Mike and Maggie Williams, plus other people bumped into while dining; missing Jobe; Kivgiq edit progressing

This is Mike Williams and his wife, Maggie, who walked into Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant one day last week just after I had sat down for breakfast. Margie was still in Anchorage, babysitting Jobe and Kalib.

Any Alaskan who pays much attention at all will know who Mike Williams is and I have written a bit about him before. For those who may not have heard of Mike, he is a Yupiaq tribal leader and dog musher from the Kuskokwim village of Akiak and a recovering alcoholic. He was raised with six brothers and a dog team in that time before snowmachines took over the daily work of dogs.

He loved his dogs and he loved his brothers. He would race his dogs and one race he did was the Iditarod. When he would reach Nome, he would take care of his dogs, and then he and a brother would hit the bars and drink up a storm.

But his brothers got killed - all six of them - one after the other and each killing came as the result of alcohol abuse. One brother had served in the thick of the fighting in Vietnam and had come home safely, only to die from alcohol.

So Mike went to war against alcohol abuse. He sobered up. He created a petition and carried it with him as he raced the Iditarod Trail. Each time he would reach a village, he would take that petition around and commit all who would sign it to a year of sobriety.

Did all who sign it succeed?

No, but some did, and I heard testimony from a few of the them in the year 2000, when the Running Dog was still airworthy and I used it to follow Mike and his team along the Iditarod Trail from Wasilla to Nome.

Mike is not racing this year, but his son, Mike. Jr., is. Mike and Maggie had come to Wasilla to make the food drops that Mike Jr. will need to feed his dogs as he races along the trail.

After I took this picture, I put down my camera, pulled out my iPhone and placed a call to Mitt Romney, to see if I could convince him to finance this blog and the electronic magazine I want to add to it.

Mitt thanked me for calling, wished me well, said it was a worthy cause but he just couldn't afford to help. It was disappointing, but at least the three of us sitting at this table all got to make good use of our phones simultaneously.

If the Running Dog was not broken and I had the money for gas, I would love to follow Mike Jr. up the trail to Nome in this year's race, but the Running Dog is broken and gas is really expensive these days, anyway.

At the very least, I will photograph him at the starting line.

On another day last week when Margie was still in town, I did another breakfast at Family. As I was leaving, this fellow, Franz, noticed my camera and asked me about it. He wondered what kind of things I photograph, so, to demonstrate, I sat down at his table for a moment and took a photo of him.

Then we engaged in an arm wrestling match, which I easily won.

I jokes. We did not. And with my weak, fragile, artificial shoulder, I cannot arm wrestle anyone.

But when I was younger and my shoulder was real and I could, I almost always won - even against people much larger than me.

Not always.

But almost.

Now I have done my bragging for today.

On Friday evening after Lavina brought Margie and Jobe home, none of us wanted to cook. So I ordered a Pizza from Fat Boys and then went to pick it up.

This fellow, Ron, was dining inside. He noticed my camera, commented on it and asked what kind of pictures I took with it.

So I sat down with him while I waited for the Fat Boy to box up my pizza and gave him a demonstration.

So Margie had Jobe all of last week and I had him Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Now he is gone back to Anchorage and I am missing him. There are reminders of him all about the house.

As to my Kivgiq edit, yesterday I did complete my initial pass through of Day 2. Today, I begin on Day 3.

I mention this just to assure those who love Kivgiq that I am sticking with it and will yet make my big series of Kivgiq posts.

View images as slides

I need to take the time to edit Kivgiq right - in the meantime, here are two images of the Tikigaq Traditional Dancers

I am more than a bit overwhelmed. While I have a couple of other deadlines pressing me this week and next, over the past two days I have nonetheless spent approximately ten hours working my way through Day 2 of my Kivgiq take. I am now just a bit more than half-way through day two and I have marked many hundreds of images for a second look.

I still have the remainder of the day to go through, plus days three and four. I have found many images that I want to use, including some that I think are pretty darn good. But I can't stuff anywhere near the number that I'm coming up with into a few blog posts and I am terribly confused about how to proceed.

In retrospect, upon my return from Kivgiq what I should have done was to announce that I was going to retreat with my Kivgiq take for two-three weeks until I could really go through everything, get a pretty good handle on what I have and then make an intelligent series of posts that told the story well.

In fact, at this moment, having written the above sentence, I have just decided that is what I will do - but I will try to do that edit over one week and then come back sometime next week and blog it all.

In the short run, I know this will disappoint some of my readers, especially those who were at Kivgiq and are eager to see the pictures, but in the long run I hope to make up for that disappointment by putting out a comprehensive yet manageable project.

At the moment, in the way that I have been going about it, I am a creating a completely unmanageable project.

For today, I decided that I would run just two pictures - one of a male or male dancers and another of female, from one group. In those two pictures, I would make certain to include someone older and someone younger.

To chose the group, I closed my eyes and then scrolled up and down in my Lightroom editor until I had absolutely no idea what dance group was on the screen. I stopped scrolling and opened my eyes. There, on my screen, were the Tikigaq Traditional Dancers. Luke Koonook, the eldest of the Tikigaq men dancers, was performing right at the top of the screen.

So here he is: Luke Koonook of Point Hope's Tikigaq Traditional Dancers.

And here are some of the young women of Tikigaq, performing a kneeling motion dance.

During Kivgiq, many people asked me if I am making another Uiñiq magazine on Kivgiq. The answer is "yes" and "no." I am making another Uiñiq on the Healthy Communities theme and Kivgiq will be a part of it. I already have a large amount of material for that magazine and late next month I intend to go back into the field for a few weeks and get more.

This means I will not have that much space available in Uiñiq for Kivgiq - just enough to include maybe ten to twenty images. I am also working on a Kivgiq book that will cover Kivgiq from the restoration event in 1988 up through the celebration that just took place.

As I will be condensing so many Kivgiqs into one book that will, again, leave only enough space for a very limited number of images from this year's Kivgiq.

That is why I feel I want to put as many pictures from this year's Kivgiq up on this blog as I reasonably can - so that the people who were there, and the people who were not there but wish they had been, can enjoy a broad sampling of them.

It is just going to take a lot more time and work to do this right than I had tried to pretend in my own mind that it would.

It is okay that it will take that much time, though, because when I edit the pictures for this blog, I will also be editing them for Uiñiq and for the Kivgiq book.

So please bear with me.

I will get it done. Just not as quickly and easily as I had hoped.

And if this is a bit exasperating to some, all I can say is that you are seeing two things at work - the artistic process, which for me is always chaotic and confusing - right up to the finished product - and the efforts of a print photojournalist working to figure out how to manage, work and survive in the world of online publishing.

This is big experiment for me. I have no guidelines to follow, no one to teach me and show me the way. I must explore and find it for myself. I see others who also trying to find and pave the way, but none of them are doing quite what I want to do.

As always, I will continue to post something every day as I do this more comprehensive edit of Kivgiq. I will try to keep the posts simple and short, so that I have more to time to complete that edit, plus finish off the other tasks that must soon be done.

View images as slides

Jobe's parents come to get him; Kalib loses his spatula - what could take its place? Two beggar boys and a puppy; tomorrow, I return to Kivgiq

In the morning, Jobe's parents called to tell us they were about to leave Anchorage to drive to Wasilla. They suggested that we meet them at IHOP, where they would buy us breakfast.

So, about 45 minutes later, I bundled Jobe up and packed him into his car seat.

Then we were all together in IHOP and it was busy there - as it always is on a Sunday morning.

Jobe was happy to see his parents, alright, but the moment after he exchanged his greetings with them, he wanted to come back to his grandpa.

That's just how it is with Jobe and me.

Kalib, however, was most content to settle down in the loving arms of his mom.

Except that he also wanted to spend time with his dad. 

Jobe did find himself the recipient of some special Mom love, but even then his mind was on grandpa.

We returned home and in a bit Jobe's Uncle Rex showed up. Jobe was glad to see him, but still his thoughts were on grandpa.

Then Dad decided to read a book to Jobe. For a moment, Jobe was interested.

Then he decided he would rather be held by his grandpa than to hear how the story came out. So he pushed away from his dad...

...and came to me, so that I could hold him, which I did. Afterward, I decided that I had better go into my office, so that Jobe could visit other people. Plus, I had to put up yesterday's blog post.

Perhaps one day, Jobe will rebel, as young people do, and grow tired of his old grandpa. Perhaps Jobe will avoid me then, strive not to be seen by his peers with me.

Perhaps not. Perhaps he will be one of those young people who hangs tight with grandpa, no matter what.

He will always know his grandpa loves him. And, whether his rebellion draws him away from me for a time or not, I will know that he loves me, too.

He has already made it manifest. Such love does not just go away, but survives through youthful rebellion.

Plus, maybe before he hits that rebellion we will catch some fish together and cook them over hot coals and then eat them and then, even when he is rebelling, he will sometimes remember such moments fondly.

Jobe - my canoe has been dormant since I shattered my shoulder, but it will soon be time to activate it again.

Maybe Kalib, The Spatula Kid, can cook those fish for us. But it was kind of sad - Kalib came to the house with no spatula. His spatula is lost. No one can find it. His parents tried to give him another, but he would not accept it. It was THAT spatula or no spatula.

So he found a pair of tongs and has been packing those around instead. I understand that he has used them to turn hot dogs over, or maybe it was hamburgers.

He finds the tongs to be good for grabbing many things.

Still, I hope the spatula is soon found.

If it is, will he still want it?

Or will he only want the tongs, now?

Now that he has learned that he can grab things with them.

Just be careful what you grab, Kalib - especially when it comes to human and cat body parts.

When it came time to go, Kalib headed to the car with his parents. Jobe did, too. 

This is the last day of the three day weekend and I have actually managed to rest up a bit. Tomorrow, I will return to my Kivgiq photos.

And this from India: Two beggar boys and a puppy

At one stop, I came upon these boys and this puppy. They were beggar boys, hoping to get a few coins from anyone who would give them. I believe that I have mentioned this before, but I was counseled by a number of sources not to give money to the beggars. I was told that what I could not see on the streets was the Fagan-like scroundrels operating unseen in the background - unscrupulous, cruel individuals who would send young children, mothers, and old people out onto the streets to beg and who would then collect the bulk of their earnings and keep them for themselves.

As to adult beggars who might not be tied into such rings, I was told that most of them were people who could work but who had chosen not to, but to beg instead and I should not encourage them. There are temples all about India where food is gathered in generous quantities and served to the poor, that none are turned away, that those who truly need it can find sustenance at these temples and that those who truly want to help donate to the temples - not the beggars themselves.

Still, it was very hard for me and I did pass on a number coins in India. Even if it should be true that a Fagan-like character was going going to take most of the money I gave to a child or mother of the street, that child or mother's survival is still tied to whether or not he or she is going to bring back enough revenue to stave off the wrath of Fagan.

The fact is, though, that so many people are out begging that one with limited resources himself can only give out so many coins and then he must stop or he will have no more coins for himself.

I have found this to be true in many American cities as well.

The bigger boy wanted me to photograph him with the puppy, but he did not want the little boy to be in the picture.

The little boy was determined to be in the picture.

I believe that I have also noted that in the short time that we were blessed to spend with Soundarya and Anil, who truly did not have that much themselves and would struggle with financial matters up until their deaths, on a number of times I saw one, the other, or both of them step quietly aside to give a coin to a beggar.

That's how my Sandy was - and her husband, too.

Generous people, both.

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From morning cradle board to evening cradle board - my day with Jobe, as seen in 23 images

Jobe in the morning.

Jobe at bedtime. 

Okay, I am going to try an experiment. I doubt that it will succeed very well, as similar experiments that I have done in the past have not, but I will give it a try, anyway. I prepared 23 images for today's post, but, as you can see, there are only two here - the very first image of the series and the very last.

All 23 are in the slideshow, so anyone who wants to see the entire presentation can. I am doing it this way because it is Sunday afternoon, Jobe is still here, his parents are here, his brother Kalib is here, Rex just arrived and Melanie and Charlie are apparently on their way.

So, every minute that I spend working on this blog is a minute that I spend away from my family on a Sunday afternoon when all but one of them are here.

Anyway, this is the basic story that unfolds in the pictures:

Jobe begins the day asleep, but I catch him just as he wakes in the Apache cradleboard - that his grandmother Rose made so lovingly for his Uncle Rex more than three decades ago down in White Mountain Apache country. Of course, Jobe has his own cradle-board, made with equal love by his Aunt LeeAnn just for him, but that board stayed at his home in Anchorage.

For the rest of this very sleepy day - for me, anyway, as I was dog-tired - he adores his grandpa and his grandpa adores him. No matter who he is with or what he is doing, the moment he lays his eyes upon his grandpa, he wants to be with his grandpa. This is true whether I have my camera or not. It's just that in the cases that I do have it, I took no pictures and so cannot show you proof.

When I leave the room, he cries. I cannot show you this, either, because I am out of the room and therefore cannot photograph what goes on inside. This is what Margie has reported to me and she is honest beyond all reason and logic.

At one point, we take a drive. I stop by the Little Su for a self-portrait of Jobe and me - one of three self-portraits of the two of us in the series.

In the evening, I catch him and Caleb on the couch. Caleb is playing war games on the internet with friends from all over. Some of them lose control and swear and cuss and we can hear it when they do. 

Caleb has a picture of an angry Geronimo on his t-shirt and Jobe looks sweet. This, of course, makes me think of what a hard world this sweet baby has been brought into. I wonder what hardships and battles he might face in the future.

To Jobe, although he does not yet know it, Geronimo is not just abstract figure to romanticize, Geronimo is a part of his direct heritage. I am not saying that he has any Geronimo blood in him - it is possible, I don't know - but I am certain that his direct ancestors and Geronimo knew each other. 

Before we moved to Alaska, we lived nine miles from a cave that Geronimo used to hide out from the Army in. The story is much more complicated than just about anyone knows, but m

y friend, Dustinn Craig, son of Vincent Craig, is working on a film that will tell that story. It is a big challenge for him and a hard story to tell because it is one where the US managed to pit Apache against Apache and a truthful telling of the story will cause pain to many. All this may have happened 150 years ago, but in the country where it happened and among the people that it happened to, the wounds remain fresh and deep.

I believe Dustinn is up to the challenge, though. I am glad that this film is being made by an Apache/Navajo filmmaker, one with both talent, curiosity and integrity.

The final three pictures in the series were taken with my iPhone, so that I could text them to Lavina so she and Jake would know that their baby was warm, safe and loved.

View of the full 23 image slideshow of my sleepy Saturday spent with Jobe

Kivgiq, 2011, part 6, day 2a: My Kivgiq work gets interrupted by family and love

Earlier today, I was busily editing day 2 of Kivgiq and I kept seeing the words, "Family" and "love," - just like you see them here, behind the Kaktovik drummers.

There was evidence of "family" and "love" all around - sometimes mixed with a bit of mischief, such as when little Jessie James Bodfish Panik of Wainwright boy went running across the dance stage with a drum stick.

Of course, today when I would look at such pictures, I would think of my own family, especially my own small grandsons, Kalib and Jobe.

I have pretty much been alone all week. On Monday, we got a call from Jacob. Lavina was not feeling well and needed help with the little ones. So Monday afternoon - our anniversary - I drove Margie into town, dropped her off to help with Kalib and Jobe and then turned right around and drove back home to Wasilla.

In the time since, except for momentarily glimpses of Caleb just before he goes to bed after working his night shift, I have been all alone.

It doesn't bother me to be alone, not when I have all these pictures to sort through and edit. I can just go and go and go without interruption and so I do.

Perhaps too much. Without Margie here to rein me in a bit, I tend not to stop, but to keep going when I should give up and go to bed. I posted last night's blog at 2:04 AM, for example, then stayed right here, at this computer and dabbled with other things until about 4:00 AM.

I did not expect to see Margie until this evening, but, right after lunch, I heard a knock upon my office door. Guess who was here?

This guy, Jobe! Lavina was feeling much better and had driven Margie home.

I'm afraid my work fell apart after that. My picture editing slowed down to almost nothing.

I accomplished very little workwise, but accomplished a bit more "family" and "love" wise.

Kalib came, too, but he had fallen asleep in the car and never woke up. Lavina soon left, taking the sleeping Kalib with her. She left Jobe to spend all or part of the weekend with us - depending on how lonely she gets without him.

And I discovered something else late this afternoon. Monday is a holiday. That makes this a three-day weekend. My readership tends to drop off on weekends - especially three day weekends.

And the truth is, I am very tired. "Exhausted" would be a better word. I pushed myself hard day and night during Kivgiq and I have done the same since my return.

So I decided to take it a little easy this weekend - to get some visiting done with Jobe. I will keep editing my Kivgiq pictures, but I will hold my further Kivgiq posts until the weekend has passed. By then, maybe I will have a better handle on the material that I have.

I will still make little posts through the weekend - maybe on Jobe, or whatever. 

Then, on Tuesday, I will resume my Kivgiq posts. I am not covering a news story anymore anyway. I am now putting out a record of a historical event - but one that I want to share the pictures from, particularly with my friends on the Arctic Slope but also with anyone else who is interested. It's going to take more time than I originally anticiapated, but that's okay.

Maybe I will find some time this weekend to hang out with moose. I found this mom and her two nearly grown calves as I was driving home from my coffee break.

View images as slide show