Today, part 2: We get ashed by Mt. Redoubt

Melanie, wearing her ash mask in the parking lot of the Arts building at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

When I left Wasilla for Anchorage, the sky was clean and pure, deep, blue, the mountains gleaming stark and white against it. I thought about taking some pictures, but I had already taken quite a few pictures today and I expected to take several more at the play.

I did not want to spend the time editing and processing the white mountains against the clean blue sky pictures, since that is not an uncommon scene around here.

Now, I wish I had taken those pictures, just to show the contrast. It happened so fast. 

As I neared Anchorage, the sky suddenly darkned, the air in front of me became hazy, fine dust - ash - swirled about cars as they drove through it.

Mt. Redoubt has been blowing off and on for days now. The ash has gone here and there, but has always missed us.

Now, all of sudden, it had hit us. 

Or at least Anchorage. I did not know if it had hit Wasilla.

The tower at Merrill Field. No planes were flying.

I wanted it to stop, all right. I hate to breathe this stuff. Imagine glass ground to the consistency of powdered sugar. That's what ash tends to be like. It hurts to breathe the stuff.

Flags near Merrill Field.

I did not want to drive the car through it, either. Ash is not good for cars. I hope my filters all did their job. Better replace them soon.

When I got back to Wasilla, it was even worse.

It was simply awful in Wasilla. In some zones, almost like a blizzard.

I had no choice but to breathe the stuff.

Jacob and Lavina reached the house at the same time I did. They had been out shopping. They reported that when they stepped out of Fred Meyer's, they got struck in the face by tiny rocks falling from the sky.

That must have been one hell of a boom.

If this keeps up, I am going to have to get some masks for Margie and me.

A boy with a huge talent was buried in Barrow today

Actually, he was no longer a boy, but a young man - a husband and father - but in my memory he is a boy, out on the snow-blown tundra, making people laugh, because that is how I knew him. The boy that I speak of is Perry Nageak and that is him sitting closest to the camera, with the uncovered head. 

The month was May, the year, 1997, and he was out at spring goose camp with the family of his uncle, Roy Nageak, the man to the right. In between them is Roy's son, Ernest, then nine-years old. Ernest had just shot the two geese - his first ever. I managed to shoot a nice little sequence of pictures that told the story.

As for Perry, what I remember best about him is how quick-witted and funny he was. What a story-teller!

I thought maybe someday, I'd see him on TV, making people laugh the world over.

Here he is, telling a hunting story, late at night in the tent - probably about 1 or 2 AM. Remember, this is the Arctic, and by May the time of the midnight sun has arrived.

You can see how amused he kept all the other young people in camp - his cousins and siblings.

Although you cannot see them clearly in this picture, there are adults in the tent as well. They laugh, too.

Since I learned of his death the other day, I have been trying to recall the specific stories that he told, but after 12 years, they elude me. I only remember how funny they were.

But wait... one comes back, even as I sit here and type.

It takes place on a caribou hunt. A boy shoots a caribou. Maybe the boy was Perry; maybe it was a brother, or a cousin. The bullet does not strike the caribou directly, but instead slams into the base of its antlers. The antlers fall off and then the caribou drops dead onto the tundra.

"Oh no!" Perry explains the story from the point of view of the caribou. "My antlers! My antlers! My beautiful antlers! I just can't live without my antlers!"

To Ben, Bonnie and all those who loved Perry, my deepest condolences. And thank you for sharing your boy with me for that one beautiful, wonderful, experience, back in May of 1997.

My prayers are with you too, for whatever the prayers of a man of doubtful faith are worth.

Speaking of which... that brings me back to today. I had to drive to town, to drop the Kivgiq prints off at the North Slope Borough's liason office in Anchorage. Afterwards, I drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things that I needed.

I returned to the car, and as I took my seat, I saw these two young Mormon missionaries talking to this man. Maybe they were trying to convert him. Maybe he was a fellow Mormon, and they were just having a friendly discussion.

I started the car and this brought KSKA, the Anchorage Public Radio station, into my speakers. The first sentence that I heard come was this, "I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints..."

The show was talk of the nation and the topic was a scene from "Big Love," the HBO series about a polygamist family belonging to a sect that had broken away from the Mormon Church. The most recent segment featured a scene that depicted an endowment ceremony in a Mormon temple. 

The caller was hurt and offended - as were all the Mormon callers who phoned in. Mormons are instructed that, once they step outside of the temple, they must never talk about the ordinances that take place within - not even among themselves.

The other point of view was that to tell the story the artist wanted to tell, it was necessary.

I could not only understand both points of view, but could empathize and justify each.

If my mother was still alive, I knew how she would have reacted. With horror. With utter and absolute horror. She would have saw it as a sign that the prophesied future times of the return of the persecution that our Mormon ancestors had borne was coming right back at us, that it was right around the corner.

And just beyond that - Armageddon, the cleansing of the world and the Second Coming of Christ.

I apologize for getting a little carried away here. Except for funerals of loved ones, I have not been inside a Mormon chapel for 25 years, but when one grows up as I did, this kind of thing never leaves you.

I thought about stopping, about getting the missionaries to pose for me, but I did not wish to interrupt their conversation and so just shot this image through the open window as I drove slowly past them.

I picked Melanie up at her place of work and then drove her to Ichiban's for lunch. It was Lisa who chose Ichiban's. She met us there, as did Charlie. Melanie and Charlie are going to ride the ferry to Cordova this weekend, just for fun.

They asked me for suggestions about what to do.

I've hung around Cordova a bit, so I gave them a few.

They can go down to the fishing boat docks, and watch sea otters play; they can go up the hill to the ski run and ski. They can walk all around, and drive here and there; visit with eagles.

Lisa and me. Lisa had asked me for a picture of Juniper, her cat. So I made a print last night and gave it to her today. She was most pleased about the timing, as some of her coworkers had been deriding cats, describing them as worthless, questioning why she would ever have a cat in the first place.

The answer was right there, in the picture, but such coworkers are unlikely to see it, even when they look straight at it.

Some of us ordered sushi.

When I arrived back home in Wasilla, I found Margie and Lavina watching what at first looked like an teen-exploitation flick, as the scene on screen depicted four high school cheerleaders running amok in a sex-toy shop. 

"What's this?" I asked. 

"Texas Cheerleader Massacre," Lavina answered.

I figured they must really be bored. I flopped down on the couch to see when the carnage would begin, determined to stay but minutes and then come out here and work on something.

But Lavina got the title wrong. 

It was, "Texas Cheerleader Scandal."

There was no carnage - just a rather oddly compelling story about a cheerleading coach trying to discipline some wild girls who were messing up the squad and intimidating all the other adults.

I watched it to the very end.

As he always does, Jimmy, who is here with me now even as I type, joined me and stayed right with me.

An evening sunbeam came through the window.

Kalib found it.

The old, internal, battle that I must always wage: home vs. home; Wasilla/South Central vs. Barrow/Arctic Slope

I have written before about this battle that forever causes turmoil and tumult to boil within my calm exterior - this battle of home vs. home. And now that I have just returned to my wife and family home in Wasilla after having spent nine wonderful days in my communal home of Barrow and the Arctic Slope, that battle rages.

My desire to go back is strong, to live again the life represented by the mask worn in this dance performed by my friend, Steve Oomittuk of Point Hope, during *Kivgiq. It is a life where people dwell with whales, polar bears, seals, walrus, caribou, wolves, ducks, fish and other creatures in the most intimate sort of way; in a land and seascape that is stark, harsh, and so bitterly, bitterly, cold, yet so abundant and all this binds people together in a way that I have seen nowhere else.

I find something there that I can find nowhere else.

So I want to go back to this home.

Yet, look at this! My two daughters, Lisa holding the cat that she just adopted, Melanie kissing that cat, my wife Margie looking on from inside the car. She is healing, yet her injuries still make it difficult for her to get up and walk about. This was the first time that she had been out of the house since February 2, but she felt she had to stay in the car.

This is my family of marriage and creation; my blood and my soul mate. They are never going to live on the Arctic Slope. Each winter now, Margie's longing to return to her Apache homeland in Arizona grows stronger and stronger and even this southerly part of the north bears down harder and harder upon her.

Do you see the dilemma?

I took this picture yesterday. Anyone who wants to know more about how this kitty came into my family can find a more complete account here, on the No Cats Allowed Kracker Cat blog.

Here I am, walking down Momegana Street in Barrow, the night before I left. 

And this is from today, as I headed down Lucas in Wasilla.

Back in Barrow, looking towards Osaka Restaurant. Just beyond that is the Chukchi Sea, frozen, broken, and jumbled. Bowhead whales will soon pass by, swimming through the open lead.

And this is Lucas again, from the other side of the same hill.

Once, maybe 100 years or more ago, an Iñupiat Eskimo who delivered the mail by dog sled all along the Arctic Coast built this house from the timbers of a wrecked, tall-masted, Yankee whaling ship. He raised a daughter here, who grew up to become a school teacher. 

McGee was a gracious Elder when I met her, and she kept her door open to people like me and always there was hot coffee, cake, cookies, and both Eskimo and Taniq (white man's) food waiting behind that door.

She lived with a tuxedo cat and a blue-billed parakeet and if ever I got to feeling lonely, all I had to do was drop in. She is gone, now, and so is the cat and the parakeet.

And this is my neighbor from across the street, right here in Wasilla, earlier today. He is plowing the soft, warm, snow that fell this day.

I do not even know his name.

I knew the name of his dog, though, "Grizz." I have not seen Grizz for several months, at least. I assume he, too, has passed on. There is another dog there, an Irish Setter, just like Grizz, but I do not know that dog's name. And there are two orange cats. I am quite fond of them. They used to come over and visit me, as did Grizz, but then a woman moved into the house and after that the animals were no longer allowed to leave the property. They visit me no more.

*More than 48 hours ago, I wrote that I would post a series of Kivgiq pictures within 48 hours. Maybe I will still post a sample series, maybe I won't. It will take me weeks, maybe a month, spread out over how long, to edit that four day take. I am working on a book on Kivgiq, starting from the first of the modern events, held in 1988, through this one. Plus, although there is no funding for it yet, I will probably get to do a Uiñiq magazine specifically on this year's Kivgiq.

I will post at least one more Kivgiq picture, because one night when i stepped into the Teriyaki House to have dinner, I met a 12 year-old boy who danced at Kivgiq and he had a couple of pretty good stories to tell, about adventures that most 12 year old boys could hardly imagine. So, if nothing else, I will post his picture.

Kalib causes us to go into town late

We had planned to go into town (Anchorage) today and we agreed that we would leave at 11:30, so that we could meet Melanie for lunch at 12:30. In the morning, I did a few things and then when the time neared, I took a shower. 

By the time I was dressed and ready to go, it was 11:30. I went out into the living room, expecting to see Margie and Kalib ready to go, too. But Margie was sitting there, her hair still in curlers, holding a sleeping Kalib against her body. She had not expected him to fall asleep there, as he never had before, but when he did, he felt so good to her that she did not move.

At my urging and with my help - I had to fetch jacket, mittens, booties - Margie finally got Kalib dressed and ready to go. She also freed her hair from the curlers. She did all of this without waking Kalib or getting up from where she sat.

Even now, she was reluctant to go.

But we did go, and along the way there and back, we came upon several scenes like this. The road was covered with the thinnest, nearly invisible, layer of ice. The temperature as we passed through this area was -22, F.

But we traversed them all safely.

Melanie did not mind that we were very late for lunch. 

Post-accident car shopping, part III: We try Wasilla

Soon it was the next day, Saturday, and I did not want to go to Kendall Ford. I didn't want to go back to Anchorage, either. I just wanted to stay home, but we had just over two days before we had to return the rental car to Enterprise and I had to get this car shopping done.

So I dropped Margie off at Wal-Mart after lunch and then headed to Kendall Ford, right here in Wasilla, Alaska. What you see above is what I saw when I got there, right after I stepped out of the rental car. For those of you who care about this kind of thing, the temperature was about -20 F (compared to -50's and -60's in several Interior Alaska communities).

This is Bob, the salesman who was standing at the door when I entered. He used to be a photographer in Livingston, Montana, before he left that state for Alaska to escape the teeming crowds. He immediately took my case and brought me into his cubbyhole. I told him that I was mighty interested in the Toyota RAV, but was willing to take a look at the Escape.

He said that the RAV was a real good car, but the Escape was even better. I told him the Toyota salesman told me that the Escape was a great car, but the RAV was even better. He said one could look up comparisons on the internet and then he was quite certain the Escape would come out ahead.

We talked about other aspects, too, like gas mileage, insurance, colors and such.

I was tired and sleepy, so he gave me a cup of coffee. I appreciated the generosity and the caffeine worked okay, but the coffee was not very good.

Bob elicited the help of a colleague named Steve to take me on a test drive of a red Escape, the color that I had requested. It took about half-an-hour for him to get it warmed up enough where he felt comfortable taking me out in it.

In the meantime, I chatted with Bob, and sipped very slowly on that coffee.

Here we go on the test drive. Driving the Taurus, even with winter-tires and studs, I have become accustomed to slipping and sliding a bit everywhere I go around here this time of year. The Escape just had factory tires and no studs. We searched out icy roads, one with a steep hill.

The Escape handled beautifully. It did not slip, it did not slide. As we approached an icy intersection, a guy in a pickup truck ran a stop sign right in front of us, within collision distance. I slammed on the brakes. The Escape stopped in short order.

After we returned, Bob wanted to make a deal with me right then, but I told him I had to discuss it with Margie and that I wanted to compare the Escape and the RAV on the web and sleep on it. I told him I still favored the Toyota, which I had never driven. I told him I would bring Margie back to see the Escape and go for a drive in it.

He said, "okay." He gave me a sheet with numbers on it, something neither of the other two salesman had done. That was where he had the advantage, because those numbers were better than the numbers for the Toyota.

I got on the computer and looked up many comparisons between the RAV 4 and the Escape. They consistently came out exceedingly close together, but with a slight advantage to the RAV.

After I picked Margie up from work and drove her home, I found an email from Bob in my computer. He had sent me a copy of the vehicle sticker. No other salesman emailed me any information. Margie wondered why I only looked at the Escape and the not the Fusion. So I sent an email to Bob and he responded with the same numbers for the Fusion.

Soon it was Sunday. I did not want to go back to Kendall and I did not want to drive to Anchorage. At noon, Jake, Lavina and Kalib joined me in the rental car and we drove to IHOP to meet Margie for breakfast. I had already eaten oatmeal earlier, but so what.

Here we are, driving to IHOP. It is cold weather that makes exhaust thick like this. I bet you could hardly even breathe in Fairbanks on this day.

Margie, Melanie, Lisa and Lavina all accompanied me to look at the Fusion. Margie had slipped on the ice in the Wal-Mart parking lot, had fallen and hurt her knee. She was pretty uncomfortable.

Steve set out to warm up the Fusion. After about 15 minutes, I grew impatient and wanted to take the test drive. "I don't want you to get cold," he said, "maybe we should let it warm up a little longer."

"We're Alaskans," I answered. "It's not going to bother us."

"Okay," he said, "we'll go now."

Here is Melanie, scraping off the windshield just before the test drive. The Fusion handled nice, but it did slip and slide a bit, as one would expect. Then we took another ride in the Escape. I wanted Margie to drive but her knee hurt too bad.

Afterward, of all the cars that we had looked at, Margie was leaning toward the Fusion. Melanie was working hard to find a way to steer us away from Ford altogether. I still liked the RAV best. Bob insisted that he did not want to pressure us, but he did want to make the sale before we left.

He said he had talked to the guy in the big office and he had told him that if we agreed to buy the car tonight, he would throw in an auto start - but only tonight. After tonight, the auto-start would not be available.

Even so, we left to go home and think about it. 

I am not quite sure how we came to what we came to, because all the time I liked the RAV best but had resigned myself to the Fusion but, come Monday, Margie and I were talking. We had to get the deed done before evening, because we needed to turn the rental car back in.

(I must note that Melanie offered to let us borrow her car for a week or two and she would walk about Anchorage and ride the bus and have Charlie take her here and there. It would be worth it, she said, to give us more time to think about it and make the right choice - but I could not take my daughter's transportation from her.)

I felt under terrible pressure. I did not want to drive back to Anchorage and start haggling with Toyota again. I did not want to go back to Kendall.

And then, somehow, we decided to go with the Escape.

So I called Bob and told him to get it ready, "but only if you throw the autostart back in," I said. "Otherwise, we go to Anchorage." When the time came, we drove to Kendall, but before we got there we stopped at A&W/KFC. Here we are, in the drive through. I don't know who the woman ahead of us is. Margie ordered chicken strips, mashed potatoes and Diet Pepsi. I ordered a hamburger and fries, plus Pepsi. 

I have no idea what the woman in front of us ordered.

We parked in the lot to eat our lunch. This raven came hopping to the car. The raven asked me for a french fry, so I gave him one. Or her one. How would I know?

Here we are, in Bob's cubby hole, the Escape that will soon be ours parked outside the window. I do not know who the man is, and I have no idea who he is talking to. I was kind of worried that he might lean against the Escape, but he didn't.

Bob said the man in the office was unhappy that he had thrown the autostart back in. 

One always wonders what really gets said back in the office.

So we financed the Escape for six years, at 4.7 percent interest. This is Ryan, the guy who put the financing together. He is punching numbers. Or maybe he is crunching them. We've got to pay them.

Just before we drive away, Bob points out things like where the coolant goes, how to find the dipstick, the head-bolt heater plug in - stuff like that. 

Then we drove off into the night, me in the Escape, Margie in the Caravan. Her knee still hurt, but she was able to drive it.

Sure enough, when we dropped the Caravan off at Enterprise, they blamed us for the chipped windshield. They hung on to our $50 deposit, said it would be used to fill in the chip and anything left over would be refunded back to our credit card. I protested, because we had nothing to do with any chip in the windshield. He said they had records and could only go by the records, but if someone else, somewhere else, found a record of the already chipped windshield, then we would get the whole $50 back.

I don't hold it against the guys behind the desk. They're just doing their job. Still, those little chips can be hard to see on a walk-around, hard to distinguish from beads of ice. So I am aggravated, to get charged by Enterprise for something that I had nothing to do with.

But that's how it is.

"I think we did the right thing," Margie said as we drove home. "I feel good about it. We bought an American car from an American company. We're bolstering the economy."

And not only that, but in our conversations with Bob, I learned that he has a cat, a Siamese. That cat is always there to greet him when he comes home from work.

Thanks to us, Bob can buy more catfood for that cat.

I feel pretty good about that.