Kalib grows ever more articulate. In the evening, I point my camera towards him and he suddenly shouts, "Cheese!" Another new word in his limited but growing vocabulary! But where did he pick it up from? I never tell anyone to say "cheese." To do so would be to violate my photographic technique.

It must have happened at day care. At day care, he gets his picture taken every day for the class e-newsletter. The picture taker must have told him to say, "cheese!"

Kalib and Royce.

Kalib agains becomes aware that I am taking his picture. "Cheese!" he shouts.

The love between these two is something to behold.

"Cheese!" 

I should note that Grahamn Kracker, the blogger who lives in a parallel universe to mine, got quite upset with me when he learned that I was going to post this series of photos. To somewhat placate him, I agreed not to run the entire series, but would let him do so.

If you like cats, you might as well hop on over and take a look. If you don't like cats, then this is probably enough for you - perhaps too much.

Around here, we like cats.

As I ate a hot dog in the parking lot near KFC, I saw a trio of school buses - all orange, just like Royce - coming down the road. I was pretty certain that nobody would believe that I had witnessed such an amazing event, so I took pictures of each as they passed by.

This is the first one - School Bus # 241212.

If you could see the picture full size, the number is clearly visible, a short distance above the left headlight.

School bus #246512.

School bus # 230456. A tiny one! Just cute!

As I near home, I spot another school bus. I cannot see it's number. Still, I would say it was a pretty amazing coincidence.

Or... perhaps... just perhaps... it was not coincidence at all?

An orange dog. This is just altogether too much orange for one day! 

I can't deal with it. I guess I had better eat some yams, and pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving, thankful people.

Kenneth Toovak died last week at the age of 86. I had not known that he had fallen ill and was greatly saddened to learn of his death. I am told that he was in the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, but that he was going to be released and allowed to return to Barrow. He was excited about that, I am told, and was looking forward to being home for the Thanksgiving feast, which, in Barrow, means something a bit different than it does elsewhere.

I remember the first Barrow Thanksgiving feast that I attended. I journeyed through the dark day and the deeply sub-zero air to the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church, which was packed with people. Kenneth spotted me right after I entered the door and invited me to come and sit with him. I did - although I jumped up and down quite a bit to take pictures.

The feast began when servers holding a variety of dishes from duck and caribou soup to frozen fish, Eskimo donuts and the various parts of the bowhead whale, stood in front of the late Reverend Samuel Simmonds (seen on the wall behind Kenneth - just below Jesus at The Last Supper), who asked the Lord to bless it all.

The soups were served first and then the feast progressed through the other dishes into the whale. At first, I tried to eat everything that was given to me, but the servings just kept coming and coming and, after I had gorged on a few days worth of food, Kenneth gave me some large, freezer bags to put my extra maktak and quak in to take home and eat later.

Kenneth invited me to come over to his house later to dine on turkey. I was too stuffed to eat one more bite. I went back to the place where I stayed, flopped down on the bed and fell fast asleep until late that night - because that is what Eskimo food consumed in large quantities and dipped in seal oil will do to you.

Now, this year, he had been eager to return home in time for the feast. Yet, I am told, he passed away later the same evening that he had planned to leave the hospital.

What I always liked best about the picture above is that it is actually two of my pictures, as I had taken the one of him in the baseball cap several years earlier.

Kenneth always spoke in a big, booming voice in which I never heard anything but warmth and friendliness. He was quick to laugh and always had a cup of coffee waiting, and a good meal, too.

And sometimes, he took me to dinner in restaurants, such as Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant in Barrow and Sophie's Station in Fairbanks.

This photo is one of several that hang as large portraits in the atrium of the Iñupiat Cultural Center in Barrow, all of which I originally shot for an issue of Uiñiq magazine that I dedicated to the Iñupiat Elders of that city.

Almost all those pictured in that atrium are now buried in the permafrost. I always love to go back to Barrow, but is also becoming a hard thing, because always, when I arrive, more and more of the familiar faces and voices that came to define America's farthest north city for me can no longer be seen or heard.

This is the Sophie's Station that I refer to. The day is May 10, 2003, and all those people gathered around Kenneth are scientists - Arctic Scientists, people who have studied the creatures and environment of the Arctic. These scientists have accomplished many things over the decades since World War II and have greatly increased scientific knowledge about the Arctic.

The reason that they came to Fairbanks this day was to pay honor to Kenneth, who was about to receive an honorary PhD from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, for his contributions to Arctic Science. What they have accomplished would not have been possible without the work of Kenneth, and other Iñupiats.

Kenneth was there from the very beginning of the modern Arctic Science movement in Alaska. He employed his knowledge of the Arctic to enable the scientists to survive in an environment that will quickly kill the unsavvy. They relied on his powers of observation to enhance their own skills, for he could look at the ice and the sea and see things that neither they nor their instruments could detect.

When they built the Naval Arctic Science Laboratory, just north of the city of Barrow, they relied on Kenneth's knowledge of the permafrost, carpentry skills and Arctic constructions to help them design a building that would stand up to the harsh conditions that would batter it. 

And stand up it did. Over 50 years later, NARL, now the main campus of Ilisagvik College, remains one of the most solid and useful buildings ever built in the Arctic.

I myself once kept an office and darkroom there.

At the time Kenneth received his PhD, I had no Uiñiq in the works and no place to run this series of pictures, so I gave him a disk. Beyond that, this is the first showing of most of these images.

As for the little stories from Kenneth's life that follow, they come from the Uiñiq that I published in the summer of 1996.

The scientists gathered around him above include John Kelley, Dave Norton, a gentleman whose name I do not know and Glenn Sheehan.

At a separate ceremony prior to commencement hosted by Alaska Native students at the MacLean House, John Schindler makes a joke about Toovak's mustache.

Kenneth Toovak - A Short Bio

Kenneth Toovak, Sr. - Utuayuk - was born in Barrow, April 19, 1923, to Timothy (Quilluq) and Ethel (Agnik) Toovak.

“The earliest that I can remember we didn’t have too much American food, for one thing. A bit of sugar, tea, coffee and flour, that’s all. We had the kerosene for the lantern and fuel. I remember we used to have lots of snowdrifts right in between the houses and the whole town is always kind of black, because of the smoke due to the heating of homes.”

Besides being a hunter, Toovak held many jobs. He worked for contractors exploring for oil on behalf of the Navy and in the construction of the Distant Early Warning station built by the Air Force to detect incoming Soviet missiles and aircraft, NARL and apartment complexes in Barrow. He was an original founder of the Barrow Volunteer Search and Rescue and the North Slope Borough Search and Rescue. He served the Mayor as Borough Safety Officer. He often volunteered his time to meet with students in the Barrow schools.

Toovak married Thelma Stine and they had 11 children, seven of whom are living.

“We were married September 16, 1940. My wife died on September 16, 1995. That’s where we’re at right now. It’s kind of hard, you know. It’s a good thing I have made a lot of friends who are good people. I felt great for them, deep in my heart – I appreciate what they did for me when I lost my wife. I didn’t know I made that many friends. 

“I want to thank everyone of you that read the article. Thank you all from Kenneth Toovak.”

John Schindler, John Kelly and Max Brewer presented Toovak a print of a bowhead whale.

Kenneth Toovak Recites the Pledge

“When I finally decided to go to school, I was living in Browerville, (a Barrow subdivision) ” Kenneth recalled. “I walk to school in the morning, even through bad weather conditions. I have no excuse. I walk to school in the morning, walk home for lunch, walk back to school and then back home when class is over.

“I enjoyed being in school. The teachers were pretty generous. Our prinicipal always had a word of prayer before we go into the classrooms. That was great. I never forget that.

“Today, when I hear there’s some kind of problems in school, I always wonder on this lack of prayer in school. It always makes my feeling kind of low. I feel sorry for my government – why does it make a rule students shouldn’t have prayer?

“This is what I wonder about.”

Kenneth Toovak dances Iñupiat style with granddaughters Cassie (left) and Thelma (photos of both hang on the wall behind Kenneth in the opening image).

Kenneth Toovak Gets a Wife and Then Finds Rocks On The Ice

“I was a hunter when I was young,” stated Kenneth Toovak. “Whenever the weather was decent, I just had to go out and hunt. I was supporting my parents.” As world War II came to an end, Ned Nusunginya asked Toovak to take on a regular job, to work for a contractor hired by the Navy to explore for oil.

“I told him I don’t care about work, so I didn’t go to work when I was asked. This was 1945. Then, in 1946, I got myself a wife. Boy! It didn’t take too much time before I knew I should go to work. When I get a wife, I get that understanding real fast!”

Toovak helped in the exploration for oil and in the construction of the Dewline sites. In 1957,  NARL head Max Brewer asked him to come to work full time, to assist in the scientific research of the Arctic.

In May of 1961, Toovak and Brewer flew far out over the ocean in a Cessna 180 in search of an ice floe on which to establish a research camp. “We go out about 110 miles. We see a lot of black spots on the ice below.” They called the pilot of a second 180, who radioed back that he saw the spots, too. “We land on one end of the ice floe, the other 180 lands on the other end.

“So we walked for awhile. We walked to that pile of rocks. Boy! It was a strange feeling, finding rocks on the ice!”

They scouted the entire floe, which was two miles wide and three miles long, and found a stretch of ice where a Douglas DC-3 on skis could land. Here, they made a research camp. Oceanographers, geologists, biologists and other scientists came to stay at the camp, which became known as Arliss Two.

Over the years, Arliss Two drifted about the Arctic Ocean. Eventually, it drifted so far from Barrow and so close to Greenland that it had to be supplied from Thule, Greenland. “People tell me that camp drifted around behind Greenland and melted. What a strange feeling it was to me, to find those rocks on that floe.”

Kenneth Toovak with Dave Norton and Glenn Shehaan.

Kenneth Toovak Survives an Airplane Crash

On a dark winter day, Max Brewer sent Kenneth Toovak out to an ice island to do some welding on a broken wench. Toovak traveled on a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Strapped in the fuselage behind him, the pilot and co-pilot, was about 100 drums of fuel. The pilot missed his initial approach to the ice runway.

"I notice the plane didn't land, it goes back up in the air. Then I notice we approach the runway from the other direction. Then the C-130 touches the ice. As soon as it touches, he reverses his engines. We rise up high, bounce, then come down, hit hard. I notice there is a crack in the ceiling.

"We slide a bit, bounce up again, hit hard. Boy, that's the time we got real problems! The three of us are seated right in front of those drums. I notice the ceiling is really cracking; there is smoke in the ceiling. Then we hit a third time. I see through the window, the engine is on fire. The propeller is missing. I see the wing collapsed down. We slide for a bit and boy, we make a hard hit! We slide to the berm of the runway. We come to a stop.

"One of the crew opened the escape door. Boy! I was the first one to get off the aircraft, full blast! I have to run from the aircraft. I know the other two are right behind me. We hear it burning, we fear it might explode."

The crew snuffed the fire with extinguishers, then radioed NARL. "Boy, we were in kind of a sad situation that evening," Toovak says. 

There were no aircraft available to come and pick up the stranded travelers. After several days, a de Havilland Twin Otter flew in from Resolute, in Canada's High Arctic. Toovak was flown to Resolute, then to Inuvik, NWT, and from there to Barrow. 

"It was nine hours flying. I felt good when I got to Barrow. I felt that I was lucky to be alive."

John Schindler, Kenneth Toovak and Max Brewer (If you look closely, you can see both men in the photos hanging on the wall behind Kenneth in the opening image).

Kenneth Toovak Saves An Airplane

After the US Air Force abandoned a research station built on an ice island that had become stuck 87 miles north of Wainwright, Max Brewer decided to send Kenneth Toovak out to see if NARL could make use of it.

Toovak was flown to the island, where he found an abandoned DC-3 airplane. The sun had melted all the ice around the plane, except for a pillar about 15 feet high directly beneath the airplane where shade from the fuselage and wings had protected it.

It stood there, eery and silent, like a giant model on a pedestal.

Several abandoned buildings – shops, lodging, cook houses, etc., were also suspended on pedestals rising high above the surrounding ice.

NARL took over the base. Toovak was given the job of bringing the buildings down by Cat and setting them up on flat ice.

In a later year in May, a DC-3 landing on Arliss Two was blown off the runway into a pool of melt-water. Except for a bent propeller, it survived the mishap intact. Toovak was sent out to figure out a way to recover the plane.

“There was nothing to pull up the DC-3,” he recalled. “I thought maybe we could pull it up like a whale.”

Toovak secured two sets of block and tackle and anchored them in the ice - just the way hunters about to pull up a whale would do. He and another dozen workers tried to pull up the DC-3, but could not.

Not to be outwitted by an airplane, Toovak decided to attach the block and tackle to one landing gear at a time. The workers would then pull one gear up a bit, chop a hole at the wheel to prevent it from sliding back, then do the same to the other gear. They would zig-zag the airplane back and forth and up out of the water onto the landing strip.

Four hours after Toovak thought of this, the DC-3 was sitting on the landing strip.

Before the ceremony begins, Toovak visits with Dr. Walter Soboleff, Tlingit, who will be delivering a commencement address. (Soboleff turned 101 earlier this month and was included in my recent AFN series. One day, I will devote a post exclusively to him - I hope during his life time.)

Kenneth is prepared for the graduation ceremonies.

Barrow's Suurimmaanichuat Dancers enter the hall for commencement. They drum not only for Kenneth, but for all those UAF students about to graduate. 

Then UAF Chancellor Marshall L. Lind and another scholar drape Kenneth's shoulders with the sash that will identify him as as an honorary PhD.

Dr. Kenneth Toovak.

Dr. Kenneth Toovak, in the midst of his fellow PhD's. Ever since they became aware of the western concept of higher education, the Iñupiat have maintained that their knowledgeable elders and hunters are the intellectual equivalent of PhD's.

The scientists that I know who have worked closely with such Iñupiat do agree - and so does UAF.

Other traditional Iñupiat scholars who have received honorary PhD's from UAF include the late Dr. Sadie Neakok, the late Dr. Harry Brower, Sr. and the late Dr. Harold Kaveolook.

After being congratulated by granddaughter Thelma, Kenneth touches the head of his great-grandchild.

Kenneth Toovak receives a congratulatory hug.

One day last May, as I walked down a Barrow road, a vehicle pulled up alongside me and stopped. It was Kenneth Toovak. Whenever I go to Barrow, sooner or later, this always happens. Or so it has in the past.

His funeral service will be held Saturday. I have not yet seen an announcement with the time and place, but where else could it be, but at the Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church? And if you are in Barrow on that day, you will know what time. 

My condolences to all the family and friends. God bless you all and thank you for sharing this wonderful man with the world, and with me.

That's Boston down there, over six years ago - May 12, 2003. I had no intention of posting this in today's blog, or any day's blog. In fact, I had forgotten I had ever taken such a picture, until today, when I stumbled across this while looking for something else. 

This is not what I was looking for, but I did at least remember taking this picture, shortly after the above airplane landed in Boston, MA.

I was on my way to Washington, DC, and was slightly surprised to bump into Joe, who was going there, too -Joe Lieberman, who was then the Democratic Senator from Connecticut. He's still the Senator from Connecticut but I am not quite sure what he is.

At that time, he was running for Vice-President with John Kerry and we thought he was a Democrat.

I was independent of all political parties, but knew that I would be voting for Kerry and Lieberman.

Lieberman was friendly and personal and we had a nice little chat.

I wish that I could have another chat with him now, so that I could tell him how how my health insurance company has failed me, how it has proven to be an obstacle to my health care rather than a benefit.

I would ask him why he stands up for them and against me and my health.

After we finished our visit, these two ladies came along. They got pretty excited. "Look!" one of them said to the other. "That's Joe Lieberman! He's going to be President of the United States."

Now, I come back to the present - or at least, to one-half hour ago, when Kalib came into my office to feed my fish.

It's only one picture, but I hope it makes you smile, Mary.

Earlier in the day, a little after noon, as I drove down Seldon with Margie, I saw a man walking.

And later I saw these horses, all of whom were upright and honest individuals of great character, living together in a community of peace, love and harmony, where everyone shares their hay equally. Yet, the picture is exceptionally deceiving, for it was very nearly dark when I took it. The snow was dim to look at and the horses were mere forms against it.

But, to see what would happen, in Lightroom, I hit the auto-adjust. It brightened up, but in a strange metallic, blue, hue. I color-balanced it a bit and this is how it turned out.

It is a lie, honestly told.

This is the original exposure and is pretty close to how the scene actually appeared, except that this might be a little lighter than it looked to the eye. Pretty close, though.

When you enter Ronnie's Sushi house in Anchorage, there is a tank full of live fish close to the door.

The girl on the left - Lisa - she is the reason we gathered here. It was her 24th birthday party. H'mmm? Did I just call her a girl? Twenty-four. That must mean she is a woman - a full-fledged, beautiful, talented, woman. But she is my little girl. She will always be my little girl. My little baby girl.

Behind her, you can barely see the forehead of her boyfriend, Bryce. Bryce's parents, Brian and Lorena, came, too, as did his little nephew, Logan.

Lisa, as photographed through my glass of water.

Margie, as photographed through my glass of water.

You will remember Ryan from Rex's birthday party. This is he and his girlfriend, Jessica, as seen through my water glass. I photographed everybody this way, including myself, and I was going to post them all, but this is enough. You get the idea.

Lisa's boyfriend, Bryce, bought this sushi boat. Margie tried to pay for it, but he got to the counter first. So Margie was going to pay for everything else - and there was quite a bit else - but Charlie beat her to it.

Well, if Charlie is going to pay for a huge portion of the dinner, then surely he should be seen through my water glass, too. Here he is. This is Charlie. It's not Dan, it's not Robert, it's not Michelle. 

It's Charlie.

He is a mighty generous and thoughtful man and he lives with a great black cat named Pizzles that Melanie rescued a few years back.

Kalib told a funny joke and everyone at that end of the table laughed. I would share the joke with you, but it was rather ribald, so I had better not.

Bryce's parents gave Lisa this Chicago Cubs hat as a birthday present.

I think that it was Jacob and Lavina who gave her this pair of shoes. I could be wrong. She got a variety of gifts and I cannot remember who gave her each one. I do know that Melanie gave her a table with a yellow top and Lisa was very pleased with it.

She and Bryce have been eating off the floor and were in need of a table.

I might exaggerate the circumstance just a little bit.

We then moved to Melanie's house for the cake and ice cream. Here is Diamond. Margie and I gave Lisa the mix-master, plus a spatula to go with it.

Jacob and Cassie.

Jessica, Kalib and Ryan.

Rex carries Lisa's birthday cake to her. Margie made the cake.

Lisa blows the candles out.

After she blows them out, the candles light right back up again. They are trick candles, that is why. Kalib is very amused by this unexpected turn of events.

It takes a great deal of blowing by multiple lungs, but, after a couple of hours, the candles had all been blown out. 

And there was a lot of spit on the frosting.

Kalib, who enjoyed his cake.

Melanie, Kalib and Rex dance.

I have a couple of friends in the hospital and I wanted to stop in and see them before we drove back to Wasilla, so Margie and I left a bit early. Kalib waves to his Grandma.

Let me note that there is a new pocket camera out now, called the G11. It is much better suited for low-light photography than is this G1O that I am using, and I have been tempted to buy it. I probably will. But right now, I hate to spend the $500.

My pro-cameras would produce much finer image quality, but I do not want to carry them to such a function. I want to carry only a pocket camera.

So I come knowing that the images will be noisy, grainy, with much motion blur, because I am shooting mostly at 1/30 and even 1/15 of a second. But I don't care. I know a lot of people do, but not me. As long as I can catch a bit of the feeling and emotion, then I am fine with the noise, the grain, and the blur.

Still, one day, in time for this year's tax returns, I will get that G11. 

I am pleased to report that, while she must suffer pain and discomfort for a couple of months, Kalib's Grandma Mary has already been discharged from the hospital and has returned home. She suffered a broken sternum and a broken rib, neither of which can be treated. It just takes time.

I've had a number of cracked or broken ribs in my day, and I can tell you, they can be mighty painful but there is nothing you can do but go about your life as best you can and try real hard at night to find a laying position that does not aggravate the situation.

I suspect that the problem is multiplied with a broken sternum.

As for the man who hit her, we have received no word as to whether or not he had been drinking, but he was reported to be driving down the highway at a high rate of speed, pulling a trailer, in and out of traffic as he was in a big hurry to get to wherever he was going before anyone else did.

The next morning, he was seen chopping firewood at his house.

At any rate, we are glad that no one was critically injured or killed and are greatly relieved that Grandma Mary is home with her family.

Lavina wants to take Kalib and go down to be with her for Thanksgiving, but, due to the expense and the short time that she would be able to stay, she will probably wait until she can go and stay longer.

I took the above picture of Mary dancing Apache style with Jacob at the celebration following his wedding to Lavina on March 18, 2006, in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Now for some random shots about Wasilla - the Talkeetna Mountains in my rearview mirror.

Breakfast at Family Restuarant.

I receive a dog biscuit at the drive-through window to Metro Cafe. The little boy is the son of Carmen and Scott, and he looks just like Scott. Carmen told me his name and I wrote it down in my brain, but now it has been erased.

I had no dog in car with me, but the little boy was anxious to give me a dog biscuit, anyway. So I told him about Muzzy and he gave me one.

Pioneer Peak and the Chugach Mountains, over the Lowe's parking lot. You can't see them from here, because Pioneer Peak blocks the view, but if my airplane still flew and I could put you in it, I would fly you through that little saddle to the right and then you would see that the mountains behind are considerably higher and more dramatic looking.

...just thought you should know.

Sparks flying from the ice-scraping blade of a snowplow as it rolls alongside Wasilla Lake.

Last night, for the first time in what seems like about 42 years, I took Margie to a movie in Eagle River, a little more than half-way to Anchorage and about 35 minutes away.

I had to get gas, first. As I was inserting my credit card, I heard a female voice say, "Hello. I don't know where to put the oil in. Where do I put the oil in."

I thought the voice was directed at me, but it was not. It was this lady and she was talking on her cell phone. I guess she got the info that she needed, because it sure looks like she's putting oil in her car now.

Grandma Mary still can use some good cheer, so I will close this entry with four shots of Kalib that I just took while out walking with him, his dad, Muzzy and my pocket camera. This is Kalib wearing his new snow suit.

He tries to ride Muzzy, but it doesn't work out so well. Muzzy complains and swears. "What the hell do you think I am, a camel?"

I wonder how Muzzy knows about camels?

Kalib treks across Little Lake through a four-wheeler circle.

He checks out the goose decoy.

It is a very nice, warm, day, with the temperature having risen into the mid-20's.

I just hope that's as far as it rises.

I don't trust these El Niño warm up periods.

There was a car crash on the Navajo reservation Friday and it left Kalib's other grandmother, Mary Fatt, badly injured. She had to be medivaced by helicopter ambulance from just outside of Shonto to Flagstaff. Just to set the record straight, because I know that among those who do not know Mary there will be some who will be wondering, yes, Grandmother Mary is a sober person and was driving sober. 

We do not yet know about the other driver, who apparently was not hurt, nor do we know the details of how the accident happened. Lavina and Jacob were in Anchorage until very late in the evening and out here, Margie and I spent several hours, worried, wondering.

I will not try to detail her injuries, but the last word that we received is that she is stable, her life no longer in danger.

I had taken a few pictures earlier in the day as I took my walk and then later after I drove off on a coffee break, but I decided instead to make a special post, just for Kalib's Grandmother Mary.

So, beginning fairly late in the evening, I shot this series of photos just for her.

I hope that she will be able to see them soon - like today, if Kalib's aunts who are with his grandmother can figure out a way to show her - if she is able to look.

If not, then she can enjoy them later.

Whenever she sees them, I know the face of Kalib will bring her cheer and cheer will help her heal.

Here, Kalib rinses a dish for his Grandma Margie.

He prepares to throw paper into the fire.

Kalib takes a bath, #1.

Kalib takes a bath, #2.

Kalib takes a bath, #3 - he watches the water go down the drain.

His mother dries him off and carries him out.

Mom sits down on the couch to finish the job. The TV is on.

Kalib gets pretty excited by something on the TV.

After he gets dressed in his pajamas, Kalib pays a visit to his Grandma Margie. She usually wears glasses that cover up the mole on her nose. With the glasses gone, Kalib finds the mole to be quite fascinating.

Kalib blows his nose.

Then he tries to blow his grandma's nose - with the same tissue!

Grandma puts her glasses on Kalib. Despite all the nose blowing, a little bit of snot trickles from his left nostril.

He draws, then tries to figure out Margie's crossword puzzle.

Mirror-view of Kalib working the crossword puzzle.

Kalib sees himself. Yes, our house is chaos. We are chaotic people, but, since I got hurt nearly a year-and-a-half ago, followed by Margie's two accidents, the chaos has intensified. We must live with it for awhile yet.

Kalib with pillow.

Kalib sees himself in the clock radio.

On this most difficult night, Kalib gives his mom a hug.

As Kalib's mom sends text messages to her sisters, his dad helps him into his bed. Kalib then turns around and pulls his hair.

Get well, Mary!

Many prayers for you.

As I took my walk today, I saw a snowplow coming down the road.

It zipped right past me.

It reached the end of the road, then turned around and came right back again, it's second blade grinding loudly against the pavement it scraped.

It zipped right past me all over again - talk about deja vu!

Here is Kalib, at the Post Office. I see that he has removed one shoe. That's the thing to do when the temperature outside is -5 F (-21C).

On the way home, we passed a postal worker distributing mail. Kalib did not witness this great event.

He had fallen asleep - that's why. I picked him up, carried him into the house and gave him to Margie, who put him into bed for his afternoon nap. 

As soon as he hit the mattress, he was wide awake. (I received a complaint from down in the Navajo Nation today: each of my last two posts contained only one photo each of Kalib. This was highly inadequate, I was informed. POST MORE PICTURES OF KALIB!!! I was chastised. Well, today there is three. I suppose three won't be enough, though.)

At 4:00 PM, I took my coffee break and drove past these kids, playing in the snow.

And here I am, in the drive-through at Metro Cafe, where some important business was being conducted.

As should be clear to all readers, here in Wasilla, the excitement never ends.

You won't find anything like this in "Going Rogue," but you will find it right here, on this blog.

No, you haven't accidently logged on to yesterday's entry. It's just that today's begins just as did yesterday's. Once again, Kalib was ill and had to stay home from daycare. Once again, despite having worked all night, his Uncle Caleb devoted himself to his care and entertainment.

Lately, I have been working on a story about the role of Iñupiat uncles play in teaching hunting skills to their nephews. This is because a father can be so overprotective of his own children out in the dangerous Arctic environment that he can fail to teach him what they need to know to survive.

So I thought about that. In both the Apache and Navajo cultures from which Kalib hails, the uncle also traditionally plays a teaching role that the father does not, and for similar reasons.

But I tell you - no one is more protective of Kalib than his Uncle Caleb. I have never seen a relationship quite like the one these two share. Kalib and Caleb - what a bond they share!

I wish I had had such an uncle.

Four dogs that I saw as I took my walk. It was warmer today - just a few degrees below zero at this point. And snow is forecast sometime within the next couple of days, so it will get warmer yet.

I just hope that none of those "Pineapple Express" storms blows in from the South Pacific. They make a mess of everything and just ruin winter.

But it is an El Niño winter, and these are the winters that the Pineapple Express gets completely out-of-hand, so it is inevitable. Just watch.

And whenever it gets really warm up here, it gets cold down in the Lower 48. You will see.

I used to park my airplane right about there, where this playground sits in Wasilla's downtown park. Yes, this used to be Wasilla's airport and the Iditarod Sled Dog race would start right here. It was a terrible place for an airport, though, as Wasilla Middle School and High School both sat under the flight pattern.

During take offs and landings, I would see the buildings and kids outside, beneath my spinning prop, doing PE, practicing football and such. It seemed to me that it was just a matter of time until an airplane went down there.

In fact, one day, a Super Cub did, crashing not far from my son, Jacob, who was a middle school student at the time. Fortunately, nobody was hurt except for the pilot. He was hurt pretty bad, but he survived.

Somewhere in my files, I have a picture of that crashed airplane.

Today, I passed by on my coffee break. I took it early, at 3:00 instead of 4:00, because I could hardly stay awake.

Again, I took the long way home and saw this horse. "Hey Bill! Come ride me!" it neighed out as I drove by. I ignored the invitation.

Someone might have thought I was a horse thief and shot me, or lassoed me and then hung me on the spot. That's what they do to horse thiefs, you know.

I think that horse was trying to trick me, to get me in trouble. Look closely at it. You can see that it is a very mischievous horse.

A short distance later, I saw this guy pedaling his bike. All that conditioning I did pedaling my bike is gone now! I missed five days in a row during AFN and then two days after that, my back tire went flat and I still haven't fixed it.

And whenever I ride a bike in the winter, sooner or later it slips on the ice and slides out from underneath me and I go down. This was not so bad in the past, but now that I have broken my shoulder and have this titanium one, I really don't want to fall.

I'm going to get my cross country skis out real soon, though.

I don't want to fall on them, either. But I will. But I will have snow beneath me. I think I will be ok.

After the bike, I saw a school bus.

I am now nearing home. It is 4:00 PM. The sun has gone down. Alpenglow lights up the Talkeetna Mountains.

Today, in Barrow, the sun rose in the south, then set in the south an hour later. On the 19th, the Barrow sun will come up for just half-an-hour, will go down and then won't rise again until January 23.

I will get there sometime between now and then and I will show you the dark noon.

Of course, if you are already there in Barrow, or anywhere on the Arctic Slope, as many of you, my friends are, this won't be anything new at all.

I am just about home now. Look how much traffic rolls down Seldon! I wonder why?

I have been very lazy and have yet to dig up any of my winter clothes - if everything hasn't disappeared - or buy new clothing if it has. I was desperate to go on a walk this morning, but with the temperature at -22 (-30 c), I needed some kind of protection. 

So I put on an extra sweatshirt, two light jackets and pulled a thin pair of pajama-like cotton pants over my Levi's. In and of themselves, they would not trap much heat, but I reasoned that they would create a layer of air between them and my Levi's and that would be good enough for a relatively short walk. I wouldn't want to be out all day dressed like that, though. Or even for more than just the tiniest while, if there had been a strong wind blowing.

Every single one of my three, good, beaver hats - each worth about $200 - has disappeared, but I found another hat that would do. I had no idea where any gloves were, but my hands are pretty cold-conditioned and I figured that I would be fine if I kept them in my pockets and just pulled them out every now and then to take a picture.

I put on two pairs of socks and then stepped into my regular, kick-around shoes.

As I headed toward the door, I saw these two, engrossed in something going on in Caleb's computer. Little Kalib did not go to daycare today, as he had a bad runny nose, sniffles, and other ailments. Hence, the Kleenix.

On that front, it has now been two weeks since whatever bug struck me, struck me. I hope it was the swine flu, so that I can be done with it. The symptoms read somewhat the same. Probably not, though - that one might still be waiting for me. I am certainly much better than I was two weeks ago, but I remain annoyingly congested and I have a cough that goes away and then comes right back again.

So I walked, and soon I saw a shaft of light falling through the trees, down the road. I could hear a car coming, so I got ready and shot the picture, just as the shadow entered it.

I rounded the corner, walked up the road, then turned around to see what my shadow looked like. I was surprised to see that it was frightened. "Don't shoot!" it shouted silently. "Please! Don't shoot! I have a wife, and kids! And a grandson! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Silly shadow! I didn't even have a gun.

Shortly after I topped the hill and started to head down, a school bus rolled past the end of the road and the way the light looked coming through its window's was amazing. I tried to take a picture, but the pocket camera was just too damned slow.

Sometimes, a school bus will go by and another will soon follow. So, hoping this might happen, I stopped, raised my camera and waited.

After about 15 minutes, none had come. I noticed that my bare fingers were starting to go numb. So I decided to photograph the very next vehicle that came along and call it quits. It was this UPS van. I put my camera back in my pocket, tucked my hands in, too, and headed on, hoping that I might find some moose in the marsh.

I didn't, but even before I got to the marsh, I saw the tracks of a snowshoe hare.

And then two ravens flew over me.

At 4:00 PM, I took my coffee break and here I am, on it, driving down Pittman.

Still on my coffee break, passing by the fire-station. I liked the way it looked, but the damn camera would not focus. Oh well. I took the picture anyway.

I had gone to Anchorage to do an interview and get a couple of photographs of an 11 year-old boy who fed the first bull caribou that he ever shot to the homeless people who gather each Sunday at the First Native Baptist Church in Anchorage to be fed. 

I misunderstood a little bit, as I thought that the feeding would begin at 3:00 PM, so I made certain to be there on time. In actuality, a church service lasting just over an hour is held first, and then the feeding follows.

I had not intended to take any pictures during the service, but then this fellow was called up to speak. Alalsredo lives in Bangalore, India, where I have many in-laws. His stay in Alaska would be short. As I write these words, he should already be on a jet to continue his tour, which will now take him to several cities in the Lower 48.

"Why would I come from India to preach in the US?" he asked. His answer: Jesus had called him to travel across our nation, stop in all the churches that he could along the way and deliver this specific message:

The people of the US - particularly the church people - need each day to get down on their knees and pray to God. If they don't, he warned, "then this great nation of the United States will fall."

He said that the reason Jesus had sent him specifically to the church people of the United States is because they are God's choice people.

Afterward, he announced that he wanted to call up one person, at random, to pray for that person. He chose this young woman. She came up and he prayed for her.

I had my professional digital SLR's with me to do the picture of the boy, but I did not touch them during the worship service. I tried real hard not to take any more pictures at all, but I could not altogether stop myself, so I did them with my pocket camera, which is perfectly quiet, whereas the DSLR's are noisy.

I had been greeted by one of the pastors when I first entered, and he had expressed his admiration for my professional DSLR's, as if he expected that I had come to use them, so I assume it would have been okay. Yet, they felt too intrusive so I stuck to the pocket camera and even then only shot a little over a dozen frames.

I think one day I might come back and do a complete story on the church's feed-the-homeless program and then, after I have spent more time with them and gotten to know them better, I will photograph the happenings to greater depth.

There was a time to call for healing. This man was suffering pain in his legs. Maybe he felt better afterward, I don't know. I could not take the time to follow-up, but had to do the job that I had come to do.

This woman suffered so badly that she wept. I hope she felt better when it was all over. As for the young man who I came to interview and to photograph, it all came together excellently. I am saving those pictures, though, until I put them to their intended use.

The temperature in Anchorage had been about five degrees, but when we got home last night it was ten below. This morning, at 9:28, it was -18 (-28 C.). So it looks like we have finally entered our first cold snap. Not terribly cold yet, but still a cold snap.

I decided to check online and see what the official temperatures were at a few other Alaska locations, including true cold spots, like Fort Yukon. I had expected that it might be in the -40's, possibly even -50s, there, but it was -31. Fairbanks, a much colder place than Wasilla, was exactly the same as us: -18. Barrow was in the grip of a heat wave: PLUS one.

Anchorage was two above.

In some ways, this is not fair to Anchorage, as the official temperature is taken at the airport, right by Cook Inlet and there are other places in the city that can be 5, 10, 15, or even as much as 20 degrees colder.

I might add that I have checked our car thermometer against official sources and it is amazingly accurate.

The Little Su.

Grotto Iona.

Two moose - momma and calf.

Sarah Palin releases her book:

As if you didn't know. In theory, being as how I am a Wasilla blogger and Wasilla's most famous resident seems at the moment to be the biggest news story in the world, what with the release of Going Rogue, I suppose that I should be writing about Sarah Palin today.

But 42 million people are already doing that and I have other concerns, so I have "no comment."

Not that I couldn't write about her today - I just choose not to.

That circus can tumble on without me.