The three Tikigaq boys who gave up their room for me

These three boys gave up their room so that I might have a place to sleep when I was in Tikigaq - the Iñupiaq name for the village of Point Hope.

They did not complain. They were very good and pleasant about it and sometimes one, two, or all three of them would show up at the doorway when I was relaxing and ask if they could come in and visit me. Then they would come in and we would talk and chat and they would refer to the room as though it were mine.

They were very, very, pleasant and well-behaved boys.

This is not to say that they were never mischievous, because they are young and full of energy and knew how to bounce off a mattress, but, damn, they were good boys!

Thank you, Jesse Jr. (5), Naani (4) and Jonathan (2).

You three are great!

It is a pleasure and an honor to know you and to have you call me Ataatta* Bill.

Good job, Jesse Sr. and Krystle.

And, despite my high hopes, I have no time to blog anymore than this today. Time is pushing real hard on me right now, but I did not want these three to go unacknowledged any longer.

*Ataatta = Uncle.

One month ago - flying to and settling into Point Hope; Yesterday in Wasilla

I again back up one month ago to begin anew my oft-delayed series of posts on my recent travels to Point Hope and Barrow - both of which are much colder towns than is Wasilla. I start on the Era flight that took me there on a one-way ticket that cost $410. Later, I would purchase another one-way ticket from Point Hope to Barrow and that would also run $410. 

Then I would need to purchase another ticket from Barrow to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines - $402.

Just imagine if you had a family of five or six and your father died two villages away and everybody needed a plane ticket to get there. That's the reality people face in Alaska, every day.

The only practical way to travel about Alaska is by plane, but it is getting harder and harder and harder to do. That's Annabelle Lane to the left, her son, Ephraim and Al Sokatis of Challenge Life Alaska.

I had originally planned to go to Anaktuvuk Pass on this trip. I needed my trip to coincide with a Challenge Life Alaska/NSB Healthy Communities event. Such an event had been planned for Anaktuvuk, but it got postponed and the time was scheduled for Point Hope.

So off I went to Point Hope.

I still hope I can get to Anaktuvuk before much more time passes by.

It was still early in the spring whaling season. I hoped that I might get out onto the ice. All my good, warm, Arctic gear had fallen apart or disappeared, so I was not properly prepared. Maybe someone would let me borrow some.

As we neared Point Hope, I could see open water, with shorefast ice on one side and young, new ice pinching in from the other.

This is Krystle Ahmaogak, granddaughter to the late Ben and Florence Ahmaogak of Wainwright, who in 1995 took me into their whaling crew, Iceberg 14 and then later adopted me as their honorary son. Krystle now lives in Point Hope with her fiance, Jesse Frankson and their three children.

When she learned I was coming, she invited me to stay with them.

We are headed to her house.

Krystle's two year-old son, Jonathan, at home in his play tent.

In the afternoon, Al and his Challenge Life Alaska partner Mike Hajdukovich met with the senior class, who were about to graduate. The students had raised money for a post graduation senior trip - to New York City. That is mostly what they talked about.

Geez, I wanted to go!

How fun it would have been to follow these kids from Point Hope around the Big Apple with my camera in hand!

Senior playing chess.

Going to New York with the graduated seniors was out of the question for me, but this is Michelle and as she was about to graduate, go on the trip, and loves photography, she was designated to be the official Point Hope Class of 2011 New York City Photographer.

Al and Mike had acquired a nice Canon 7D for the class, so she and I went walking about Point Hope so that I could give her some pointers on using the camera.

She caught on fast and she had a pretty decent eye for a picture.

I hope I get a chance to see the pictures that she took.

As I walked with Michelle, this girl came sliding by on a sled with a dog behind.

I shot many pictures of Challenge Life and have not yet taken the time to go through them. I did quickly pull this frame out, though: Challenge Life, Al Sokaitis in the school gym leading young children in a round of game playing.

This is Rex Rock, Sr., whose crew I followed whaling in 1991. Rex is also President of ASRC - the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

Children at play on a storage shed.

We learned that the crew of Isaac Killigvuk had struck a bowhead and were about to land it. Rex's wife, Ramona found a parka for me to wear. Mike and Al had never been to whale camp before, but now they had their chance. 

Off we went - the first stop would be the Rock whaling camp.

more to come

And this from yesterday in Wasilla:

Yesterday, as Margie and I passed by Wasilla Lake, we saw this dog in the next car, looking at us.

Inside the Metro with Carmen, study #6722: With Palmer Musician Dusty Bannon, wife Michelle and other family members and friend.

Dusty grew up on a Delta Junction homestead. When time and opportunity allows, I hope to catch him in action and to tell more of his story.

Also, let it be known that I have learned the identity of the person who, right after I returned home from this trip, bought me the coffee, pastry, paid the tip with 25 cents left over for me.

It was the Alaska Pony Girl. Thank you, Alaska Pony Girl! I think I owe you quite a few coffees now.

You can find her old blog here:

http://akponygirl.blogspot.com/

And her new blog here:

http://akponygirl.wordpress.com

View images as slides

The boys come out for the weekend, Muzzy is shorn; the landing in Point Hope; the unsure takeoff

The boys came out this morning. They are going to spend the weekend with us so that their parents can work on their house.

It was their mom who brought them. She brought Muzzy, too. Muzzy had been to the dog groomers and now had a bit of the poodle look. Lavina and Muzzy couldn't stay, because Lavina had to get to work. So she opened the back door to her car and Muzzy jumped in.

He jumped right back out. So she had him jump in again. I think Muzzy enjoys making multiple jumps into the car.

And yes, my recent Arctic series is still in the works, still coming. To prove it, here is a picture that I took exactly one month ago today, right after we landed in Point Hope.

Anyway, the editing is going very slowly, because I don't have much time for it. Also, it just dawned on me that this is a holiday weekend and so my readership will be down - especially if the weather stays as beautiful, sweet and magnificent as it is right now. I will not bother to post the series until the holiday has passed and sunburnt readers come straggling back.

Perhaps I drive some readers nuts with my ever-shifting plans and frequent delays, many of which I just let slip unseen into the past as the present takes over.

Look at this way - you are getting to observe an experiment being conducted by a photographer/writer of at least some talent who has spent the past 35 years making a living in certain ways that he sees coming to an end. These ways of making a living have not ended for him yet, but the end is swiftly coming and it will soon be over and archived.

So he is looking for a way to both survive and create in the new reality that is ever shifting in front of him, dominated by bright, young, energetic and creative talent who understand current trends and digital code much better than he does.

This blog is not the vehicle that will allow him to truly survive in the looming new times, but it is a part of getting there, a part that he clings to as he struggles to find the solution, to take the next step, knowing just what he wants to do but not yet how to make it happen.

Will he succeed? Or will he fail?

I bet on success.

But it is a bet, a gamble, the outcome greatly in question.

So keep coming back, keep watching. Take a front-row seat and watch this spectacle unfold. In time, the answer will be clear.

View images as slides

From a boat off Point Hope, a little less than one month ago

Finally, I did run all the pictures from my last trip to the Arctic into my Lightroom editor and began to prepare the series of pictures that I was unable to post while I was traveling. There are many pictures in that take to sort through and I also have a major project that I must get proof ready in less than two weeks, so I gave myself just two hours to do a bit of editing.

When I started, I decided that whereever I was at in the editing process, I would stop right there once I had been at it for two hours. This is the photo I reached, right at the two-hour mark. I took it in the umiak of Rex Rock, Sr.

Tomorrow morning, I will continue the editing process for one to two more hours and then I will stop again, so that I can get back to my project. Probably by sometime this weekend or maybe Monday I can actually start posting the series.

Keeping this blog alive in a holding pattern with one pic of Chukchi Sea sunset

The wind here in Point Hope has shifted to the west and south and is forecast to stay that way for four days. This brings the pack ice back, closes the lead, and pretty much brings the bowhead hunt to a pause until the wind shifts back to the Northeast.

As I am scheduled to leave here for Barrow Thursday, this means that I am probably done taking pictures at Point Hope whale camp for this year. It also meant that I found myself with a little time to do some blogging and so I decided that I would tough out this malfunctioning laptop computer screen and would put up a full blown post.

But when I tried, I just could not beat the screen. I could not edit the pictures. I simply could not tell enough about what I was looking at, so I gave up and just grabbed this one sunset-through-overcast-and-light-fog picture, which I took two nights ago, right about midnight, Alaska Daylight Savings Time.

Maybe after I get to Barrow, if I find the time, I can borrow a computer and do some serious editing. If not, then, except for "keeping this blog alive" single pic entries such as this, it will just have to wait until I get back to Wasilla in about one week.

Obviously, I need to do something about this screen. I had earlier taken it in to my local Mac store for an estimate and that came out to a bit over $500. I called Mac itself, and they said the odds were good that they would be able to replace it for their standard fee of $300 - which is also their minimum fee - but they could not say for certain until they checked it out.

It seemed to me that it would be better to put the $300 - $500 towards an iPad, which I could then use both as an iPad and as a screen for this laptop, rather than into this old laptop itself, but the full price of the iPad has eluded me so far - although I suspect that I have squandered more than enough money on breakfast, hamburgers, tacos and such since this malfunction began to have covered the full price and then some.

But I've got to do something. This is absurd. It really cripples me in the field.

Right now, this laptop is good for little other than serving as a data transfer and storage device.