Steve Oomittuk of Tikigaq - a seeker of the history and knowledge of this people; Reggie and Sam the cat

This is my friend Steve Oomittuk with the dance mask that he wore in a performance at the 2009 Kivgiq in Barrow. There are stories in the mask, including the five whales a new captain must land before he gains full status as a true captain. Most observers can probably identify the tail of the whale in the mask, but probably few other than the people of the whale could identify the bowhead head and mouth as depicted in the chin.

Steve envisioned how he wanted the mask to look, sketched it out and then gave the sketch to his brother, master sculpture Othneil Oomittuk, better known as "Art," who then carved it for him.

Point Hope is one of the oldest if not the oldest continually occupied community on the continent. After summer and fall storms, Steve will often walk the beaches along the ancient site of Ipiutak and other nearby places that predate US history and will gather up artifacts that the storm has unearthed from the eroding beach.

These are a few of items that he has found.

A fossilized ivory artifact the age of which must be at least a couple of thousand years, judging from where he found it. Steve also spends much time reading the books and works of the archeaologists and anthropologists who have studied his home, both those who came shortly after contact and those who have come in his time.

When he was young, he listened to the stories of the Elders and still seeks to learn all that he can, from whomever and whatever source he can.

It troubles him to think of his culture ever being lost - not just that of the Arctic Slope Iñupiat as a whole, but of Point Hope in particular - Tikigaq being a unique and special place, even in Alaska.

A fossilized ivory artifact that appears to be an arrow point.

Steve makes many sketches of his life and sometimes his grandchildren get hold of them and add their own touch.

Steve and his granddaughter give me a ride on his four-wheeler.

I do not find a cat in every village that I visit, but I am always glad when I do. This is Sam the cat, with Reggie Oviok. Sam migrated from California upon the back of goose, but is a Tikigaq cat now.

I might have made that part about the goose up.

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A new pair of mukluks for Royce

Young Royce Rock assists his aaka (grandmother), Ramona Rock, by holding down the pattern that will make the shapes to cover his foot as she traces it onto a section of polar bear hide. She is making making mukluks for him.

A couple days later, the mukluks are done. Royce lifts up his foot as Aaka Ramona prepares to encase it in the left mukluk.

Royce takes his first stroll in his new mukluks. His aaka is Athbascan, raised in Nenana as the daughter of a river boat owner and pilot. Although her father is gone now, The Ramona, the river boat that he named for her, still plies the Tanana and Yukon Rivers.

Ramona adjusted well to life on the Arctic Coast and for years has been the Point Hope high school Tikigaq Harpooners girls basketball coach, often co-coaching with her son, Rex Jr., Royce's dad.

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Seabirds, passing by Tikigaq

As we wait on the ice edge for whales, seabirds come passing by - including these three murres and an eider.

Hoping to finally finish my Tikigiq series and move on to Barrow, I pulled out 26 pictures for today's post, but that took all the time I have. I must move on to other things.

So for today, these birds are all you get to see.

But the photos are now selected. Maybe I will run them all tomorrow, or maybe over two days, three days.

I am in the midst of a huge task that must be done soon and I really have no time to spare for this blog right now.

So don't be surprised if it takes me at least two more days to post those pictures - maybe three.

Jobe's goodbye to Lisa; Back to Tikigaq, where a bowhead passes and a boat goes into the water

The whole family and Charlie - who is family - came out yesterday to throw a belated Happy Mother's Day party for Margie, since she had been in Arizona on that date. As anyone who knows me would suspect, I took a good many photos of the kind I usually do when I am with my family - including many fun pictures of Kalib and Jobe.

The problem is, I in no way have time to edit and post those pictures, so I decided I would post just one. But which one? 

As I was loading my take into the computer through Lightroom, I suddenly experienced one of those little computer glitches that happen all too often. Lightroom ceased loading the pictures well before they had all been transfered and said, "I'm done, that's all, there is no more."

This was the final picture that Lightroom had loaded. So I decided to chose it. I then started over and made Lightroom download the pictures it had left behind the first time.

After the celebration, Lisa was the first to leave. She had to get back to Anchorage so that she could see her cats and her boyfriend. As she drove away, she waved goodbye to Jobe.

"Damnit, Auntie Lisa!" Jobe shouted after her. "Why do you have to leave so soon?"

And then off she drove.

Now, back to Tikigaq:

When I left off, we were returning to the Rock camp from the site where Isaac Killigvuk had just landed his bowhead, so I will restart there - on the journey back to camp.

As we travel, Rex Rock Jr. locks his eyes onto something a bit further out into the Chukchi, off portside.

Bowhead!

But it is far out and there are further preparations that must be made before the crew can hunt again.

Soon, they are back at camp. The umiak is in place.

Eiders fly by by the score, the hundreds, the thousands, the hundreds of thousands... over the season... millions.

Butch Lincoln makes a cell call from atop a perch of ice while Rex connects from the ice edge. I was off-network in Point Hope with my At&t plan and I could only connect from up on the ice, where Butch is, but could not send text from that spot.

Butch, who hails from Kotzebue, is a famous Alaska basketball star. He starred at Kotzebue High and then became the first Alaska Native to earn a basketball scholarship when he played for the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Butch is short like me, but was blessed with talent, desire and drive and successfully took on the tall guys.

The umiak, with harpoon and darting guns ready.

The landscape.

The migratory bird...

Ripley watches for a whale.

A seal pops up and checks out the boat and hunters.

A bowhead blows. 

Another bowhead comes. The boat is launched.

Hunters, in pursuit of the bowhead.

The hunters paddle into the reflected glare of the sun, but this was not the bowhead that would give itself to the crew. 

Even as his crew continues to paddle through the water in search of the whale, captain Rex Rock Sr. arrives on his snowmachine, bringing with him the new harpoon shaft that had been working on.

The crew returns to the ice.

Later, after the sun took a short dip below the northern horizon, I noticed the image of an old ice man with an icicle beard. 

Next up, belugas will come swimming by.

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Tikigaq: Journey to the Killigvuk whale

The snowmachine and sled ride depicted in my post of two days ago took us to the whale camp of Rex Rock, Sr., where we would transfer to the umiak for the trip to the whale taken by Isaac Killigvuk and crew - as soon as the harpoons and darting guns were made ready. The weapons would not be used on this trip, as a "cease fire" was in place until the Killigvuk whale was landed.

Just before we boarded the umiak, some belugas swam by.

This was the first time not only on the ice and at whale camp but certainly in an umiak for Al Sokaitis (left in white) and Mike Hajdukovich (right in black) of Challenge Life Alaska. The boat rocked a bit when we launched which caused Mike - who in his college days was one of UAF's 10 all-time lead scorer at basketball, to shout out in slight panic. Even when it rocks, an umiak is a very stable boat and there was no real danger that it would tip over.

When the hunters go after a bowhead, they paddle the umiak but this would be a long ride with no hunting be done, so the boat was powered by a small outboard motor.

In addition to his work with Challenge Life Alaska, Sokaitis is the head coach for the Post University men's basketball team in Waterbury, Connecticut. He has also coached at Western State College, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Southern Maine, and North Adams State College and he coached the Alaska Dream in the ABA for one season.

Eider ducks flew past as we cruised through the Chukchi.

That's Rex Rock, Jr. His father had things to do onshore, so Rex was in command.

We came upon a seal...

...and a male eider duck swimming.

A bowhead blew and then glided through the water not far off starboard.

Rex Rock, Jr., surveys his country. The Rocks have replaced the bearded seal skins that once covered their umiak with fibreglass.

Shorefast ice.

Another bowhead, in the distance, beyond the eiders.

Eiders over the ice.

In time, we reach the landing site. The bowhead is still in the water. The block and tackle have been attached to its tail. Isaac Killigvuk, the successful captain, is the second person to the right of the paddle. The man standing next to him in blue is Popsi Tingook, captain of the first Point Hope crew to land a whale this season.

Preparations to pull up the whale have been made. The skin-covered Killigvuk umiak is pulled up onto the ice.

Those present join together and pull and pull on the block and tackle, until the whale is pulled onto the ice. For a large whale, this process can take many hours, even a day. This is a small bowhead and comes up quickly.

The whale is landed. Isaac is joined by his wife, Sally. They are very happy to have this whale give them the honor of taking its flesh to feed to their community. They haveprayed for the whale. Of all the many sources of food natural to the Arctic - caribou, beluga, seals, walrus, ducks, geese, fish, berries and such, the bowhead is the most important in every way that one can imagine - food, nutrition, spirit, identity.

Year round, the activities of life focus first and most importantly upon the bowhead.

The flag of the Isaac Killigvuk crew.

We stayed for the early part of the butchering, but with the whale landed and the process of cutting and dividing it well underway, the hunt would soon begin again. So Rex Jr. took his boat back to the Rock camp and I followed.

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