Isabelle gets ink: the crew flags of her father and "Aapa"

Shortly after the day began, I stepped into the hall of the Nuiqsut school building and there was Isabelle Ilavgak, sitting at the reception table. "I got ink," she said, "want to see it?"

It's the designs from the Wainwright whaling crew flags of her father (top) and (grandfather). She is going to add the family name, "Ahmaogak" at the bottom.*

There is more to the story, of course, but there is one place I want to go right now and that is straight to bed. 

*I have now had a little bit of sleep and will update this just a little bit. When Isabelle showed me the designs yesterday, I recognized the top flag as being that of Iceberg 14, the crew of the late Ben Ahmaogak Sr., now co-captained by Jason, Mary Ellen and Robert. I also knew that as the brother of Isabelle's father, Fred, whose flag is the whale below, Ben would technically be Isabelle's uncle, but I was a little confused because she described the Iceberg 14 flag as being that of her "Aapa," or grandfather.

When I made this post last night, I was so exhausted I could not even think.

But sometime in the night, as I fell in and out of sleep, I remembered hearing Isabelle call Ben "Aapa" and his wife Florence, "Aaka," or grandmother.

And, in a comment below, Isabelle's cousin, Maak, who is also my Iñupiaq sister by informal adoption, made it all clear.

Thank you, Maak.

No matter how much I learn, I always know just a little bit. Always, I have much more to learn.

A bowl of caribou soup in honor of Arnold Brower Sr - and a few other items as well

On October 8 of last year, I posted a memorial notice for Arnold Brower, Sr., one Barrow's most accomplished and respected whaling captains. I used a picture that I took at his table, of him ladling caribou soup from a big cooking pot with many family members gathered around. I noted how, just by the taste of it, Arnold could tell you the location where a caribou had been shot and in what season of the year.

He died while hunting caribou at the age of 86. Shortly after he shot his last one, he fell through the ice of the Chip River on his snowmachine. He pulled himself out of the water and, as the story was told in the tracks that he left behind, went to that last caribou and used its fur to pull water from his clothing, and its heat to warm his body.

But it was not enough and so Barrow lost this wonderful man.

This is Gordon, one of his 17 children, and Gordon's son, Bradley. Bradley is already a successful caribou hunter and not too long ago he shot his first seal, which, as Iñupiat tradition demands, he gave away to elders. He is an accomplished fisherman and already knows many of the skills necessary to live on ice and in snow.

Two afternoons ago, I stopped by Gordon's house, which he was busy remodeling. We did an interview hours long and he told me of several experiences that he had had with his dad, and also the process that he and the ABC Crew went through to rise above their grief, get themselves back out on the ice and bring home a whale to feed to the community of Barrow.

Due to weather and ice conditions, this past season was an extremely hard one in Barrow and the first whale caught was not landed until the first hour of May 17 - by Gordon Brower and the ABC crew that he captained in his father's stead.

May 17 was also Arnold Brower Sr's 87th birthday.

After the interview, Gordon fed me some caribou soup and had some himself. And guess who shot the caribou?

Arnold Brower Sr. It was from one of the animals that he had taken on his last hunting trip.

He has been gone for nearly ten months now, and still he continues to feed his family and many others. I feel honored that one of those he fed was me.

And this is Gordon's sister, Dora, and her husband Ned Arey, taken the next night. They are about to feed me mikigaq - fermented meat and maktak - from the whale that the ABC crew landed. Arnold Sr. also taught Ned much of his knowledge and the Arey's have formed a whaling crew of their own.

The second whale of Barrow's season came to them and when it came time for Nalukatak, the two crews joined together as one - because they are one family - to feed the community.

Before we ate, the Arey's also spent a couple of hours telling me of their experiences with Arnold, both before and after his death.

It is going to be a challenge to do this story justice in the special issue of Uiñiq magazine that I am making, but I will give it the best that I can.

Whaling captain Ned Arey loves to barbecue and that's why he placed this tank of propane gas on his deck - to barbecue with. But before he could fire up the grill for the first time, a redpole built a nest and laid some eggs.

So he has not used the barbecue. 

About six baby birds have hatched and there is one more to go.

Shortly after Dora showed me the nest, the momma flew away. I was very worried, because it was cold and windy.

"Don't worry," Dora told me. "She will come right back."

And she did.

See the AC and the heart with the arrow through it? That same heart and arrow is on the Arey Crew flag and speaks to God's love in creating the abundance of this world, most notably the whale, which gives itself and is then fed to the people.

This is Qiñugan Teigland, the niece of Julius Rexford, who hosted the Point Lay Nalukatak. Another of her uncles, Olemaun Rexford and his wife, Thelma, recently opened Arigaa Coffee in Barrow, thus creating what is the farthest north roadside coffee kiosk in the world.

At the time of this purchase, a hard wind blasted Barrow and it was cold in that wind. But it hit the kiosk from the other side and so the tiny structure served as a nice little windbreak for me. Furthermore, the kiosk acted a bit like a reflector oven and reflected the sun's heat back to me, so it was kind of pleasant standing there, waiting for the Americano that Qiñugan holds in her hand.

I then walked to the offices of the North Slope Borough, about 400 yards away. By the time I got there, the wind had blown the heat of the American away and it was cold.

Into the microwave it went.

Then I spread some Goobers Peanut Butter and Jelly across two pilot bread crackers, kicked back for a few minutes and enjoyed.

Very soon, a much, much, MUCH colder wind will pummel the little kiosk, a wind that will drive snow with the consistency of powdered sugar before it.

This stay in Barrow was very short. You don't see me but here I am, inside a Beechcraft with a planeload of others, all of us going to a youth and Elders conference, headed toward Nuiqsut.

And here is the view from my hotel room in Nuiqsut. It is the first hotel that I have stayed in this trip and it rocks and shakes in the wind. I hear that an Eskimo dance practice is about to happen at the community center.

I will walk over, and see what is happening there. 

Kunuknowruk - artist, scholar, thinker, friend and host; mammoth tusks and the dream couch

This is Kunuknowruk, also known as Pete Lisbourne, a treasured friend and the man who hosted me during my trip to Tikigaq, also known as Point Hope. For those of you familiar with my book, Gift of the Whale, he is the man who you saw picking murre eggs off the 900-foot cliffs of Cape Thompson, and then resting on the very edge at the very top with a cache of eggs in front of him.

Although he is not inclined to speak about it at all, Kunuknowruk is not only a Vietnam veteran, but one decorated for heroism, for risking his own life to save another when others held back.

If he had been born and reared in mainstream America, I have no doubt but what that Pete would now be a noted scholar of some sort, a Phd, perhaps an archeaologist or historian.

In fact, he is a scholar, but in a different kind of way than are those who attend universities. He is extremely curious about his own home, Tikigaq, said by all scholars of both societies who know to be one of the oldest continually occupied communities in North America, and by some to be the oldest. 

Kunuknowruk not only reads all the scholarly works that are produced on his community and Iñupiaq society, but does his own studies, by his own means.

One of those means is to walk about and to examine all that is on the ground, which includes many old artifacts.

One summer not long ago, he found a ceramic bead in a certain spot. The next summer, he found another and the summer after that, still another. So he did a more thorough search of the area and found several other artifacts, not of his culture but of western culture, such as a ceramic smoking pipe, and this button and tiny thimble.

They appeared to be of British origin to him, with the button likely being that of an English sailor. He thought, perhaps, that he had found the site where the crew of the HMS Blossom had camped in 1826 while searching for the lost Franklin expedition.

He has sent some of those artifacts to England for further study. Author Tom Lowenstein of London, who brought his latest book, Ultimate Americans: Point Hope, 1826 - 1909, to the Arctic Economic Development Summit, wants to help him find out if, indeed, this is the case.

Although few in the art world know his name, in my own opinion, Kunuknowruk is one of Alaska's master artists, but he does not view his art in much of a commercial way. Back when I first got to know him, he would spend his winter months creating wonderful pieces of art and then, in the spring, when the school teachers left the village, many would want to go with a sample of his work. He would sell these creations of love to the teachers for $5.00 each.

He doesn't do that anymore. His work depicts his community and its people - both as he has known them in his lifetime and in the past as he has seen reported in scholarly works and in old photograpjhs.

Today's modern village sits next to the ancient community site of Ipiutak, 6000 years old. Using a combination of the scholarly works, artifacts that he has found with his own eyes, and images that appear in his dreams, Kunuknowruk also paints his vision of what life in Ipiutak might have looked like.

A work in progress, on Ipiutak.

Pete's brother, Wally, found these mammoth tasks not too far from Point Hope. They rest beneath polar bear hides and alongside a hand air pump, which should give you some idea of their size.

A buyer emerged, but has yet to finalize the deal.

Kunuknowruk shows a photo taken on a walk many years ago to a villager who happened by on a four-wheeler as he was out and about in Point Hope. The picture comes from a long walk that he and a couple of friends once took.

They ran out of food before they found game. "We got so hungry, we ate flowers," he remembered.

The dream couch.

I slept on the couch against the far wall and on my first night experienced a magnificent, vivid, dream that did not seem like a dream at all, but like an actual happening. In the morning, Kunuknowruk told me that whenever he sleeps on that couch, he has vivid dreams. Others have slept there, and they have also dreamed.

I spent four nights on this couch and each night I had at least one vivid dream.

Night 1: I was Outside, attending a conference and was walking around with a couple of friends when we happened upon three beautiful women, one of whom attached herself to me. It was a beautiful and pleasant dream, although it did not ever reach the point that you are thinking about right now.

When I awoke, I wished that I could go back to sleep and continue the dream.

Night 2: A blond man with freckles repeatedly tried to kill me, by various means. Each time, I barely managed to defend myself until finally I had to wreak violence against the man, just to live myself. I hated the dream. It woke me up too early and I did not want to go back to sleep, but I needed to, so I did.

Night 3: I was out with my camera when I came upon some exquisitely beautiful people, mostly women, but a couple of men, too. They wanted to be photographed and I obliged, pleased to have the opportunity to photograph such beauty.

As I set about to take the photographs, I saw that I was not photographing flesh, but rather something artificial. On some, it was like they had the skin of a mannequin, others, a ceramic covering.

I kept taking pictures and then, gradually, the artificial coverings began to crack, chip and fall away. Real flesh appeared - flesh that bore scars and wrinkles; teeth that had been white and bright now became yellow and chipped, with big gaps where some had gone missing, breasts that had been firm now drooped and many other imperfections manifested themselves. I saw not only the hard work of time, but of sorrow and grief.

Yet, I realized that what was before me was beauty, even greater than that I had first seen. I continued to photograph.

Night 4: I was visiting a house elsewhere in Point Hope when the father announced that they had a dog, a really big dog, that he wanted me to meet. He went to his closet and opened the door. I expected to see a St. Bernard bound out of that closet, kind of like Muzzy.

Instead, a horse charged out. Or at least an animal with the head and body of a horse, but the legs and tail of a dog. It was very happy to see me and came charging over, wagging its tail and shaking all over, the way a happy dog does.

I did not know what else to do, so I petted it, and spoke to it as one speaks to a happy dog.

And so passed my four nights on the dream couch.

If you could read the clock on the wall, you would see that it is 12:50 - and that is AM. That's how it was every night. We stayed up late, talking, mostly Kunuknowruk telling me stories.

Pete slept on the other couch, by the way, the one he sits on here. He has some relatives living with him and he lets them stay in the bedrooms.

He also told me that when he learned that I had crashed my airplane, he wanted to tell the North Slope Borough that they should buy me another one, so that I could go back to visiting villages the way I used to. He said that because of the work I had done with my airplane and my camera, he had learned so much about other Iñupiat villages, places that even though they share the same coastline as does Point Hope, he had never had a chance to spend time in.

The Borough can never buy me a plane, but I was most touched by that.

Thank you, Pete Lisbourne, Kunuknowruk, for hosting me in your house - for being a friend.

At 11, he fought off a polar bear and saved a man from drowning beneath the ice

While taking a short walk late at night through a nice, pleasant, rain in Point Hope, where the weather had suddenly turned warm, I happened upon these three: Eva Nashookpuk, Shaun Stone and Aaron Milligrock.

Off the top of my head, I have no stories about Eva and Shaun, but I do about Aaron, who I first met at Kivgiq in Barrow last February, where he danced with style and power.

One night, I shared a dinner table with he and his mom and a few others from Point Hope and learned about some heroics he pulled off at 11 years of age (he is 12 now).

One happened when he was headed back out to whaling camp on the spring ice and came upon a hole where a 21-year old whaler had gone through into the frigid water. He could not get out, and the cold water was quickly taking him down.

Small and slight though he was, 11 year old Aaron jumped off his snowmachine, put himself prone upon the ice, reached out, took hold of the man's arms and found the strength to drag this man who was much bigger than him out of the water.

That same spring, a polar bear came nosing into his tent and he jabbed it in the nose with a fork. It must have been a big cooking fork, because when he demonstrated how he had done it, he moved his arms in a thrusting motion from over his shoulder, forward, almost like he was throwing a harpoon.

Thank goodness... the polar bear backed away, whining as it went.

On the same walk, I also happened upon Vanessa Driggs walking with three of her children. A fourth, an infant, is on her back under her jacket. She hurt her ankle jumping off of a four-wheeler. It is not a bad injury.

Someday, I must photograph her with her twin brother. When I do, then you will understand why I must.

During the Eskimo dance, the sound of the bowhead whale filled the space where the Arctic Development Summit was held

It was a most interesting day at the Arctic Development summit, as Iñupiat whalers and oil company execs got together to express very different viewpoints on whether or not there should be oil exploration and development in the Chukchi Sea. It was a frank, but also very civil and respectful exchange.

Last night, the sound of the Chukchi's largest and most powerful resident, the bowhead whale, filled the gym at the Eskimo dance that followed the day's summit sessions. See the skins on the drums? They come from the stomach lining of the whale, which is the way Point Hope drummers still make them.

Many drummers use nylon these days, but not Point Hope. In Point Hope, they keep their dances close to the whale.

This is Phyllis Frankson, dancing to the sound of the bowhead whale.

Drummer Ron Oviok, a veteran of the Iditarod sled dog race. I haven't the time right now, but I hope to post some kind of explanation of the Arctic Development Summit Sunday night, so it will be ready for viewing Monday morning.

If I can do so, I will try to follow it up with some of the subsistence hunting essays that I have done lately, but have had no time to post. I have been kind of frustrated about not having the time to post any of these stories, but to have them come after the summit will add context.

If I can find the time. This summer streams past me, fast, with no breaks between one event to the next.