Two November 13 birthdays, part 2: Greetings, Larry Aqlunaq Ahmaogak!

Please allow me to introduce Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak of Wainwright. I almost didn't make it over to see him on this, his birthday of origin, because I had first gone to the party which you will see on November 13 birthday #1. Thanks to these shingles, I got to feeling so weak, rotten, and drained over there that when the party ended, all I wanted to do was go home.

But a friend is a friend and family is family and this includes the family that adopts when you are in your 40's. So I decided to drop by, say "hi" to Jason and Iqaluk, give them my best wishes for the upcoming birth of their baby and then go home.

I called Jason, to see where I might find them. "We are here at ANMC with our son Larry," Jason answered in a tired but proud voice, "born this morning at 7:59 AM; seven pounds, 14.4 oz.; 20 inches."

So off I went to the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Jason Ahmaogak is the kind of guy who can go out on the flat tundra in whiteout conditions in the darkness of winter at 50 below, be just fine and never get lost. He can venture into the maze of broken, pressure ridge riddled ice and know where he is at all times. Even without GPS, he can boat out into the Chukchi in the fog and come home okay.

But Jason got lost in the hospital. He left Iqaluk and Larry - whether Larry was born yet or not I am not sure - to run an errand and then he could not find his way back. He wandered down this hall and that hall and all the halls just looked like halls.

Finally though, he made it back. That is good, because he has to teach this boy how to survive in the Arctic.

Larry Aqlunaq - this name comes to him from his grandfather, Jason's dad, who passed away very recently. This means a great deal in the Iñupiat way of life.

Notice the symbol on Jason's sweatshirt. I have a sweatshirt just like this. That symbol stands for Iceberg 14, the whaling crew that Jason's aapa, his grandfather, Benjamin Ahamaogak Sr, started up many decades ago. When Ben was still alive, I followed him and his crew to do a little photo essay and that was when they adopted me.

So today, I gave myself a new assignment: to follow Larry Aqlunaq off and on from now through the first whale hunt in which he takes on a role of high responsibility in the boat.

I recognize that I have given myself a huge challenge and to be quite honest, I realize that the odds are high that I will not be able to complete it. I will be a genuinely old man when that event happens. I might well be dead. I might be incapacitated.

But I just might make to that point, in decent health.

So that is my goal: to make it that point in decent health and follow Larry Aqlunaq into the boat, onto the sea, and to the bowhead whale that will come his way.

Because he is family - that's why.

Iqaluk is a fine Eskimo dancer in the Iñupiaq style. Larry Aqlunaq's older sisters are fine dancers. Small though they still be, they bring down the house whenever they perform. I suspect Larry will also be a fine dancer. I must photograph him dancing as well.

Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak.

Note: I decided to run November 13 birthday part 2 before Part 1, because my son Rex is very familiar to the people who know him and to regular readers, too.

Not very many people have seen Larry yet, so I am going to post this first. I may post Rex's birthday tonight or I may wait until tomorrow. To be quite honest, I don't feel up to it right now - but I might in a little while.

Two November 13 birthdays, part 1. 

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Margie and I babysit Jobe; I pay a visit to Jason, Iqaluk, Raquel and Aanavak, down from Wainwright

I am in the car with Margie and we are nearing Jacob and Lavina's house. As is plain to see, there is more snow in Anchorage than there is here. I think it is because the way the mountains around us are situated. They scrape a lot of the snow out of the sky before it can fall on us.

That's my theory, anyway.

Laverne and Gracie must check in at the airport late Saturday night for their very early Sunday morning departure back to Arizona. The Anchorage Fur Rendezvous began today and Lavina wanted to show her sister the sights, so Margie and I went in to babysit Jobe and Gracie.

Lavina with Jobe, shortly before she and Laverne set out to explore the Rendez.

What do you think he was dreaming about?

Soon, Margie had Jobe. Jacob came home for lunch and checked him out. Gracie played with Muzzy. Those two hit it off big time.

Gracie is a great admirer of my mustache and beard. Nobody has one in her household down in Shonto, Arizona, in the Navajo Nation.

Gracie became sleepy, and went into her room to take a nap. Nobody had to put her down, she just did it on her own.

Every now and then you meet someone in this life who you wish could be there all the time, a person that you would like to see nearly every day, and say, "Hi. How you doing? Wanna go get an ice cream?" but you know that can't be. You know you will see this only every now and then, in visits separated by years.

Still, you wish.

Gracie is such a person. I will hate to see her go.

Farrell, her dad, will be thrilled to see her come home. He has spent so much time overseas in places like Kuwait, wearing the uniform for Uncle Sam, that he deserves all the time he can get with his little daughter.

Pretty soon, Jobe needed to be fed, so I held him and gave him the bottle. He guzzled it. In fact, he would guzzle three bottles before Margie and I would head home in the evening.

Margie and Jobe, Take 1.

Margie and Jobe, Take 2.

I had a few other people to see, I had to leave Margie with Jobe and the sleeping Gracie. I headed out into the heavy traffic of Anchorage.

I made a couple of stops, then headed over to the Dimond Center Hotel, because Jason Ahmaogak of Iceberg 14 and a member of my Wainwright family had come down to get some dental work done on his daughters, Raquel and Aanavak, here with their mother, Iqaluk.

The family had been out to Fur Rendez, where the temperature was a warm 20 compared to in the -25 to -40 range back in Wainwright, where it had been mighty windy, too. So they wandered about dressed in light clothing, marveling at the warmth, and they say they got a few stares.

Because of their dental work, the girls had to eat soft food, but when they saw some Chicken McNuggets, they wanted them. Jason bought them some and cut them into tiny, tiny, pieces.

Soon, Jason says, they will be eating maktak and other Iñupiaq foods. They will need their teeth for that.

Jason and Aanavak, Take 1.

Jason and Aanavak, Take 2.

I then went back to Jacob and Lavina's, hoping to get a shot of Kalib and Jobe together, but Jobe was asleep. Kalib was helping his dad prepare dinner.

He was making enough for all of us, but Margie and I had to leave, so we didn't get to eat any of it.

We will go back Saturday, to do some more baby-sitting while Laverne and Lavina go watch the sled dog races.

I still hope that maybe some of that cold air will slip down here before Laverne and Gracie leave, but I saw a picture on the news of a low-pressure system spinning this way from out of the South Pacific, so I doubt it.

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.

Iceberg 14: those who were in the boat

Wainwright's Ahmaogak family Iceberg 14 whaling crew is much bigger then this, of course, but these are those who were in the boat when they harpooned the whale. At left is Artie, who, since the passing of Ben and Florence is the Elder of the crew. He was not actually in the boat, but as the Elder he commands the same respect.

Next to him is Bennie, who fired the shoulder gun, once the whale had been harpooned. Robert is co-captain and Captain Jason, whom long time readers have already met on the ice in the spring. The young man on the right is Jerry, the harpooner, who did his job well.

Yesterday, they hosted what will be Wainwright's only Nalukatak, or whaling feast, this spring. Due to weather, current and bad ice conditions, it was an exceptionally tough whaling season all along the Arctic Coast and Iceberg 14 was the only Wainwright crew to land a whale.

They fed their community, just the way Ben and Florence used to do, just about every year.

Well, it is Sunday and I am in Wainwright. As promised, I will try to find the time to do at least a quick edit of the Point Lay Nalukatak and post some representative samples.

I put my mind back into India - and to Wainwright, where Jason Ahmaogak and the Iceberg 14 Crew landed a whale today

This waking day, June 5, 2009, is now 21.5 hours long for me and I feel a little bit sleepy. I had planned to get back to blogging the wedding before I went to bed, but, instead, I think I will go to bed. But here is one image, just to put the mindset of this blog back in India, at the wedding.

Compared to a typical American wedding, which is simple and over with quickly, an Indian wedding is long and complex, so I have a challenge to figure out how to condense the huge amount of photos that I have left into something that can summarize it quickly. If I keep going as I have been going, I will still be blogging this next month, but I want to get it done soon, so I will sleep on it and try to figure it out tomorrow.

Remember Jason and the Wainwright Iceberg 14 whaling crew? 

They caught a bowhead whale today. Up until today, it had been an extremely tough season in Wainwright. Normally, it would have been over well before now, with about four or five whales landed, but the ice just did not cooperate. As recently as this morning, I received an email from a Wainwright friend, telling me that the ice was still closed.

As for Jason, he had left a message on facebook stating that he was not giving up, but would stay out there as long as possible.

Jason - you and all your family and crew have done honor to the memory of your great aapa and aaka (grandfather and grandmother). I feel so happy and proud, just to know you, to be a small part of your life.

A 21.5 hour day? Ha! I know this one will probably be a 48 hour day for you - maybe longer. And I know you will be smiling, loving every minute of it - so pleased that a whale gave you the honor of feeding your community. Wish I were with you.

See you at Nalukatak!