Cara is learning new words every day, both English and Iñupiaq

Remember Taktuk and Cara? The mother and daughter who I first introduced in images of them dancing at Kivgiq? This evening, I stopped in for a visit at the Wainwright home where they live with Taktuk's parents, Ben Ahmaogak, Jr, and Massak. I had not been there long before little Cara called me, "Behh" - pretty darn close to Bill. 

Cara is learning to speak - and she is picking up both English and Iñupiaq words.

Whenever Taktuk hears her daughter speak a new word, she enters the word into her computer. The column at left is for English words, like, "nose, arm, ski-doo" and such and the right for Iñupiaq words.

After I left, Taktuk sent me an email describing her daughter's use of Iñupiaq, so far:

"Cara uses these inupiaq words:

"Qain for come. "MOM! Qain!"

"Uva for here you go, or if she wants something from me.

"Naun for where is it? (the last "n" has a tail)

"Atchu for I don't know

"Nanuq.. polar bear, but she actually says NANOO

"Tuttu.. Caribou - We also call her CARABOO, her auntie Tommilyn gave her that nickname because one day Cara wasn't paying any attention to any of us, so Tom shouted, "Caribou!", and Cara instantly looked!

"Quaq, caribou frozen meat

"Aattai for PRETTY!!!

"And, instead of calling her great grandparents AMAU, she calls her great grandmother, Aaka-aaka and her great grandfather,Aapa-aapa. This started off when I was first born and the first born to my great-grandfather & great-grandmother, Nellie & David Alak Panik (our school was dedicated in his name years back), my great-grandfather said he felt too young to be called AMAU, so he said for me to call them Aapa-aapa and Aaka-aaka, which sounds simple. So, my Aapa Leo kept it that way with his great-grandchildren: Anton, Rodney & Cara.
Tinnun which is an airplane (the middle two "N"s have tails).

"KUNNAAN, her great-grandfather Benny's eskimo name. Mine also, and her Aapa Ben Jr's, and her cousin Kunnaan's (Krystle's boy)."

She seen a picture on a poster at the Clinic and it was of little Kunnaan of Pt. Hope.. Krystle & I and the others think that both Kunnaan and Cara looks so much alike, Ahmaogak babies!

Doreen makes a painting, Apache-Navajo filmmaker walks into Barrow's Osaka Restaurant; I go to Wainwright

Doreen Simmonds is the daughter of the late, truly great, Reverend Samuel Simmonds, the first Iñupiat to become an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. He also designed and painted the mural in the Barrow Chapel, showing all the peoples of the world under the care of Christ.

Doreen remembers being her father's "go-for" when she was small and he was creating the mural. She loved to help him and she loved to be in the church with him. She also loved to do art herself.

She did the painting above in 2002, after seeing a photograph of a mother polar bear with two cubs, one of them dead. Doreen was moved by the photo, but wanted to create a happier version and so she painted it with only the mother and the living cub - yet, she could not stop herself from depicting the sorrow that she saw in the mother.

Then, she added the dead cub in.

Two years later, one of her two sons died of cancer.

"How did you know?" friends who saw the painting asked her, "how did you know your son was going to die?"

This is Dustinn Craig, and if you are watching the series, "We Shall Remain" on public TV, be certain not to miss the May 4 episode on the Apache. Dustinn is the writer/director/producer for that episode and also did some of the shooting and editing.

You will also see some of Margie's country.

When Dustinn was small, from the time that he was a toddler, my wife and I sometimes baby sat him, and he often played with Jacob and Caleb. We lived in Whiteriver, Arizona at the time, the capitol of Margie's White Mountain Apache Tribe. Dustinn's father, Vincent Craig, Navajo, was also married to a White Mountain Apache and his parents were our best friends.

Today I was eating lunch in Osaka Restaurant in Barrow with Savik when Dustinn came walking in with local filmmaker Rachel Edwardson and her Australian husband, Dave.

He had just arrived in town to do a week's worth of work.

Little Dustinn Craig.

Soon I was on a plane, headed for Wainwright.

Self-portrait, me on the plane. 

Pic through the car window, as Bob drove me to the home that I always knew as the residence of the late Ben and Florence Ahmaogak, who always made me feel at home, like family. Bob is married to their daughter, Mary Ellen.

"Hello brother,"she greetedc when I entered the door.

"Hello sister," I greeted back.