The bite of winter, coming on - Update, 1:01 AM, Monday: Violet is her name

Originally posted at 4:58 PM, Sunday, September 26.

The wind was tearing when I drove out of Wasilla Friday afternoon, gusts slamming so hard into the car that at times it felt like we were going to be blown off the road. Worse yet, it had whipped up the powdered-sugar fine glacier dust and filled the air with it, irritating my throat and lungs and, judging by his little cough, Jobe's too. Our valley trees had been stripped of much of their fall color. The air felt cold, too, the way it does just before winter sets in. Margie dropped me off at the airport and soon my flight was being hammered and buffeted as it climbed through the turbulence roiling off the mountains, but at altitude, the air was smooth. As we descended into Fairbanks, we again encountered turbulence so strong as to cause the stewardess to be lifted from the floor and me to fear for her safety. I had an hour-and-half layover in Fairbanks, extended by delay into two-and-half hours. In the wintertime, when we drop into Fairbanks from South Central, we expect the temperature to be colder there. In the summer, we expect it to be warmer. The weather my last two stops in Fairbanks, the most recent just two weeks ago, had been very warm. But on this day, as I walked back to the plane and took this picture, I was struck by the cold bite in the wind. Winter must be coming on.

There was no snow when I arrived in Barrow. When I first became familiar with the town, back when I was producing the original incarnation of Uiñiq magazine, the snow had always set in for good by now, usually about the 20th of the month. Sometimes, I would hear some of the older elders speak of how things had warmed up, how, when they were young, snow and freeze-up would often set in by the end of August. In recent years, it has often not set in until early October. When I woke up Saturday morning, I found that the snow had come.

I walked to Pepe's for breakfast and saw that the moon was up.

Coming home, I walked by the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean. The water was dark and turbulent. The wind caught tufts of foam and sent it flying by, in delicately frozen tufts.

The Friends of Tuzzy Library had brought me up to talk about doing Gift of the Whale and to show slides from the book. As starting time drew near, the wind was tearing, snow was flying and I wondered if any more than the five or six people who had already gathered when I took this picture through the library window - very near to starting time - would show up.

As it turned out, people did come, pretty close to what would be the full, comfortable, capacity of the library to hold them. We ate a potluck dinner and then I spoke and showed my slides. It was great fun. They gave out door prizes afterward, including a few copies of Gift of the Whale. Anna Jack, here with husband Simmick, won the first copy. She told me that was good, as she had worn her first copy out. Authors like to hear this kind of thing.

This young lady, held in the arms of her father Bryan Thomas, was youngest person to buy a book, which she had me autograph. I feel terrible, as I have forgotten her name. I thought I would remember it after I addressed a book to her, but I didn't. I don't know about this getting older stuff.

Afterward, I stepped outside. The snow had momentarily stopped flying. This is the bowhead skull that sits between the entrance to the Tuzzy Library and the Iñupiat Heritage Center.

As I walked back to the house of Roy Ahmaogak, my host, I heard a knock on a window to the side. I looked and saw the gentleman at right waving, and gesturing for me to come in. I did, and James and Ellen served me tea and ice cream. Thank you, James and Ellen. Thank you, Friends of Tuzzy. Thank you, Barrow. Thank you, Arctic Slope. I just got a call from Melanie. She says it snowed in Anchorage this morning, but didn't stick. Wouldn't it be nice if we got to enjoy a real, old-fashioned, Alaska winter this year? Except that we don't have any firewood. The summer that just ended was just so tight that we weren't able to get any. We had better get some, soon, though.

The update:

As it happened, two hours after I made this post at 4:58 PM, Sunday, Roy Ahmaogak drove me to the Barrow airport, helped me carry my bags into the Alaska Airlines terminal, disappeared and then quickly reappeared to tell me that Bryan and his young daughter whose name I had forgotten were also here at the terminal.

Here they are: Bryan and one year old Violet, whose name I know now and have recorded in my history of the world as I experience it.

Then I was out on the tarmac, walking toward the Alaska Airlines jet that would take me to Anchorage. As I walked toward it, I wondered if, anywhere in this world, there is another land so magnificent, great and wonderful as Alaska.

I do not wish to offend any of my Outisde readers, but, no, I don't think there is.

And lucky me - right here in the midst of it!! Surrounded by it - traveling through it, calling it home - my home, that I still yearn to know so much better than I do.

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Five studies of Jobe

Jobe showed up unexpectedly yesterday. So did Margie, who had been in town babysitting him. Jobe forced me to shoot a series of five studies of him. Today, I had planned to feature a house on the Arctic shore that is said to be haunted, but I must leave for a short trip to Barrow in less than half-an-hour.

I have not packed even one item. There is not time for me to do the haunted house right now.

I have five studies of Jobe, already processed, so, instead, here they are:

Jobe Study #1: In his grandmother's hands

Jobe Study, #2: He smiles at me.

Jobe Study, # 3: He sits in a basket.

Jobe Study, # 4: He observes his grandmother's dinner

Jobe Study, #5: He studies the world beyond.

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Cross Island - where polar bears can come knocking at your door - or window - or just go through the wall

A nanuq on Cross Island.*

A polar bear punched this hole in the wall.

Mother and child.

Please note the unfinished wood behind Maniksaq Nukapigak. It was placed there as part of a major repair job after a nanuq smashed through the wall when no one was home and helped itself to all that it desired. It moved things around and trashed the inside of the cabin.

Handsome young one.

The fellow in the mirror fragment is Maniksaq's dad - whaling captain Isaac Nukapigak. After the bear went through the outside wall and entered the cabin it came face to face with itself in a mirror on the opposite wall. It smashed the bear in the mirror.

There she is - Ms. Nanuq with her two, nearly grown, cubs.

This is James Tuckfield, "Jamie." In the early morning of this day, he was inside the cabin, sitting against the wall opposite this window when he saw something round and black appear at the spot where his finger is. It was a polar bear nose.

Nanuq siblings.

The nose began to slide up the window. Jamie demonstrates the facial gestures and paw movements that he saw the bear make as it rose up behind the window.

The siblings seem to get along well.

Jamie continues to describe what he saw.

Momma nanuq, once again.

That bear got pretty animated. On the inside, Jamie and others in the cabin also got animated as they put on a frightening show, hoping to scare the bear away.

Cub follows mom.

The bear left. All was good. There was a new story to tell.

Jamie invites me in to visit. He is famous for his maktak soup and is cooking up a pot right now. I will have a bowl later - and another after that. Jamie's fame is well deserved. 

As Jamie cooks, a young hunter peers through the window and spots more polar bears.

It was these three, who I first showed you last week, as they walked nonchalantly down the beach, ignoring the humans who they knew were watching them.

Now, suddenly, one of the cubs takes an interest.

Not far out of the frame, another adult bear shows up as well.

The people take an interest in the bears. He is not bringing the gun out to hunt, but, if need be, to frighten off the bears and, if absolutely need be, to down a bear in defense of human life.

The Iñupiat hunt bears and they hunt them on this island, but right now they are taking care of their whale harvest and want to save their energy for that. They do not want to be forced to shoot a bear.

They get checked out pretty closely.

He closely checks out the bear through the scope. The young hunter wants to take a closer look, too.

Buddy Napageak has decided these bears are not a threat - but he will remain ready should anything change.

I go back in to visit as Jamie continues to cook. Whaling captain Carl Brower, who owns this connex cabin, looks out the window and sees more bears. Willie reads a Louis Lamour western.

More bears. As the reader can see, the hour of deep darkness draws nigh. I have to push my ISO up to 6400.

Another mother has come with two smaller cubs, including this one.

The cubs. The one at the right will wander about 100 feet or so away from the other and a bit farther than that from the mother. Ivory, the dog who I recently introduced in a previous post, will chase after that cub.

And then the cub's mother charges Ivory. It was an amazing thing to witness the speed, power and determined force with which the sow charged after Ivory - and it was a little frightening, too. I did not succeed at photographing it - other than this blurry image. Given the low light, my camera just could not zero in on the focus in the brief moment.

Ivory comes running back.

Mom and cubs leave.

Buddy with Ivory, who is safe. Buddy loves the dog greatly, but is quick to point out that Ivory is as much the dog of his brother, whaling captain Thomas Napageak, Jr., as his.

The bears gather to pick scraps off of some bowhead skulls. It is now so dark that I can only shoot at a very slow shutter speed.

I should note that I have a special polar bear story and photo essay from this trip that I am saving exclusively for Uiñiq, so it won't be seen on this blog until well after Uiñiq has had a chance to circulate through its readership.

*A special thanks to Whaling Captain Edward Nukapigak Jr., my host and the man who made it possible for me to take the opening series of close photos. Up until the time we left, I had only been able to get distant shots, almost all in very low light. When it came time to go home, Edward's crew was the last to leave Cross Island. After we had traveled about a quarter mile offshore, Edward spotted six bears on the beach, very close to the place from which we had launched. He turned around and took me right to them.

I could have spent all day photographing those bears, but I am exceptionally grateful for the several minutes that Edward gave me.

I have thought about the Cross Island bears many times since. I want to go back and hang out with them some more. I just want to go back to Cross Island. It can be a cold, bitter, lonesome, dangerous place, but I want to go back.

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Time forces this blog back into Wasilla, but it will return to Cross Island tomorrow and will romp with polar bears

After spending too many hours* working on what I had planned to be today's Cross Island post, I realized that it would still take me a couple of hours more to finish it. So I stopped, put it off until tomorrow and then quickly pulled these three Wasilla pictures off my pocket camera.

I was having great fun - because it is fun to wander among polar bears on your screen when you know that they can't hurt you, but, really, I can't afford to spend that much time working on this blog in a single day, especially when I did so just the day before, and the day before that as well, so I decided to spread the work on the polar bear entry out over two days.

So here I am in Wasilla in my car a couple of days back, before I drove to Nikiski.

I am on Church Road. I have been directed into the left lane and a flag lady up ahead is ordering me to drive slow.

Judging from the stain on the road, it would appear that someone crashed here recently, although this had nothing to do with that but rather with road repair.

And this was Sunday morning, after I had returned from Nikiski late the night before. Whenever I come back from a trip, I always try to take Margie to breakfast the next morning. True - this had been a very short trip of just one night, but tradition is tradition.

Regular readers know that Margie and I have been on a strange routine, lately. When I am home, I pick her up from babysitting Jobe in Anchorage on Thursday nights, then take her back Monday morning.

I was so tired this Monday that Margie volunteered to drive herself to Anchorage and said that I could just stay home, sleep in and use my bicycle that day.

Oddly enough, I found that I greatly enjoyed not having a car but only a bicycle.

So we did the same thing today. 

I think we will do it tomorrow, too.

The only problem is, I bought a new plecostomus to eat the algae that is taking over one of my acquariums, as the pleco who used to live there died, but I couldn't bring it home. They said they would be open until 7:00, but Margie didn't get back home until about 7:30. 

And here I am, at Metro Cafe, after pedaling over on my bike.

That's Jason Starheim in the photo with Carmen. Jason is her nephew through one of Scott's brothers.

Scott is fighting hard, staying as busy and active as he can as he battles his horrible cancer. Jason has come to help out around the cafe.

Tomorrow, I will return this blog to Cross Island and will drop you into the midst of polar bears. It will be fun. You will enjoy it.

*Note: I actually created this entry last night. Before I went to bed, I set it to publish for 7:00 AM this morning. I'm afraid that in Squarespace my blog hosts have created a trouble-plagued platform filled with many inefficiencies and time wasting features where anything can go wrong at any time and today Squarespace did not publish as scheduled. I just discovered it, and am about to manually post it.

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The story of an Eskimo drum, part 1:* When she gets sung to on her birthday, Nannie Rae hears the drumbeat of the bowhead whale

Nannie Rae Kaigelak on her 22nd birthday. Originally, after I posted Friday's preview, I said that I would post this story on Monday, yesterday, but I am running behind.

The last image in my entry of September 15 was this one, of Nuiqsut Iñupiat whalers pulling hard on some ropes as they butchered one of the four whales they had landed on Cross Island. This is what the ropes were attached to - sections of maktak that whalers, such as Brian Nukapigak, were cutting away with flensing knifes.

The Iñupiat have hunted bowhead whales since what is known in these parts as "time immemorial." When Jesus walked the earth, the Iñupiat hunted whales - and they prayed before, during and after each hunt. When Christopher Columbus set sail for India and wound up in the Americas, the Iñupiat hunted whales. When the Russians first sailed along the shores of Alaska... well, you get the picture:

The Iñupiat have been hunting whales for a very long time. Tools and methods have been adapted to the times, but the bowhead remains the most important element in Iñupiat diet, culture and way of life. The Iñupiat teach that a whale gives itself only to a worthy crew, one that will freely share it with his community.

This whale gave itself to the crew of Billy Oyagak, who will keep a relatively small share of it for himself, his family and crew and will give the rest of it away. Other than their physical help in the landing, butchering and distribution of the whale, no one will pay him for their shares. And those who are too old, ill, or incapacitated to help will still receive their shares, just as if they had worked hard.

And all who show up for the feasts of Nalukatak, Thanksgiving and Christmas will also be fed generously and will take home shares, whether they participated in the original hunt or not.

As they worked on the whale, I saw Maniksak Nukapigak, left, begin to cut the skin of the liver away from the meat. Others joined in to help. Soon, the liver skin had been removed from the whale and taken to a safe place.

Eric Leavitt had brought this Eskimo dance drum to Cross Island during last year's hunt, but had forgotten to take it home. Now, it needed a resonant new skin to cover it.

After cutting away a properly sized section of the liver skin and placing it on cardboard, Vernon Elavgak, who came from Barrow to whale with the crew of Edward Nukapigak, Jr., double-checked the fit.

Vernon then scraped the skin with a plastic spatula, so as not to tear holes into the skin. 

Vernon and Eric check out the scraped skin. They decide to scrape it some more. Afterward, Vernon takes the skin out into the darkness of the night to wash it off in the salt water of the Beaufort Sea.

Then Eric molds the skin to the drum frame.

Vernon double-checks the fit.

They bind the liver skin to the frame with twine.

Vernon pulls the bind as tightly as he can.

The drum is nearly done.

Vernon examines the inside of the drum skin in the beam of a flashlight held by Eric.

The drum is skinned. As Eric checks it out, Thomas Nukapigak, brother to Edward Jr, passes through with one of the darting guns used in this year's harvest. Eric Leavitt, Jr, "Sonny Boy" observes.

The drum is hung to dry overnight. Everyone who stays in the Nukapigak cabin is expected to leave their autograph on the wall. I would leave mine in two places.

In the morning, Eric checks the drum. The skin has dried. He is ready to put it into action.

Throughout the hunt, every hunter in every camp, every boat and at the Com Center are linked to each other via radio. Captain Edward Jr. puts out a call to Nannie Rae up in the Oyagak cabin. Everybody wishes her happy birthday - but Eric goes a little further.

He sings the traditional American "Happy birthday to you..." song, but accompanies it with the beat of the newly skinned drum.

So when Nannie got her song, it came in part from the bowhead whale that for so long has supported her people.

Remember this, next time you see the Iñupiat of the Arctic Slope dancing to the beat of drums made in the traditional way - that powerful, powerful, drumbeat that you hear is literally the sound of the bowhead whale.

In the evening, I ate a big meal with the Nukapigak crew and then hiked up to the Oyagak cabin, thinking that it was time for Nannie to blow out her candles. I arrived a little bit early. Everyone had just sat down to dine on caribou soup. Nannie ladles out a bowl.

I ate again, and found a huge piece of delicious caribou tongue in my soup. I do not joke or exaggerate - it tasted so, so, good. I have eaten at some fine restaurants in places like New York City, Washington, DC, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Bangalore, India and I have enjoyed every bite.

But there is nothing in this world better than Alaska Native food, caught and prepared right. Many people who don't know better shy away from it, but that is just because their palette's have not yet learned. After I finished the first, I downed a second bowl.

When I overeat the kind of food that I generally eat when I hang out down here in Wasilla and elsewhere in the "mainstream" world, I always feel rotten the next day.

On this trip, I overate again and again... whale, caribou, moose, salmon, white fish, polar bear, seal, duck and geese... and not once did it leave me feeling anything but good the next day.

Finally, it was time to light the cake. Nannie joined in the lighting. 

The banner above Nannie's head was hung last year... Cross Island has become the place where she celebrates her birthday. The gentleman standing to the far left is whaling captain Billy Oyagak, who accepted the gift of the 51-foot bowhead that provided the drum skin used on this day to sing "happy birthday" to Nannie Rae.

And then she blows out all of her candles. I wonder what she wished for? I didn't ask, because such wishes are supposed to be kept secret.

*As noted in the title, this is part one of this Eskimo drum story. There might be one more part, maybe two, possibly even three - I am not certain. But for now, I am not going to post them, but will save them for Uiñiq magazine.

One day, well after the next Uiñiq has been published, I will post those parts either here or in whatever this blog has evolved into by then - so, to those who do not have access to Uiñiq, stick with me until then and you will get to see the full series - plus much more that for now I will hold back.

I do plan to put at least two more Cross Island related stories on this blog over the next two or three days.

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