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.