2009 in review - April: begins with moose in the yard; ends on a crazy-hot day on the Arctic ice

April began with a mama and her calf, dining in our backyard.

This is Jim, an amateur weatherman who I sometimes come across while walking. Our winter was drawing to its end. Jim had recorded 57 days below zero at his house, several in the - 30's and a few in the - 40's. Total snowfall had been eight feet.

Wasilla, of course, is in one of Alaska's moderate climate zones.

It discourages and depresses me to walk through Serendipity too often, but occasionally I do. I did this day and Muzzy came with me. I don't know how he manages to store up so much pee, but he marked every single property on his side of the street as his.

When we entered break-up for real, I got my bike out and started to pedal. You can see I still had the brace on my right wrist. I did not yet know it, and would have thought the opposite, but bike riding would prove to be great physical therapy for my wrist and shoulder.

As long as I didn't crash.

Becky, a young neighbor who lives on Seldon, gave Muzzy some love.

I saw this little character in the Post Office parking lot.

This happened on one of those mornings that I had to get out of the house and go get breakfast at Family Restaurant. These two guys had a nice little conversation and I am certain that it was friendly.

This guy stepped onto the side of the road to remind everybody they had to pay their taxes. Thanks to my injury, I had made very little money in 2008 and hardly had to pay any tax at all.

This year, I have made a decent income, but 2008 put me so deep into the hole that it does not feel like it at all. It feels like I am drowning, going under and maybe I am.

It would be okay if it were just me, because I could move into a shack and blog about it, but I hate to take Margie there. She has gone through so much and given up so much just to be with me these past few decades. She deserves much better than that.

It looks like tax time will be hell.

But I have 3.5 months to figure it out, so maybe it will be okay.

Many times in my career, I have brought us to the very brink.

And always, something has come along to save us.

By Easter, the snow had largely left our yard. We hid Easter eggs in the bare parts. Kalib went out and found them. We did not really hide them that good.

Kalib was pleased to discover that he could use guacamole to stick a chip to his face.

As I prepared to go north, Kalib played harpoon the whale. Kalib was the harpooner, Muzzy the whale.

Size ratio just about right.

I was glad to be going north, but it was very hard to leave this guy.

To me, what you are looking at is still a bit unbelievable. I had never imagined that I would see such a thing. The date is April 27, the place, Barrow, Alaska.

Barrow does not look like this on April 27. In Barrow, everything is frozen solid on April 27. On April 27, the temperature is either below zero F, or just a few degrees above. The wind drives a continual flow of snow low over the hardened drifts.

But not this April 27. On this April 27, the snow was melting. The air felt warm. No one living had ever before seen such a thing here, nor was there any record of this having ever happened, prior to this year. No one living who knows this place at all would have believed they ever would see such a thing.

It was causing problems for the whale hunters, making ice conditions dangerous.

I would like to say that this was a complete fluke and that no one will ever see it happen again - and it did finally freeze up again - but, these days, with the summer sea ice receding to unheard of levels, with polar bears and walrus losing the summer ice they need to live on, with animals, fish, and birds that have never been here before coming up from the south, with new species of plants taking root...

Willie Hensley of Kotzebue came to Barrow while I was there and did a reading, slide show and book signing for his autobiography, Fifty Miles From Tomorrow.

I bought a copy, had him sign it and then read it on the jet to India.

It kept me completely absorbed.

What a childhood he had, living the old time Iñupiaq life - and then to go on to fill a lead role in the movement that led to the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act and after that to become a politician, corporate leader and now an author.

This is one of those books that anyone who loves Alaska should read.

Might I also suggest that you read Gift of the Whale, too, if you haven't already?

You don't need to buy it - go find it in a library somewhere.

After several days in Barrow, I bought a ticket to Wainwright, thinking that after I spent a short time there, I would buy another to Point Lay. But I was about to discover that now that only one commuter airline serves the Arctic coast, they don't even let you do that anymore

If you want to fly from Barrow to Wainwright and then on to Point Lay, you have to buy two round trip tickets from Barrow, one to each place. That is kind of taking a trip from San Francisco to Portland and Seattle, only to find you have to buy two separate round trip tickets, one from San Francisco to Portland, and then back to San Francisco and then to Seattle.

And the prices!

If I had done both villages, my trip from Anchorage to Barrow, Wainwright and Point Lay would have cost me more than the round trip I had pending that would take me from Anchorage to Bangalore, India.

HOW RIDICULOUS IS THAT??????

In the photo above, the airplane is landing in Atqasuk, enroute to Wainwright.

For you in the south, please remember, no roads connect the villages of the Arctic to each other.

Whyborn Nungasuk boarded the plane in Atqasuk, headed for Wainwright. For those of you who have read Gift of the Whale, Whyborn is the man who organized the search for Harry Norton. He is one of those people that I am always glad to see.  I thought he must be going to do a little whaling, because Atqasuk is a land-locked village and Whyborn has often whaled in Wainwright.

"You headed to Wainwright to go whaling?" I asked.

"Not whaling," he said, "to talk about Jesus."

That night, they were having the regularly scheduled Wednesday singspiration at the Wainwright Presbyterian Church. I stopped by, to listen the listen to the gospel singing.

At a certain point, Whyborn got up to make a testimony. He told of a recent fall whale hunt that he been on in Barrow. A whale had been taken, and then roped to the boats that would pull it the landing site. Whyborn was in one of those boats, but something went wrong and he was accidently jerked out out of that boat by the rope and into the water.

He went under, and he stayed under long enough to begin to drown, perhaps to drown altogether.

As he drowned, he found himself in a pleasant, warm, place. "There were beautiful flowers, and beautiful butterflies, flying," he said. "Jesus was there."

Whyborn liked that place. He was glad to have arrived.

Then hands took hold of his parka and pulled him out of the water. Those who pulled him out revived him.

When he came too and saw that he was still alive, Whyborn looked at his brother, who had helped to save him.

"Why did you bring me back?" he asked. 

"Death," Whyborn said, "holds no fear for me now."

My wrist was still in a brace. My shoulder still hurt 100 percent of the time and felt fragile to me. I had a fear that I could not stand up to the rigors of the whaling life. I did not plan to go on the ice.

But on April 30, Jason headed out to make a boat ramp where the lead had briefly been, where he hoped it would open again. His younger sister had been planning to go out and help, but she had hurt her wrist, and couldn't.

So a snowmachine was available. I climbed on that snowmachine and found that if I did not grip the throttle in the usual way but pushed it forward with my thumb supported against my brace, I could drive it. At first, I tried to fit a glove over my hand and brace, but the weather was so warm that I found I didn't even need the glove so I took it off.

The fellow with the red on his hat in the background, that's Iceberg 14 co-whaling captain Jason Ahmaogak. The young man chucking the block of ice out of the boat ramp is Jerry Ahmaogak.

This would prove to be one of the hardest whaling seasons on record, all up and down the Arctic coast.

But in June, well after the hunt would normally have ended, Jason would guide the Iceberg 14 boat to the only whale that Wainwright would land. Jerry would harpoon it. Young Benny Ahmaogak, who is also out here building the boat ramp, would fire the shoulder gun.

2009 in review - January: we attend Barack Obama's Inaugural, Margie breaks bones, a kind lady puts us up in her elegant guest house

As you can see, January, 2009, got off to a reasonably pleasant start. I was still recovering from my shoulder injury and replacement surgery nearly seven months earlier, but was doing better than the doctor had expected. Margie was Kalib's official babysitter while his parents went off to work.

She was loving every minute of it.

And we had a big and exciting trip planned.

That trip was to Washington, DC, to take part in the Inauguaration of President Barack Obama. I don't get a haircut and beard trim for just anyone, but, for the President of the United States, I figured I would do it.

So I went to see Celia and she did a good job.

This picture shocks me (not the one on the wall - that one just frustrates me - but the one of me). I now look more than just one-year older than I did here. That's the kind of year it has been - and it began in January.

Margie, Lisa and I flew to New York, because it was altogether to expensive to fly to Washington, DC. We rented a car for the shockingly low price of $23 a day and drove down. On January 20, I arose at 3:00 AM and rousted Margie and Lisa, to be certain that we would not miss the first train to roll through the Metro subway, scheduled to leave the Friendship Heights station in the Chevy Chase area at 4:20 AM.  We were the guests of Greg and Julie, an extremely nice couple who live across the street from Alice Rogoff, the philanthropist who founded the Alaska House New York,  and closely associated it with the Alaska Native Arts Foundation. She is now publisher of the online news magazine, The Alaska Dispatch.

Right on schedule, we boarded the Metro and found the crowd to be surprisingly light - until we reached the very next station. When the doors opened, people poured in - and they would continue to do so at each stop until no more would fit. It was hot in the train car and I began to sweat. 

The gentleman above joined us at an early stop. He brandished an American flag with an image of Barack Obama emblazoned on it. "I'm so happy!" he sang, joyously, "I'm from Africa, living in America, Africa, living in America, Barack Obama, I'm so happy..."

He sang too of his father, in Sierra Leone, who he wished could be here, in America, to celebrate this wonderful day. "I'm so happy, in America, from Africa. Barack Obama! Africa, America. I'm so happy."

I could detect nothing but happiness, joy and goodwill anywhere. Smiles abounded throughout the car, people of all race and background laughed and mingled with those nearby. There was no tension, not between races, not between individuals; good will abounded.

The day was off to a good start.

We who traveled down in the Metro flowed like rivers of humanity through the concrete channels that lace the earth beneath Washington, D.C. toward the grand confluence where we would soon converge into a sea of two million that would cover the entire National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol.

One river of humanity flows outward through the metro gates.

And then the flow goes up and out of the Metro at L'Enfant Plaza. 

I had managed to get two press passes - one for me and one for Lisa, to be my assistant and help me carry things. I thought this was going to be special and really give us access, but, as it turned out, the passes would allow us to go in and out of any area in the mall at will, and to a little bleacher area set up for photographers and such, but not up to the Capitol steps, where the swearing in would take place.

The bleacher area was not a place I wanted to take photos from and there was no way to move freely about, in and out, out and in, in this packed crowd. So we worked our way into as good a position as we seemed likely to get, staked our ground and there we stayed - for hours upon hours upon hours, in the cold.

And it was cold. Nothing like true Alaska cold, which, dressed as we were, would have killed us in that time, but none-the-less it was a long wait and it could have been unpleasant, but it wasn't. There was too much excitement and everyone around us was happy.

Finally, the President elect and wife Michele walked out. If you have really, really, good eyes, then you can see him right up there on the Capitol steps - but it is a lot easier just to look at the big monitor.

Obama steps up to be sworn in and to deliver his speech.

Yes, it was a joyous crowd.

Lisa listens intently as the man she campaigned so hard for speaks. She worked phone banks, she knocked on many doors. She carried signs. And when he won, she spontaneously went and bought herself a ticket. 

So Margie and I decided to come with her.

Faces in the crowd, as they listen to their new President, Barack Obama, deliver his Inaugural Address.

Lisa cheers for her new President.

Afterward, we found Margie. She was cold, but happy to have been there, to have witnessed history. We spent the next several hours in the mall area, but Lisa had found the on-location offices of MSNBC and did not want to leave.

So finally, about 8:00 PM, Margie and I boarded the train back to Friendship Heights and left Lisa on her own. This scared me a little bit, but she is an adult, after all. By now, we had bags full of souvenirs.

Between my cameras and our bags of souvenirs, including Lisa's, our hands were full as we stepped off the Metro train at Friendship Heights and rode the escalator to the surface.

We then stepped into the outside air, waited for the light to turn green and then stepped into the crosswalk. Margie walked right beside me as we crossed but then, just as I was about to step up onto the curb, she vanished. Then I heard a whimper. I turned, and found her lying in the gutter.

I went to help her up, but she could not get up - her pain was too great. Yet, she insisted that she was not badly hurt and would soon be okay.

Some passers by waved down a police car, and the officers quickly summoned an ambulance and a team of paramedics.

But Margie refused to get into the ambulance, or to let the paramedics do anything more than help her to her feet. Once standing, she could not move. The pain in her left knee and right wrist was too great. Still, she would not get into the ambulance.

I had parked the rental car about two blocks away. I went and got it, came back, picked her up and drove her to the hospital myself. There, we learned that she had fractured both her right knee and her left wrist.

We put in a long and miserable night - especially for Margie.

In the light of the day, I went back to check out the crack that had tripped her. This is it.

Please note that the wheels of the little red car are both inside the crosswalk. So is the crack. I remain angry about this. There are many poor neighborhoods in the Washington, DC, area, but this isn't one of them. They should have repaired this crack long before it reached this state.

In the daytime, I doubt that she would have tripped. But in the night, tired, after a long, long, day, cold, carrying bags of souvenirs, that crack got her.

And her life has never been the same since. She has not worked a day or earned even one single a dollar. She was part time, so there was no Workers Comp or unemployment for her (just as there was none for me as a self-employed freelance photographer after I got hurt). Worst of all, she has not been able to care for little Kalib as she had imagined she would.

For a brief moment, I thought about taking legal action, but then we just moved on with life instead.

Alice Rogoff had hosted Barrow's Suurimmaanitchuat Iñupiat Eskimo dancers in her guest house. Now, she moved us in and told us to stay for as long as we needed.

I do not know what we would have done if she had not done so. Days would pass before Margie could even think of moving out of this room - let alone traveling. 

Alice Rogoff - I can never thank you enough.

And what a guest house it was!

When finally we decided to leave, we knew Margie could not handle the long trip back to Alaska without a break. So we drove back to New York and then flew to Salt Lake City, where my sister, Mary Ann, at right, picked us up and took us to her house.

It had been a miserable flight. Margie could not get into the airplane restrooms, nor could she fit her leg under the seat in front of her. Before we left New York, I had to take her into a ladies room. It was embarrassing, but I had no choice. The ladies room was crowded, too, and the ladies looked at me strangely, but once they figured out was going on, they were cool with it.

And here she is, at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, after we got home. Today, as she limped and hobbled slowly about, I asked her if she was still glad she went to the Inaugural. 

"Yes," she said. 

Little Kalib had to enroll in day care. But he enjoys it there.

You can find my original coverage of the Inaugural here.  I ended that coverage with a statement that included these paragraphs:

True, as the situation grows worse, I suspect that even many who now cheer him will grow impatient and will issue their own harsh criticisms of the man they helped elect. Perhaps I will, myself.

Obviously, none of us can yet know how well our new President will handle the many crisis that he inherited and he will undoubtedly make some bad mistakes. For this, he will be loudly condemned.

Yet, it is my personal belief that, right now, the United States of America is in need of a leader the likes of which we have not seen at least since World War II. A great leader. As Colin Powell said, a transformational leader. One who can not only inspire us but convince us to make the kinds of sacrifice that we modern day Americans do not like to make.

Considering the challenges, without such a leader, it seems unlikely that United States will continue as the great power that it has been since World War II. Looking at all of our national leaders, in all parties, I do not see the potential of such a leader except in one individual: our new President, Barack Obama. I do believe he has that potential. Whether the potential will be fulfilled, I do not know. 

I still hold to this statement and continue to believe the above words to be true.

Please note: A separate entry, titled Today in Wasilla, was posted 20 minutes prior to this one.