The wedding of Rainey and B-III, part 2: final preparations - the food looks appetizing, the bride, groom and wedding party look sharp in their Iñupiat clothing

The plan had been to hold the wedding in a valley up in the mountains, where the cooks would gather early and prepare much of the food over cooking fires. They tell me that it was 85 degrees in Anaktuvuk Pass the day before I arrived. Some readers may find it hard to imagine that an Arctic community in the mountains can get that hot, but when a high pressure system settles in and the sun shines 24 hours a day, some would be amazed at how warm it can get.

Meanwhile, on the coast, in Barrow, it had been snowing and was cold and the tundra was still covered mostly in white.

But, as we have already seen, by the time I arrived, the weather in Anaktuvuk had cooled down considerably. The wedding day itself began with a hard wind blowing and a cold rain falling. That rained turned to snow which in turn hardened into a thin layer of ice upon the roof tops.

All the food preparation had to be done inside - not only in the home of B-3 and Rainey, but in other Anaktuvuk homes as well.

Here, Neva and Joe Hickman prepare lake trout caught up in the mountains for baking. In the background, Rainey consults with her sister, Angela on the final construction of the salmonberry wedding cakes.

Angela works on the cakes. Everyone is busy.

Angela spreads a salmonberry glaze upon the bottom layer of a salmonberry cake.

Not only guests, but fruit grown in much more southerly latitudes also came in on the planes that brought people and provisions to the wedding.

Elizabeth Marino uses a traditional Iñupiat ulu to cut watermelon.

No whales swim anywhere near inland Anaktuvuk, but the Iñupiat people share and trade all of their foods among themselves and so it happened that bowhead maktak - the black skin with a bit of blubber still attached - had come down from the coast. Cathy Rexford of Barrow uses an ulu to cut the frozen maktak.

For those who may be horrified at the thought of eating blubber, please note that it looks very different and is of a completely different consistency than is the fat of the farmed animals that most Americans are used to.

Whereas the cholesterol in farmed animals is the bad kind that clogs arteries and leads to heart attacks, the cholesterol in maktak is the good kind that cleans arteries and helps to prevent heart attacks. Maktak is also high in vitamin c. This is the food that The Creator put in the north for the people of the north.

And when one is in the north, when one gets past the food prejudices that one grew up with, one can discover that maktak tastes delicious and when the weather turns cool will actually grave it, for maktak warms the body in a way that lentils do not.

Jana Harcharek of Barrow also cut maktak. 

Elvira Gueco, originally of the Philippines but now of Barrow, not only brought an Asian touch to the food, but a tropical one as well. She also prepared some chicken and caribou dishes in her Asian way and it would all prove excellent.

The bride mixes blueberries and salmonberries, picked from the tundra. She added a touch of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Even now, when I think back to the wedding feast, I want more!

After it was prepared, the food was taken to the school gymnasium, where, in lieu of the mountain valley, the wedding would now be held. There is a Presbyterian Chapel in Anaktuvuk, but it is tiny and did not have enough space for the wedding.

The population of Anaktuvuk Pass, by the way, is a bit over 200.

As such, it is the largest human community located within in the entire Brooks Range, which stretches from the west coast of Northern Alaska all the way across into Canada's Yukon Territory.

Once the food was all prepared, the time came to prepare the bride and groom. There would be no tuxedoes or fancy gowns at this wedding - it was Iñupiat clothing, lovingly sewn. Casey Nay and B-III's sister Kayla do some touch-up's on the groom.

The wedding party has now moved into some school-teachers quarters across the street from the school, empty now for the summer. Rainey puts on her wedding mukluks, which she made from white wolf leg skins, moose hide, leather, and beads.

This is only the second pair of mukluks that she has made in her life.

Angela takes a look at her sister, dressed now in her wedding clothes. "Beautiful!" she proclaims. Sarah Hopson, a sister to the groom, agrees with a big smile.

Rainey removed her mukluks before crossing the street to the school so that she would not get mud on them. At the school, she puts her mukluks back on as B-III pulls on the pair that she made for him from caribou leg skins, black and white calf skin, red deer leather, and native tanned moose hide.

"Not bad for my first pair!" she writes on her own blog, Stop and Smell the Lichen.

As for the tradition that the bride and groom must not see each other on the day of wedding prior to the ceremony, that is a western formality that Rainey and B-III decided not to follow. Presbyterian Pastor Mary Ann Warden had come down from Barrow to perform the ceremony. 

Reverend Warden always likes to have a prayer before the ceremony and this was the first time that she had been able to have one with the bride and groom together, rather than separate.

She liked it.

Members of the bridal entourage hold hands during the prayer.

Members of the groom's entourage hold hands during the prayer.

Now it is time for the procession to enter the gym turned wedding hall.

Yesterday, I stated that I would post the actual wedding today, but I was wrong, both because I had unexpected company (some of it still here in the form of Jacob, Kalib and Jobe) and because it is a pretty big task.

I will post the wedding tomorrow, barring any other significant distractions.

So be certain to come back.

Buddy, a dog from Wasilla, makes good in Barrow; Flossie feeds me a good Iñupiaq lunch

As I walked from the far end of the sprawling Barrow neighborhood of Browerville, I passed by the Northern Lights Restaurant. I was hungry, and for a moment I thought maybe I would go in and buy some chow mien or Kung Pao chicken.

What a foolish thought! I was on my way to the home of Roy and Flossie Nageak and I knew that they would feed me - and it would be a bigger, better, meal than I would get in a restaurant. I needed to save room in my tummy for it, so I just walked right by Northern Lights.

Soon, I was sitting on the living room couch. Roy was out for a bit, but Flossie was there and so was Buddy, a half-dalmatian dog that came to Barrow from Wasilla.

Buddy was happy to see me. He wanted to know everything that had happened in Wasilla since he left as a pup, all these many years ago.

When I told him, he simply could not believe it.

I mean, if it wasn't something that we have witnessed, who could possibly believe it?

Roy and Flossie's grandson Amare Roy, a beautiful mix of Iñupiaq and Filipino, was there. He pedaled about as Flossie pulled together the ingredients for a good lunch.

Soon, she called me to the table. Laid before me was bowhead maktak and flipper, frozen caribou, frozen fish and seal oil. That's a frozen grayling that she is cutting with her ulu. 

When I was still new to this country, I once took a seat at an Iñupiat table and my hostess asked me if I needed a steak knife. "Yes," I answered, picturing one of those flimsy, serrated things that mainstream America calls steak knifes.

Instead, she sat a big, sturdy-bladed, razor-honed, hunting knife in front of me. This, and even better, an ulu, is the kind of knife it takes to slice up Iñupiaq food. Using what Mainstream America calls a steak knife, you could not possibly cut up the maktak you see on the other side of the knife.

I soon learned to carry a good knife with me at all times. This worked out well for awhile and I stayed well-fed, but then along came international terrorism and tightened airport security. I kept forgetting to take my $50 to $70 folding knives out of my pocket and the good folk of the Transportation Security Administration kept taking those knives away from me.

So now I must borrow a knife whenever I eat an Iñupiaq meal.

I had not had such a meal for awhile. This one was excellent - and the blubber that you see attached to the black skin is not at all like beef fat and it is healthy. It is full of the good kind of chorlesteral. The black skin is rich in Vitamin C.

It is the food of the Arctic, and it is the best food to eat in the Arctic - especially if you want to stay warm.

Plus, my tummy had been feeling irritated for a couple of days. This good, oily, food calmed it down and made it feel much better.

Flossie offers a piece of frozen grayling to Amare, but today he wants a hotdog.

Flossie slices up a hotdog with her ulu and then the three of us chow down. My fingers quickly became too oily to handle my camera, so I put it down.

After we had eaten, Flossie brewed tea.

And cookies go good with tea.

This is what it looked like out the window. The sun has been down now since November 18, but, as you can see, it is on its way back. It will rise for about half-an-hour on Saturday, January 23 - tomorrow. It's time above the horizon will then increase for about 15 minutes a day until midnight on May 10. It will then slide across the northern horizon of the sea ice and then not set again until early August.

Sadly, I will not be able to photograph the return of the sun. Lavina is having labor contractions, more than a month early, and while they are far apart and the hope is she can hold off for another week or more, I am going home. I have accomplished all that I needed to accomplish this trip and, as much as I would like to photograph the returning sun, I want even more to be there when my next grandchild is born.

I want Margie to be there, too, and Mary, Lavina's mom. So I really hope this new baby waits awhile - but, just in case these contractions grow strong and push it out, I am going home so I can be there.

After Roy returned, everybody gathered around my laptop to see a picture spread that I did with images that I took of them last summer.

Roy and Amare, with Flossie in the background.

Joe the Water Man pours coffee at Pepe's; Emily plays Little Dribblers as she prepares for surgery; Little Alan - his grandfather watches old Barrow movies

It was a good and productive day - but I took very few pictures as I have already done all the images for this project.

I did photograph Joe the Water Man, however, as he poured coffee this morning at Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant, where I ate a breakfast of ham, eggs, hash browns and wheat toast.

Not so long ago, there was two ways to get water into your home in Barrow. You could go to Freshwater Lake, cut out some blocks of ice, put them on your sled, bring them home, lug them into your house, put them into the water barrel to melt - or you could call out for the kind of service provided by Joe the Waterman.

If you called Joe, he would show up wearing no parka, no hat, not even a sweatshirt - it did not matter what the temperature was; even when it dropped into the minus 50's, Joe wore only a t-shirt and jeans (but always a good pair of gloves).

When I would see him this way, I always worried about the outcome should he break down somewhere on a truly bitter day, lose the heat in his truck and have too great a distance to cover on foot to the next heated structure to get there before the cold got him.

Praise be! It never happened.

He drove the truck for his mother, Fran Tate, and now he waits tables and helps her run Pepe's, which has brought her world-wide fame as the owner of the farthest north Mexican Restaurant in the world. Johnny Carson even brought her on his show once, and she brought an "oosik"... wait... wait... wait...

I should tell this story with a picture of Fran, who is now well into her 70's and still running the show.

I did not see her today, but maybe I will catch her before I leave. I don't know. I might, I might not.

Here's Joe at the cash register, where he just took my money. Concerning the characters on the shelf behind him, he said the seven to the right are the cooks who work at Pepe's and the paunch-bellied blonde to the left "is my mom."

A decade or so has passed since Joe quit driving the water truck, but people still call him and ask him to bring them water.

This is ten year-old Emily Brower, and she had stopped briefly at the home of her Aapa and Aaka, Savik and Myrna Ahmaogak, to pick Myrna up and take her to Wednesday evening church services.

Emily was born with a cleft-palette and has had five corrective surgeries and will soon be going to Anchorage for another. After that, she will get braces. She has made huge progress and I believe she will continue to do so.

Emily is playing Little Dribblers basketball. "I love it," she says.

This is Emily's cousin, Little Alan Beall, who is also going to church with his Aaka Myrna and his Aunt Jo-Jo Brower, Emily's mom.

Little Alan's mother, Shareen, reports that lately, Little Alan has begun making regular visits to the home of his Aunt Jo-Jo, Uncle Arnold and cousin Emily. He enjoys the feeling of independence that he gets when he leaves his mother behind and goes off to visit without her (Jo-Jo comes and picks him up).

Lately, his hair had grown long but he did not want to let anyone cut it. So he was told that if he wanted to keep visiting his aunt and uncle, he had to let Uncle Arnold cut it.

So he did. His hair is short now. His visits continue.

I spent some time tonight watching old Barrow films from the 40's and 50's with Savik, who recently returned from Anchorage where he had kidney surgery. "Now, I have to build up my strength," he told me.

Here, he watches as a woman from the days of his youth is tossed high off the boatskin blanket at the whaling feast of Nalukatak. When I first met Savik over a quarter-of-a-century ago, he was still recovering from having broken both legs doing the blanket toss in Wainwright.

At a different point in the film, we watched as people clad in their Sunday best parkas poured out of the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church. "There's Mom!" he said as several women exited together.

We also watched as a runner came into the village off the sea ice, carrying the flag of his whaling crew. This told the village that the crew had just landed a bowhead.

Today, the landing of a whale is still announced in this ceremonial way, but everybody knows as the news is instantly broadcast over VHF radio. Usually a youth carries the flag as he races to town on his snowmachine. 

In those days, Savik told me, the young man always ran with the flag. He did not even take a dog team. Trails can easily be ten, 15 miles long and the sea ice very rough.

Those runners were tough guys.

"Praying for you, praying for you,

someone is praying for you

Your path may be darkened

Your friends may be few

but someone is praying for you."

Savik has gone to bed, but his TV is still on - a recording of a singspiration in Wainwright, and the song from which the verse above comes from is being sung - first in Iñupiaq, then English.

2009 in review - April: begins with moose in the yard; ends on a crazy-hot day on the Arctic ice

April began with a mama and her calf, dining in our backyard.

This is Jim, an amateur weatherman who I sometimes come across while walking. Our winter was drawing to its end. Jim had recorded 57 days below zero at his house, several in the - 30's and a few in the - 40's. Total snowfall had been eight feet.

Wasilla, of course, is in one of Alaska's moderate climate zones.

It discourages and depresses me to walk through Serendipity too often, but occasionally I do. I did this day and Muzzy came with me. I don't know how he manages to store up so much pee, but he marked every single property on his side of the street as his.

When we entered break-up for real, I got my bike out and started to pedal. You can see I still had the brace on my right wrist. I did not yet know it, and would have thought the opposite, but bike riding would prove to be great physical therapy for my wrist and shoulder.

As long as I didn't crash.

Becky, a young neighbor who lives on Seldon, gave Muzzy some love.

I saw this little character in the Post Office parking lot.

This happened on one of those mornings that I had to get out of the house and go get breakfast at Family Restaurant. These two guys had a nice little conversation and I am certain that it was friendly.

This guy stepped onto the side of the road to remind everybody they had to pay their taxes. Thanks to my injury, I had made very little money in 2008 and hardly had to pay any tax at all.

This year, I have made a decent income, but 2008 put me so deep into the hole that it does not feel like it at all. It feels like I am drowning, going under and maybe I am.

It would be okay if it were just me, because I could move into a shack and blog about it, but I hate to take Margie there. She has gone through so much and given up so much just to be with me these past few decades. She deserves much better than that.

It looks like tax time will be hell.

But I have 3.5 months to figure it out, so maybe it will be okay.

Many times in my career, I have brought us to the very brink.

And always, something has come along to save us.

By Easter, the snow had largely left our yard. We hid Easter eggs in the bare parts. Kalib went out and found them. We did not really hide them that good.

Kalib was pleased to discover that he could use guacamole to stick a chip to his face.

As I prepared to go north, Kalib played harpoon the whale. Kalib was the harpooner, Muzzy the whale.

Size ratio just about right.

I was glad to be going north, but it was very hard to leave this guy.

To me, what you are looking at is still a bit unbelievable. I had never imagined that I would see such a thing. The date is April 27, the place, Barrow, Alaska.

Barrow does not look like this on April 27. In Barrow, everything is frozen solid on April 27. On April 27, the temperature is either below zero F, or just a few degrees above. The wind drives a continual flow of snow low over the hardened drifts.

But not this April 27. On this April 27, the snow was melting. The air felt warm. No one living had ever before seen such a thing here, nor was there any record of this having ever happened, prior to this year. No one living who knows this place at all would have believed they ever would see such a thing.

It was causing problems for the whale hunters, making ice conditions dangerous.

I would like to say that this was a complete fluke and that no one will ever see it happen again - and it did finally freeze up again - but, these days, with the summer sea ice receding to unheard of levels, with polar bears and walrus losing the summer ice they need to live on, with animals, fish, and birds that have never been here before coming up from the south, with new species of plants taking root...

Willie Hensley of Kotzebue came to Barrow while I was there and did a reading, slide show and book signing for his autobiography, Fifty Miles From Tomorrow.

I bought a copy, had him sign it and then read it on the jet to India.

It kept me completely absorbed.

What a childhood he had, living the old time Iñupiaq life - and then to go on to fill a lead role in the movement that led to the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act and after that to become a politician, corporate leader and now an author.

This is one of those books that anyone who loves Alaska should read.

Might I also suggest that you read Gift of the Whale, too, if you haven't already?

You don't need to buy it - go find it in a library somewhere.

After several days in Barrow, I bought a ticket to Wainwright, thinking that after I spent a short time there, I would buy another to Point Lay. But I was about to discover that now that only one commuter airline serves the Arctic coast, they don't even let you do that anymore

If you want to fly from Barrow to Wainwright and then on to Point Lay, you have to buy two round trip tickets from Barrow, one to each place. That is kind of taking a trip from San Francisco to Portland and Seattle, only to find you have to buy two separate round trip tickets, one from San Francisco to Portland, and then back to San Francisco and then to Seattle.

And the prices!

If I had done both villages, my trip from Anchorage to Barrow, Wainwright and Point Lay would have cost me more than the round trip I had pending that would take me from Anchorage to Bangalore, India.

HOW RIDICULOUS IS THAT??????

In the photo above, the airplane is landing in Atqasuk, enroute to Wainwright.

For you in the south, please remember, no roads connect the villages of the Arctic to each other.

Whyborn Nungasuk boarded the plane in Atqasuk, headed for Wainwright. For those of you who have read Gift of the Whale, Whyborn is the man who organized the search for Harry Norton. He is one of those people that I am always glad to see.  I thought he must be going to do a little whaling, because Atqasuk is a land-locked village and Whyborn has often whaled in Wainwright.

"You headed to Wainwright to go whaling?" I asked.

"Not whaling," he said, "to talk about Jesus."

That night, they were having the regularly scheduled Wednesday singspiration at the Wainwright Presbyterian Church. I stopped by, to listen the listen to the gospel singing.

At a certain point, Whyborn got up to make a testimony. He told of a recent fall whale hunt that he been on in Barrow. A whale had been taken, and then roped to the boats that would pull it the landing site. Whyborn was in one of those boats, but something went wrong and he was accidently jerked out out of that boat by the rope and into the water.

He went under, and he stayed under long enough to begin to drown, perhaps to drown altogether.

As he drowned, he found himself in a pleasant, warm, place. "There were beautiful flowers, and beautiful butterflies, flying," he said. "Jesus was there."

Whyborn liked that place. He was glad to have arrived.

Then hands took hold of his parka and pulled him out of the water. Those who pulled him out revived him.

When he came too and saw that he was still alive, Whyborn looked at his brother, who had helped to save him.

"Why did you bring me back?" he asked. 

"Death," Whyborn said, "holds no fear for me now."

My wrist was still in a brace. My shoulder still hurt 100 percent of the time and felt fragile to me. I had a fear that I could not stand up to the rigors of the whaling life. I did not plan to go on the ice.

But on April 30, Jason headed out to make a boat ramp where the lead had briefly been, where he hoped it would open again. His younger sister had been planning to go out and help, but she had hurt her wrist, and couldn't.

So a snowmachine was available. I climbed on that snowmachine and found that if I did not grip the throttle in the usual way but pushed it forward with my thumb supported against my brace, I could drive it. At first, I tried to fit a glove over my hand and brace, but the weather was so warm that I found I didn't even need the glove so I took it off.

The fellow with the red on his hat in the background, that's Iceberg 14 co-whaling captain Jason Ahmaogak. The young man chucking the block of ice out of the boat ramp is Jerry Ahmaogak.

This would prove to be one of the hardest whaling seasons on record, all up and down the Arctic coast.

But in June, well after the hunt would normally have ended, Jason would guide the Iceberg 14 boat to the only whale that Wainwright would land. Jerry would harpoon it. Young Benny Ahmaogak, who is also out here building the boat ramp, would fire the shoulder gun.

Taktuk's email regarding Interior's decision to allow Shell Oil to drill exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea

Please note: My regular daily post, including the final installment of Kalib Moves Out, will still appear Thursday, just a little later than normal. It is scheduled to come up at 10:00 AM.

Long time readers will remember Taktuk - Roberta Ahmaogak of Wainwright and her daughter, Cara, from when they danced at Kivgiq this past February.

On Monday, the US Interior Department announced it's decision to allow Shell Oil to drill three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea, which, to Taktuk, her family and community, is the garden that feeds them.

See that flag flying behind her?

That is the flag of Iceberg 14, the bowhead whaling grew started by her grandfather - her Aapa - the late Ben Ahmaogak, Sr. - the whaling captain who, in 1995, took me in and made me part of his crew and family. This year, due to poor weather and ice conditions, this was the only flag to be raised over a bowhead in Wainwright during the entire whaling season.

I took this photo shortly before midnight on June 27, towards the end of the whale feast that Iceberg 14 hosted that day.

Yesterday, I received an email from Taktuk that she sent to a number of people, asking all to pass it on, so that's what I'm doing.

In the Anchorage Daily News, Senator Lisa Murkowsi, top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said this about the decision to allow Shell to drill:

"This is progress... an encouraging sign that Alaska's oil and natural gas resources can continue to play a major role in America's energy security."

This is what Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was quoted as saying:

"Our approval of Shell's plan is conditioned on close monitoring of Shell's activities to ensure that they are conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. These wells will allow the department to develop additional information and to evaluate the feasibility of future development in the Chukchi Sea."

This is the quote from Marilyn Heiman, the U.S. Arctic program director for the Pew Environment Group:

"Obviously we're disappointed. A spill could happen from an exploratory well just as easily as it could from a production well. They have not yet demonstrated they have the ability and the expertise to clean up an oil spill, especially in the darkness, the extreme weather and the icy conditions."

According to the Daily News, "Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby said that company executives believe their exploration plan addresses concerns they've heard in North Slope communities, 'including concerns around program footprint and pace. Shell believes the Chukchi Sea could be home to some of the most prolific, undiscovered hydrocarbon basins in North America.'"

To me personally, none of the above voices mean anything. The one voice that matters to me is that of the Iñupiat, because the Chukchi Sea is their home, their dinner table, their life. Their culture is thousands of years old and it was shaped by this sea. No development should take place in this sea without their consent.

But that is not how the power structure works.

It should also be noted that, right now, a difficult cleanup operation is ongoing for a "one of the worst" onshore oil spills at Prudhoe Bay. If it can happen onshore, it can happen offshore. Given enough development, enough time, it even seems inevitable. What happens when that oil spills, not onto frozen tundra but into the ocean, with the bowhead whales, the beluga, the polar bear, walrus, the big bearded seal and the small spotted seal, the eider ducks, the murres and all the seabirds?

Here is Taktuk's email, which she titled,

Pray for Our People

OK- So if you're a maktak eater, whale steak lover, paniqtaq lover, if you sew beautiful skins to make beautiful jackets or boots, an artist who scrimshaws on ivory of the walrus, if you eat urraq, fish, go duck hunting during the spring, if you eat that beautiful taste of nanuq meat.... Keep this message going! 

WE ARE INUPIAQ! We hunt for a living and for a lifestyle! This is our culture, and this is who we are. We hunt and we survive, this is what makes WHO WE ARE!

Who is Shell? Who WAS Shell? Do they have ears? Why us? Why our people? Why THIS precious culture?

To the people who work for Shell: If it were possible for you to live with us on a daily basis, go to work, make a living, go out hunting to feed your family, think like us, eat like us, live with us for an entire year- YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND WHY THIS HURTS US SO MUCH!!! But you can't understand, and you will never understand! You think that a brand new snowmachine every winter will fix our problems, a brand new truck will keep us above the snow banks, a new boat with a faster engine!!! You're WRONG! We can fix our broken snowmachines! We can pull you out within minutes! Our camping grounds aren't going anywhere and we'll make it to our camping grounds safely!

Spending money is so easy! Making people happy, you think? Read your numbers! Money kills! Money destroys!

We love our quiet village. We love sobriety! We are ALL Inupiaq! Soon there'll be MORE Inupiaq teachers in our schools!

Who's with Shell? Tell me what goods will come out of it! How many spotters will you pay? How many marine mammal observers will you have to look at their changing migration routes? Give me your plan! I want to see what's going out in our view!

What you're doing to us is Murder! My culture, my people has no choice but to face you! Don't you get enough bad looks?

Put your money into wind turbines for the whole nation, make energy efficent vehicles that work in the sub-zero temperatures...

Put your money into something that doesn't spell SPILL or DISASTER!

Why us? What power don't you see that's within our communities? What can we do to STOP you besides holding hands, forming a line with posters "OVER MY DEAD BODY!", or driving us to jail!?!? You're walking all over us. You look down at us. You're higher than us.

We know there is OIL out there. Why can't you simply put a stop to this? Simply, help our culture by keeping off "OUR" land and sea! It is rightfully ours because we hunt the sea animals and sea mammals. Forget the federal lands and oceans. Think about this culture that you're trying to kill!

Read it again and again and again.

What will happen if there happens to be an oil spill? What precautions will we see? What happens to the mammals of our sea? Die? How will you stop the oil spill? What happens to our next generation? Would they continue to hunt in our ancestors routes?

Don't tell me, "We'll do our best!"

- My name is Taktuk, and I'm a student at UAA (University of Alaska, Anchorage), a resident of Wainwright, Alaska, lover of all sea mammals!

Feed me, not your kind words nor your answers.

Listen to 1 more person! 1 can make a difference!

Another reminder: Our only option now is to say a prayer- to keep them at bay!