Why I have not posted for three days

Once again, I am far from home, but that is not why I have not posted. I have taken plenty of pictures and have material to post. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a card reader with me, or even the cable required to connect my camera directly to my computer, so I have no way to transfer my photos into my computer.

Something is going to happen today that I definitely want to post, so I will try real hard to find a card reader or cable.

And that is all I have to say for now.

The Kaktovik Healthy Communities Eskimo Dance - and the young artist who envisioned the mural

I have a big task directly in front of me that must be done in a short time and then I have to hop on another airplane, so I will very quickly go through the pictures from the Eskimo dance held on the final night of the Healthy Communities Summit in Kaktovik.

Anyway, after the meetings had ended and supper had been eaten, participants gathered in the community center, along with the Kaktovik drummers, singers and dancers.

When it comes time to dance, some people are not at all frightened and shy.

Always, there is grace and beauty in the dance.

Always.

Much to be seen.

There she is again - in the middle of everything.

Motion dance.

Sometimes, ravens will appear on the floor.

Not all the fun happens in the dance.

Couples dance.

There is something about dancing...

...that makes people smile.

Final dance.

Afterward, there was more gospel singing. Just before it began, someone told me that the mural on the wall behind her had been created by Flora Rexford. I asked Flora about it and she said it was the work of many people in the community. She sketched everything out but then was joined by many other villagers, young and older, in the painting. 

She would instruct them on where to place such colors until the mural was done.

So when she stepped up to the mic to sing, I knew that I had to get a photo of Flora with the whole mural behind her and the musicians.

It was a difficult picture to take, because when I found the angle that seemed to best show the mural, Flora's face was obscured by the mic. Other angles created other problems.

So I shot a bunch, and in the end was not happy with any of them. But here is this one, anyway.

Maybe I should have used this one instead. There are many things about it that I like better than the one I chose, but I don't like the placement of the mic. 

But there's the mural, and here's the artist whose mind it came out of.

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The Healthy Communities Summit - where the people gathered to find a way to a better future

Through this blog, I have told readers that I spent last week at the Healthy Communities Summit in Kaktovik. Many know what a Healthy Communities Summit is, but many don't. In short, about five years ago, some teenagers in Barrow who were high on meth murdered a taxi driver for a very small amount of money, because they wanted to buy more meth.

This greatly upset not only the community of Barrow, but the Iñupiat community of the entire Arctic Slope, and those non-Iñupiat who share in the life.

Traditionally, the Iñupiat community was exceptionally healthy and fit, because it had to be, just to survive in such a physically demanding environment as the Arctic. Along with horrible diseases that devastated the community, the early Yankee commercial whalers brought alcohol and that, too, brought hardship to the community, but mostly in bits and spurts because most of the time, there was not that much alcohol to be had and people were out in the country and on the sea, working hard to survive.

I lack the space and time to delve into everything here, but in more modern times, particularly after the military increased its presence in World War II and especially during the cold war, and even more so after big oil came, alcohol problems grew and the new scourge of dangerous drugs was introduced.

After the meth-murder, a grass-roots movement rose up all across the Slope and eventually took on the title, "Healthy Communities." A leadership group was formed, bringing together people from the government, corporate and social worlds. Youth organizations became involved, churches, too.

North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta made the improvement of the health of Arctic Slope communities his number one priority.

This year's Healthy Communities Summit in Kaktovik was the fourth to be held. The theme: "Together We Have, Together We Will."

In the above picture, people have divided up into groups, both to hash out what the major obstacles to success are and to hammer together potential solutions.

See that big guy at the back wearing black, his arms folded? That's Big Bob Aiken. At this summit, Big Bob added a brand new perspective to the movement, when he broke the words, "Healthy Community" down to "Heal Thy Community."

Each group wrote down the problems, ideas and potential solutions on huge sheets of paper.

Each group took got to stand before the summit to present their ideas.

And these are the two individuals who headed up not only the organizing and planning of the summit, but who work with many groups in all the communities to find ways to plan and fund healthy activities: Colleen Akpik Leman, Special Assistant to Mayor Itta and Inauraq Edwardsen, who works with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council - MYAC.

Every now and then, the serious stuff was interrupted for some fun and games. This is a game called Ninja, where each contestant gets a turn to try to slap one of the hands of the person standing on either side, but then must freeze and hold the position until someone tries to slap her hands.

Once a contestant's hand is slapped, that contestant is out of the game.

And this is Price Brower, whose skills as an airplane and helicopter pilot have saved many lives. No one succeeded in slapping his hand. He was left as the last one standing. He celebrated his victory.

As they are the people to whom so many turn for guidance and help, preachers from across the Slope were invited, both to give their input and to listen to what people had to say. Toward the end of the summit, they posed with Mayor Itta (left).

One who is not in the picture because she had to leave early, is the Reverend Mary Ann Warden, herself originally from Kaktovik, born into the Akootchook family.

Popsi Tingook of Point Hope told a story about how, towards the end of his life, Billy Graham flew to North Carolina where a limousine was sent to pick him up at the airport.

Graham told the driver that he loved to drive and had driven many kinds of vehicles, but never a limo, so the driver let him take the wheel.

Graham's foot got a little heavy and so a cop pulled him over. When he saw who was at the wheel, he excused himself and returned to his squad car to radio his chief. He told the chief that he had stopped someone very important and wondered whether or not he should write a ticket.

"Who? The Mayor?" his chief asked.

"No, more important than that."

"The Governor?"

"No. Way more important."

By the chief's reckoning, that left only possibility - the President of the United States.

No, the officer told him - someone even way more important than the president.

Who could that possibly be, the chief asked him?

"It must be Jesus," Tingook quoted the cop. "Billy Graham is his chauffeur."

Many, such as Fred Miller of Ilisagvik College, came to acknowledge their own histories of battling and overcoming substance abuse and to assure those present that it can all be overcome.

Far too many people - including young people - have been lost to suicide, not only on the Arctic Slope, but all across Alaska. On their own, the MYAC youth put together a skit in which not one word was spoken but a powerful message delivered. In the skit, a young woman living a good life, started dancing with the gentleman in the clergy robe. Then one by one, others come to tear her away from her spiritual foundation - they offer her glamour, physical pleasure, alcohol, drugs... until finally a dark spirit puts a gun in her hand and tries to get her to shoot herself.

She almost does, but then fights it off. Several times she struggles to get back to her spiritual foundation. Again and again, those who brought her down throw her back, but she keeps struggling until finally she breaks through.

Just before the summit ended, several members from the host community of Kaktovik stood before the crowd to sing the song, "Praying for you... your heart may be broken, your friends may be few, but someone is praying for you."

Fenton Rexford then offered a closing prayer. Inside them, all present could feel both the pain that no one has escaped, yet also the hope and belief that things will get better.

Now I have a great deal of work ahead of me - to thoroughly go through all of my pictures and all that was said and see how I can bring it all together with everything else that I am doing for my next issue of Uiñiq. I have barely touched it here.

Next up: The Kaktovik Eskimo Dance

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At the Kaktovik Eskimo dance, a young woman took my camera away from me and shot back at me - two Facebook profile pictures

Some people may not believe this, but I am in fact a painfully shy person and the thought of getting up in front of a crowd to dance - any kind of dance - is terrifying to me. Yet, during the welcoming part of Eskimo dance held Friday night in Kaktovik to close out the Healthy Communities Summit, drum leader George Kaleak would call out different groups of people to come to the floor and dance - like those from each village: Wainwright, Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk... and so on.

Then I heard another drummer say to him, "photographers! photographers!" Now I was really terrified. There had been another photographer at the summit, but she had left earlier in the day. If George called out "photographers," I would have to do a solo.

But George was nice, and he used a more general term, but one that did include me. Still, I was trying to think of a way out of it, but I looked at the drummers and singers, where I saw Katheryn Aishanna, a graceful and accomplished dancer, look at me, smile and nod her head toward the floor.

I had no choice. I had to dance.

So I stepped onto the floor and began to dance in my awkward, clumsy way. As I danced, I held my camera in my right hand.

I had barely started when Ruby Rexford ran up to me and took my camera away.

Next thing I knew, Ruby was crouching on the floor, shooting pictures of me.

I glanced at her a couple of times as she worked and she reminded me of someone... who??? Who???

Hmmm... me! She reminded me of me!

Afterward, I looked at the pictures and saw that she had done an excellent job. She could be a photographer. Yes, she could.

"You must put it up on Facebook as your profile picture!" She laughed.

I promised her that I would.

So here is the frame that I chose. As soon as I post this, I will post it again as my profile pic.

And here is Ruby - in her own Facebook profile picture.

Now, I have broken all my own rules (I never cared much about rules, anyway) and I have a made a post that I didn't even take a single picture for. I did not even photograph Ruby's picture of me - which is what I am supposed to do when I put pictures in here taken by photographers other than myself.

I have just been too tired today to edit pictures, that's why.

Tired and lazy.

And with Ruby shooting for me, there was no need to.

Thank you, Ruby!

I needed a day off.

I should note that later, George called me out by name, along with some other people, so I danced again. This time, a young man from Point Hope by the name of Jeff Kuwanna took my camera and photographed me again. 

I was terrified, alright, but you know what?

I had fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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