A boat ride on the Kuukpik River, a harmonica at the Singspiration

Immediately after I snapped this frame, I decided that it would be my one picture for the day, no matter what else I shot. It is Jimmy Nukapigak of Nuiqsut, who has just picked white fish from his subsistence nets and is heading up the Kuukpik (Colville) River to Niglig. 

Also visible is Fred Brower, also from Nuiqsut, and Darin Morrey, from Anaktuvuk Pass in the Brooks Range mountains.

Jimmy lived in Barrow when I first met him, but Nuiqsut sits in his ancestral homeland and he moved back several years ago. He does not miss Barrow. He prefers village life, and enjoys being able to get out on the river and to head into the country, just like that.

Morrey was very impressed with the size of the river and of the fish, because the waters that flow through Anaktuvuk, which sits atop the continental divide between the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea are streams - shallow, cold, swift and pure.

Me, I was most impressed with the fresh-grilled whitefish that I ate at Nigliq. It had been cooked with bacon and...aaaaahhhh... food in town never tastes that good, not even when cooked by the finest chef in the world.

I know - this makes it two pictures. My discipline has been lost. It's just that after I placed the river picture, I got to thinking of another of Jimmy that I took Wednesday night as he played his harmonica at the Singspiration held at the Nuiqsut Presbyterian Church, even as others sang, played guitars and spoons, too.

I wish that I could tell you what gospel song was being sung at this moment, but I can't remember.

I can tell you this, though, in every song there was power and spirit. The one that moved me the most - right to the point where I could not stop tears from coming down my face - was How Great Thou Art. 

Elvis Presley may have made this song famous, but until you have heard the Iñupiat sing it, you have not yet heard it.

I am not proselyting here, because the fact is when it comes to religion, God, and death, it is all a great mystery to, an unkown for which I do not claim to know any answer. For those few of you who may have known me way, way, way, way back when I was a missionary myself, this statement may come as a shock, but it is the truth. 

It is all a mystery to me.

And to the rest of you who know me but did not know me back then, the revelation that I was once a missionary probably comes as a shock to you.

Sooner or later, I will get into this subject.

But when I hear the Iñupiat sing Gospel, I believe - 100 percent - in the power and strength that comes straight out of the heart and spirit of those who I hear sing.

Tomorrow, I go home. As always, with mixed feelings - so eager to see my wife, family, cats and Muzzy, too.

So sad to leave the Slope.

I hate to sound silly and sentimental, but in this hard, tough, cold place where nature is so brutal, there is something special, something warm and it belongs to this place and people and it cannot be found anywhere else.

Just here. And when I leave, I will miss it.

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.

I give up!!! No more blogging!!! (I jokes - but I am going to temporarily scale back a bit)

I was just about to say "Goodnight" to the kid I just saw walking the other direction through the Kuukpik Hotel when he nodded and said, "Good morning!"

That's because it was just about 12:30 AM. I had just returned from the Singspiration.

Now it's just about 1:00 AM. I've got to be up and going by 7:00 and I shot many pictures today, beginning with the "Welcome" Eskimo dance this morning, continuing on through the boat ride up the Kuukpik River (also known as Colville River) to Niglig, hanging out at Nigliq for the afternoon in the cold, wet, wind that carried mist off the river to repeatedly coat my lense glass with a spackling of water, to the Iñupiaq foods potluck and finally the Singspiration.

Counting this one, I have three more nights left on this trip and I can assure you this pace will not slack off. 

So, for the remainder, each night I will do no editing but will just grab one picture and throw it in here.

And tonight, this is the one: a football lying on the Nigliq tundra. It had laid there for a long time - even the brown parts were turning towards white. I suspect that it went through the winter, buried under the drift, frozen solid. No one picked it up today. I'm not 100 percent certain that anyone but me even took note of it.

I wondered what kind of games had been played here with this football and who had played them.

Who won?

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.