From a boat off Point Hope, a little less than one month ago

Finally, I did run all the pictures from my last trip to the Arctic into my Lightroom editor and began to prepare the series of pictures that I was unable to post while I was traveling. There are many pictures in that take to sort through and I also have a major project that I must get proof ready in less than two weeks, so I gave myself just two hours to do a bit of editing.

When I started, I decided that whereever I was at in the editing process, I would stop right there once I had been at it for two hours. This is the photo I reached, right at the two-hour mark. I took it in the umiak of Rex Rock, Sr.

Tomorrow morning, I will continue the editing process for one to two more hours and then I will stop again, so that I can get back to my project. Probably by sometime this weekend or maybe Monday I can actually start posting the series.

Mormon missionaries ride bicycles

Two Mormon missionaries with their bicycles, spotted as I crossed through the intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla and Glenn Highways in Palmer. Other than what you see in the picture, I know nothing of them, yet I know them very well - better even than they do.

A former Mormon missionary shadow biking down Seldon Street in Wasilla. I know all about him, yet he is an enigma to me. I may never understand him at all.

Now... I must apologize. I have spent the past five or six hours dealing with one of those things that a man who is not a businessman yet is in business for himself must sometimes deal with, just like a real businessmen must - one of those things that he thinks he can do in half-an-hour and if he was a real business man could probably do in three sentences to his secretary, who would then take care of it in 15 minutes. The businessman who is is not a business man then winds up spending half a day and nearly $2000 to get done, an expense which will liklely yield him nothing and the particulars of which he does not understand at all but if he wants to stay in business he has to take the time and he has to spend the money.

So I am left with time to begin my long delayed Arctic series and it will have to start tomorrow.

Actually, the best thing to do would be to hold it for the online magazine I plan to start and not even worry about it all for now, but I promised that I would do it and there are people who have let me know they want to see it, so I will do it.

Hopefully, beginning tomorrow.

Now I must get back to work.

Except the sun is shining. It is wonderfully warm and I do not want to be inside at all.

View images as slides

In honor of Dr. Walter Soboleff, who has left after more than 102 years amongst us

Yesterday afternoon I learned that Dr. Walter Soboleff had passed away in Juneau Sunday at the age of 102. So I have postponed for tomorrow what I had planned for today in order to dedicate this post solely to his memory and honor.

I am not going to write much about him right now, save to say that he was truly one of the most honorable, decent, and gentle men that I have ever met and that he was a truly a giant in shaping those parts of modern-day Alaska that are good. It did not matter if one was Native, white, black, Asian or other - in the presence of Dr. Walter Soboleff, one felt only love and warmth - and this was true even if what Dr. Soboleff was doing was fighting for Native rights.

I know, because I personally felt that warmth and love and I could see that all who came into his presence also felt it.

As a member of Yeil (Raven) moiety, L'eeneido (Dog Salmon) clan, he loved, respected, protected and advanced his Tlingit way of life and culture, but embraced that which he found good in all cultures. He became a Presbyterian minister at a time when segregation was strong in Alaska and church congregations were divided by race - white only, Native only...

Yet, he invited anyone of any race to join his congregation and so created the first integrated congregation in Alaska.

He was a leader in the Alaska Native Brotherhood and in anything related to the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures and happenings of Southeast Alaska. He was a chaplain in the Alaska Army National Guard, from which he retired after 20 years as a lieutenant colonel. In 1989, he was named AFN citizen of the year.

I cannot recall exactly in what year, but just as I had the recent honor to cover Katie John receiving her honorary Doctor's Degree from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, so too was I able to cover Dr. Soboleff when UAF bestowed the same honor upon him and Dr. Kenneth Toovak of Barrow. Even before that, in 1968, he had received an honorary doctorate of humanities from the University of Alaska and in 1952 an honorary doctorate of divinity from the University of Dubuque, where he had earned his bachelor's degree in 1933.

Once, before that time, I received a letter from Dr. Soboleff out of the clear blue. It had been years since I had spoken with him, yet something prompted him to write to me to tell me that he appreciated my work and to encourage me to keep it up.

I know this sounds a bit like I am boasting, but to receive that letter from this man for no other reason than that one day he decided to write it touched me deeply and indeed it did encourage me and continues to to this day.

I took the above photo at Celebration 2004 in Juneau, as Dr. Soboleff took his place for a panoramic photo of all the dancers and singers present. At that time, he was a young 96 years old.

Thank you, Dr. Soboleff and to your family, my condolences. What a privilege it must have been for you to have been raised and shaped by this wonderful man. Thank you for sharing him with so many.

Kalib flicks dirt into Melanie's face - is he outgrowing the spatula phase? Branson graduates; Margie goes and I am left alone again

Melanie showed up late in the afternoon and gave Jim a pet as Kalib slyly observed.

This is the shoe Melanie wore on her left foot. The one she wore on her right foot looks pretty much the same, except that the toe tapers in the opposite direction.

When next I observed Melanie and Kalib, they had moved to the front yard. Kalib was busy observing something himself. What could it be?

It was ants. Fat, black, ants.

Not long afterward, I found them back in the back yard, a bit beyond the spot where Margie had placed the dinosaur boots that Kalib had muddied in the swamp the day before out to air dry after she had cleaned them.

But what are Kalib and Melanie up to in the background?

And what is that in Kalib's hands?

Oh - the thing that Kalib holds is a weed plucking tool. And right there in front of him is a dandelion, yet to bloom. Melanie is helping him shove the weed plucker beneath the dandelion so that he can yank it right out of the ground by the root.

Kalib yanks the dandelion from the earth and sends it and dirt flying straight into his Aunt Melanie. This turned into a big game - one that the two repeated time and time again, until all the new dandelion plants had been rooted out.

Even so, those dandelions will pop right back up again.

I view Kalib plucking out a dandelion from another angle.

Dandelion and dirt come flying right toward me.

As usual, Kalib brought his spatula to the house with him - but not once did I see him carry it or play with it. I only saw it sitting here, atop the classifieds on the coffee table.

Margie says she saw him play with it. She said he used to flip junk mail like pancakes. There, lying on the floor, you can see one of the pieces of junk mail that Margie saw Kalib flip.

Still, he basically left it alone.

It makes me wonder if he is outgrowing his spatula phase?

If so, the thought makes me a little sad.

It has to happen, sooner or later, though.

Later would be okay with me.

The original plan had been that Jacob, Lavina and Jobe would come out and pick Kalib up Sunday afternoon. Instead, Lavina called to say that Jobe was still sick and to ask if, instead, we could bring Kalib home and then leave Margie there to babysit Jobe for a day or two or a week or however long it would take until he was well enough to return to daycare.

Since Melanie had come, she drove Margie and Kalib back to town with her.

And once again, after just three days and nights together with Margie, I am left alone with the cats. Caleb is here, of course, but he works all night and sleeps all day, except for when he goes out to hit golf balls.

Now I back up to an earlier point in the day:

Branson Starheim, of Metro Cafe, just graduated from kindergarten Thursday night. I promised Carmen that if she brought him and his diploma to Metro Cafe I would take a photograph to commemorate this landmark achievement.

So she did and I took a pretty standard study of Branson and Carmen, posing with the diploma as Branson sat on his bike, but afterward I took this one of Carmen helping Branson don his crash helmet and I like it better.

Following the diploma photo session, Branson, the graduate, zooms past me on his bike. Branson calls me, "Uncle Bill."

Now - about that delayed Arctic Series that I had promised to run this week: I am going to! Starting tomorrow. It's just that I did not know that Kalib was going to spend the weekend with us. He did, and I had to post a few pics  for all of his many fans from Alaska to Arizona to India to see.

View images as slides

Kalib gets his shoe stuck in the mud; straight "A" college student

Once again, Jobe had been feeling under the weather with his respiratory infection, so Margie and I went into town, picked Kalib up and brought him home to spend the weekend with us in order to make it easier for his parents to care for Jobe and do all they needed to do.

After he got up in the morning, Kalib laid lazily back down upon the couch.

He didn't stay lazy for long, though. Soon he was out in the backyard, gathering golf balls.

He knew just what to do with them.

Then he wandered down to the back part of the back yard.

Kalib, at the edge of the woods.

Soon, he wandered off into the trees. I wanted to follow, but I had let Jim out. I needed to keep my eye on Jim.

So Margie went off into the woods with Kalib while I kept my eye on Jim. Jim had not been out the whole time that I had been traveling, as he only goes out when I can watch him and make certain that he does not wander off and get eaten or run over.

It drove me a little nuts, though. 

I wanted to see what Kalib and his grandma were up to.

Finally, I got Caleb to take Jimmy into the house and I went off to find Kalib and Grandma. I found them returning from whatever adventure they had been on.

Then Kalib turned around and took off back in the direction from whence they had appeared. Margie followed. I followed, too.

Kalib left our property altogether and went out into what we still call "the swamp," or "the marsh." Dodd Shay, the friendly property owner, does not like me to call it "swamp" or "marsh."

"Meadow," he insists. "It's a meadow."

Perhaps he is right now. But for the first 10 or 15 years that we lived here, it was a swamp. If Kalib had been where he is in this picture, he would have been emerged in water to his hips - especially this time of year, when the snows have been melting.

Still, the swamp is not completely dry. A bit of water and a bit of muck still remains out there. Kalib scurried off to this four wheeler track, left by vandals who ignored all of Shay's signs telling them to keep their machines out of the meadow because machines damage it.

It looked to me like Kalib had stuck his foot into mud. "Kalib," his grandma and I both shouted out to him. "Don't put your foot in the mud! Take your foot out of the mud."

He just stood there, keeping his foot in the mud, smiling mischievously at us.

Finally, he pulled his foot out of the mud. We called him to come to us, but he would not. He just stood there with a troubled expression on his face.

No matter how much we called, he would not budge.

Finally, I walked to him. When I saw that he now wore only one of his little dinosaur boots, I understood the troubled expression. Look to the right of the frame. There you will see the little dinosaur boot that goes on his left foot - stuck in the mud.

His grandma came, pulled the boot out of the mud and helped him back into it.

Kalib did not want to walk in his mud-filled boot. He wanted to be carried. I offered to carry him, but he would not let me. Only grandma would do. Kalib is grandma's boy.

Then he got down and walked.

How did he get his knees so muddy?

Come night, Kalib and his grandma sat on the couch and reminisced about the day's grand adventure. They watched movies with Uncle Caleb.

A little after 10 PM, Kalib fell sound asleep in his grandma's embrace.

Yes, Kalib is Grandma's boy.

Grandpa then carried him into bed, tucked him in and there he slept for the next 11 hours.

Wow!

While I was traveling, Lisa completed all her class projects, took her finals and wound up with straight A's. It had been a very tough semester for her. She carried a full load, worked full time, and had to take on extra tasks such as dog sitting to make ends meet.

Once, we found her in tears and tried to give her some money to make it a little easier, but she would not take that money. She wanted to do it on her own and she did.

Right after she graduated from high school, Lisa went excitedly off to college in Durango, Colorado, but the year proved disastrous for her. She had an alcoholic roommate and she grew so homesick that when the year ended, she came home and dropped out of college.

But now she knows that college is something she needs to complete to go where she wants to go.

We are very proud of her.

View images as slide show