I would need to purchase another ticket from Barrow to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines - $402.

Just imagine if you had a family of five or six and your father died two villages away and everybody needed a plane ticket to get there. That's the reality people face in Alaska, every day.

The only practical way to travel about Alaska is by plane, but it is getting harder and harder and harder to do. That's Annabelle Lane to the left, her son, Ephraim and Al Sokatis of Challenge Life Alaska.

I had originally planned to go to Anaktuvuk Pass on this trip. I needed my trip to coincide with a Challenge Life Alaska/NSB Healthy Communities event. Such an event had been planned for Anaktuvuk, but it got postponed and the time was scheduled for Point Hope.

So off I went to Point Hope.

I still hope I can get to Anaktuvuk before much more time passes by.

It was still early in the spring whaling season. I hoped that I might get out onto the ice. All my good, warm, Arctic gear had fallen apart or disappeared, so I was not properly prepared. Maybe someone would let me borrow some.

As we neared Point Hope, I could see open water, with shorefast ice on one side and young, new ice pinching in from the other.

This is Krystle Ahmaogak, granddaughter to the late Ben and Florence Ahmaogak of Wainwright, who in 1995 took me into their whaling crew, Iceberg 14 and then later adopted me as their honorary son. Krystle now lives in Point Hope with her fiance, Jesse Frankson and their three children.

When she learned I was coming, she invited me to stay with them.

We are headed to her house.

Krystle's two year-old son, Jonathan, at home in his play tent.

In the afternoon, Al and his Challenge Life Alaska partner Mike Hajdukovich met with the senior class, who were about to graduate. The students had raised money for a post graduation senior trip - to New York City. That is mostly what they talked about.

Geez, I wanted to go!

How fun it would have been to follow these kids from Point Hope around the Big Apple with my camera in hand!

Senior playing chess.

Going to New York with the graduated seniors was out of the question for me, but this is Michelle and as she was about to graduate, go on the trip, and loves photography, she was designated to be the official Point Hope Class of 2011 New York City Photographer.

Al and Mike had acquired a nice Canon 7D for the class, so she and I went walking about Point Hope so that I could give her some pointers on using the camera.

She caught on fast and she had a pretty decent eye for a picture.

I hope I get a chance to see the pictures that she took.

As I walked with Michelle, this girl came sliding by on a sled with a dog behind.

I shot many pictures of Challenge Life and have not yet taken the time to go through them. I did quickly pull this frame out, though: Challenge Life, Al Sokaitis in the school gym leading young children in a round of game playing.

This is Rex Rock, Sr., whose crew I followed whaling in 1991. Rex is also President of ASRC - the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

Children at play on a storage shed.

We learned that the crew of Isaac Killigvuk had struck a bowhead and were about to land it. Rex's wife, Ramona found a parka for me to wear. Mike and Al had never been to whale camp before, but now they had their chance. 

Off we went - the first stop would be the Rock whaling camp.

more to come

And this from yesterday in Wasilla:

Yesterday, as Margie and I passed by Wasilla Lake, we saw this dog in the next car, looking at us.

Inside the Metro with Carmen, study #6722: With Palmer Musician Dusty Bannon, wife Michelle and other family members and friend.

Dusty grew up on a Delta Junction homestead. When time and opportunity allows, I hope to catch him in action and to tell more of his story.

Also, let it be known that I have learned the identity of the person who, right after I returned home from this trip, bought me the coffee, pastry, paid the tip with 25 cents left over for me.

It was the Alaska Pony Girl. Thank you, Alaska Pony Girl! I think I owe you quite a few coffees now.

You can find her old blog here:

http://akponygirl.blogspot.com/

And her new blog here:

http://akponygirl.wordpress.com

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From a boat off Point Hope, a little less than one month ago

Finally, I did run all the pictures from my last trip to the Arctic into my Lightroom editor and began to prepare the series of pictures that I was unable to post while I was traveling. There are many pictures in that take to sort through and I also have a major project that I must get proof ready in less than two weeks, so I gave myself just two hours to do a bit of editing.

When I started, I decided that whereever I was at in the editing process, I would stop right there once I had been at it for two hours. This is the photo I reached, right at the two-hour mark. I took it in the umiak of Rex Rock, Sr.

Tomorrow morning, I will continue the editing process for one to two more hours and then I will stop again, so that I can get back to my project. Probably by sometime this weekend or maybe Monday I can actually start posting the series.