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. 

Point Hope: coming home from whale camp

Just to make it clear that this blog is still alive, i am posting just one picture today. And to make it easy to pick that picture on a laptop computer with a malfunctioning screen, I decided that I would choose the very last picture that I have taken so far today.

That was this one, shot about 2:00 AM this morning as we pulled back from the ice, intending to spend three hours in the village and then to head back out.

So I set my iPhone alarm for 4:50 AM as I went to bed at 2:50 AM, then slept very little because I did not want to somehow sleep past the appointed time and miss my ride back to the ice.

As hard as it was, I got up and headed to the house of whaling captain Rex Rock, Sr, where, at 5:00 AM, it was very quiet and no one was stirring. People started moving around about 10: AM and it was then that I learned that the sea had gotten rough and so we would be staying on land for awhile.

I ate a good breakfast with the Rocks, then returned here to the home of Jessie Frankson and Krystle Ahmaogak and their three young boys, Jessie Jr, Kuunnan and Jonathan, napped for a couple of hours, got up and ate another breakfast.

Thanks in large part to the heavy overcast, it still got close to being dark in the wee hours of this morning, but soon the sun will be in the sky 24 hours a day and there will be no more darkness at all.

In Barrow, the final, very brief sunset is May 10. I am not certain what day here - a day or two or three after that, I would guess.

Looking back at Point Hope from across the ice

Here I am in Point Hope, out on the sea ice at the edge of the lead in which swim bowheads, belugas, seals, polar bears and other animals, looking back at the village. I came here to take some pictures at an event in town but it should surprise no one to discover that I wound up on the ice with the whalers, anyway.

That event is now over and I plan to go back out shortly. Three bowheads have been landed thus far here.

As for this blog, it is just too hard to keep out here right now - in part because I have not yet been able to replace my laptop screen and while ghosts and lines do move erriely across my screen, I am almost working blind and I cannot do a good picture edit.

When I type, the word vanish, fall on top of themselves, shift positions and I cannot be certain what I am typing.

Then, Squarespace, the blog host that I use to make this journal is, under perfect circumsstances, a clunky and troublesome program. Comgine it with a slow connection and its problems multiply and cascade one into another.

Because I am can not really see the pictures that I am working with and could not stand the thought of trying to picture edit, I grabbed this one at random. I was able to make out that it was sea ice and it appeared that i might be sharp - but beyond that, it just aggravates my eyes to look at it,

Then, sure enough, when I went to upload it, Squarespace malfunctioned. That malfunction led to cascading malfunctions and it took me.... 45 minutes... yes... 45 minutes... to upload this single photograph!

So I fear I will not be doing much blogging while I am here.

Okay - I can't deal with this anymore. This screen is driving me nuts.  I am going to post and hope for the best.

Farewell to Mabel Aiken - a kind, gentle and caring lady

This morning, I sit alone in a quiet motel room, yet in my head I hear hymns, sung the Iñupiaq way, and I feel a strong connection to many souls, who on this day will gather together in a church in Barrow to hold services for and pay their respects to a very dear lady by the name of Mabel Aiken. If it were at all feasible, I would be there with them, but it is not.

I wish that I had a picture of Mabel in my laptop computer so that I could post it here, but I do not. I do, however, have this picture of her husband Kunuk and many members of her family and crew at the edge of the lead, as they watch the approach of a bowhead whale.

When I took this picture, Mabel was not physically present, but she was still very much with her family and crew. Back on land, she was busily overseeing the base operations necessary to sustain them on the ice. Through the VHF radio, she kept constant contact and whenever they needed anything, she made certain it was ready to go, to be packed onto a sled and sent out. She cooked, she sewed, she prayed. She gave them encouragement.

She was not physically present on the ice, yet her presence could be felt at all times.

From this time forward, Mabel Aiken will no longer be present in the physical world, yet her spirit will be felt every day. 

Mable was a gentle, kind, soft-spoken, caring woman who was always good to me and I am blessed for having had the opportunity to spend some time with her in this life.

To Kunuk, to all the Aikens and to all those who knew and loved Mabel - may The Creator be with you on this day and bring you comfort and solace, even at those moments when it may seem that comfort and solace cannot be had.

As you sing so beautifully and with such soul and passion:

God be with you, 'til we meet again...

I love you all.

To those readers who never knew her, just know that she lived and that she made the Arctic a warmer place and all the world just a little bit better than it would have been without her.

News of Wainwright's first fall whale in over 100 years reaches Kaktovik

Yesterday afternoon, John Hopson, Jr. of Wainwright stepped to the podium to interrupt the regular proceedings of the Healthy Communities Summit in Kaktovik. He then announced that back in his home village, Iceberg 17, the whaling crew headed by Captain Walter Nayakik, Jr., had landed a bowhead. That's North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, cheering. The crowd in front is cheering, too.

For as long as I have known the Arctic Slope and even long, long, before that, Wainwright hunters have consistently found success on their bowhead hunts - but these have been in the spring. Barrow, Nuiqsut and Kaktovik have been the only villages that have hunted in the fall, due to being situated in locations favorable for them to greet the bowhead on their migration from the Beaufort to the Bering Sea.

Some thought that a fall hunt could not successfully be carried out at Wainwright, but both the stories and physical evidence testified that, over 100 years ago, the people in Wainwright were landing fall whales. Now, they have landed another. Earlier in the day, we also received that the Savik crew from Barrow - they being the people who most often serve as my hosts when I stay there, had received a whale. I stayed at their house the night before I came over here to Kaktovik.

Savik had a need to go to the hospital in Anchorage the next day and as I sat at the dinner table with him, one of his daughters asked if the crew should still go out, since he would not be in Barrow. "Yes!" The next morning, just before he drove me to the airport to catch the plane to Kaktovik, Roy drove me down to the beach to look at the ocean.

The water had been rough and even now the waves were coming, but it was beginning to calm down. I just had this feeling that Roy would be out in that water with the crew shortly and that by the time I saw them again, they would have landed a whale. Since that announcement, four other Barrow crews have landed whales.

That's a total of five out of a fall quota of 12. I have photographed many things here at the summit and elsewhere in Kaktovik and have picked up some good stories, but, as I said at the beginning, I would not have much time for blogging while I was here so, for now, I let this announcement do it. Dinner has already started and after that - the Eskimo dance will begin. So I've got to close this blog down and get moving.