bbbarrow

Shopping Barrow-style

2008-04-13T14:47:00.007-08:00

Shopping is alive and well in the frigid fray of the far north. The nearest mall may be 500 miles to the south, and the locals may be just two or three generations into their cash economy having traded communal living and the barter system only mid-way through the last century, but we are still Americans up here, and we shop.

Ok, so Layla and I don't really shop. The screen door look of my best pair of socks and the T-shirt I'm wearing that reads "Bahamas 94-95" atest to that. But we live in a place with only one major store and a handful of dry goods and auto parts stores. A gallon of milk is nine dollars, a quart of oil (the one brand they have) is $6.50 and the entire clothes department of the Stuaqpak ("Big Store" in Inupiaq) would fit into the toddler section at a Fred Meyers store down south.

Sure, the internet and eBay were godsends to shoppers everywhere, but ask a true department store diva anywhere and they'll tell you that it's not the same as a day convincing friends to take another armful of the latest fashion into the room full of mirrors or haggling with a merchant over the difference in price of a few more pieces of funny money foreign currency that you can't even remember what it represents in dollars.

That's why shopping is likened to sport. There's something about the unknown outcome of seeing what's new and what's on sale, about the reality of touching the real thing or using every shred of savvy and thread of experience to walk away with a bargain that makes shopping such a draw for so many people--even in a place so remote that UPS won't even touch it.

This weekend though, we got a firsthand and in depth proof that the shopping life is powerful enough to overcome any remoteness, any lack of storefronts or display cases, and any lack of a place to go show off your new purchases. We had a rummage sale. The term itself is amazingly accurate. When it's 10 below outside and every yard in town is covered in wind-packed snow, or soggy tundra in the summer, a "yard sale" wouldn't attract too many customers. Even a "garage sale" sounds pretty darn cold.

Rummage, on the other hand, describes perfectly both what you find and what you do to find it at a Barrow rummage sale. As a noun, it means miscellaneous articles; odds and ends, and from all we had heard from a few seasoned Barrow shoppers, nothing is to odd, to miscellaneous or too much at the end of its useable life to make it to a table at an arctic rummage sale. The extra rolls of toilet paper, hotel soaps, and a can of sweet peas didn't draw as much as a pause. In fact, they sold.

The verb form of rummage, to search thoroughly or actively through (a place, receptacle, etc.), esp. by moving around, turning over, or looking through contents, also applied. As neatly as we tried to lay everything out, after the first wave of early rummagers came through (some things are very much the same here as anywhere) everyone else was going to have to rummage as well to find their bargains.

And the rummaging didn't stop with the things designated for sale. Because this form of arctic shopping takes place in your home, you might find an offer on anything from the framed family photo to the appliances or anything else not bolted down. Then again, I bet going to get the tool box wouldn't be out of the question even if something was bolted down. Despite offers on not-for-sale items like the microwave (just because everyone else sells theirs...), the rugs and our laptop computer, and multiple offers on the coffee table, we managed to hang on to what we wanted and to get rid of most of what we didn't.

Waves of shoppers would come through the door--mostly small groups of women or women with kids or a patient husband in tow. I'm not sure if it was after payday, if the village or regional corporation checks had just come out or what, but we often felt like we were the only people dealing with real money. "What's that?...I'll take it!" We felt like we priced things fairly, but with the excitement in the air and the old film cameras, bars of hotel soap and even Luke's crib flying out the door, we wondered if we had sold ourselves a bit short.

One woman in a purple parka paid in ones for her rummage. "This is my rummage sale money. All week I save all my little bills for the rummage sales on the weekends." That's when we realized that it wasn't about the noun rummage, but about the verb. Just like at malls and shopping districts world-wide, there was the social element. Mothers, sisters, daughters and nieces, along with the occassional father, brother, husband or son, would drive from one sale to the next. Most would buy things for people who weren't with them, and many seemed happy just to see the inside of a new house.

For Layla, shopping means spending hours online researching the best solution to our need and the best deals for that solution. For me, it means getting the quickest solution that works well enough to not have to keep looking for a better one. So we were both a bit out of our element with the social shoppers of Barrow who cycled through the house with cash in hand, kids in tow and bags of our rummage on the way out. I guess with such a limited selection in town of new goods and new places to shop for them, even the veteran rummage sale items take on a new glow of excitement in a new house on a new Saturday morning.

When it was all over, we had sold almost everything we wanted to, including our car, and I felt a great feeling of lightness without the wieght of our rummage to pack, unpack and stack when we get to Juneau. I also felt for the first time a touch of understanding for what I'm realizing must be a universal American pasttime--shopping.

Eskimo Games

2008-01-05T16:06:00.000-09:00

One of the great things about the Inupiat is their friendliness, humor and genuine love of having fun. They have a great way of making outsiders feel welcome at community events, even if the welcome usually only goes as far as the public events. Even without our pale white skin and fast-talking ways, the tight-knit community would know we were outsiders because everyone here is family.

I don’t fault them for their limited openness after countless outsiders coming to the arctic for a few months or even a few years to study, photograph and otherwise exploit the culture, the land and the rare riches of this indigenous people. Maybe they know they have limits to their invitations, so they make sure to give ample and genuine welcome and congeniality when the time is appropriate. The Eskimo Games the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day are one of those times, and the community welcomed our participation with open arms...and a few outstretched middle fingers, but I'll explain that later. We had a lot of fun being there.

The kids’ games were in the mornings and included such classics as running races and crab-crawl races along with traditional Eskimo games like the one and two-footed high kick. They organized the events, both for kids and adults, by age, but by the time it got to Luke’s age group (one-year-olds), each day’s event had morphed into running races. Didn’t bother Luke, and since the crab-crawl became the regular crawl for ages three and four, and the regular crawl races became some crawl, some run, some just sit there for the two-year-olds, the just get across the line races were perfect for Luke and his one-year-old pals.

The adult games were in the evenings, with different events each night. So as not to get too personal, the adult age brackets were in five-year increments. Unfortunately, with all the excitement during that week, we only made it to one night’s games—the arm pull and the middle finger pull. Both of these games, like many Eskimo pasttimes, can be played in limited space like that afforded in a cozy igloo when it's 31 below like it is today.

I hate that we missed the high kick night, because it’s an amazing event where participants stand, jump and kick a ball hanging from a string and then land again in the same spot. “So?” you say, well with the one-footed high kick (where you land on the same foot as you kick the ball) competitors get upwards of 8 feet, and sometimes much higher. Pretty amazing for a people not known for their height. Not that I would’ve had a chance in that event since what little flexibility I may have had before has been missing for some time. I’m just lucky my boots slide on and off.

Pictures (and now videos too!) explain it better than words, so enjoy.

Everyone enjoyed the first night of Eskimo dances, but only Luke and Lisa braved the floor. Go Lisa!

Luke loves the drums...

and the stomping.

This little man wanted to take his drum and go home.

The next day was the running races. On your marks...

It took the one-year-old bracket a while to catch on that first day.

See what we mean. Mayhem. Some kids got it, but Luke was still a bit awestruck.

The next day he listened more closely to his coach...

But his buddy James had the speed to win.

Yes, we're those proud parents who share everything. Check out the video of the second race...

Luke was in it for third until James bolted back toward the starting line. Luke promptly followed. James decided to split toward the stands, but the determined Luke charged on all the way to the finish line, uh, I mean, starting line. It was a good effort by all, and way fun.

The evening games were for us, and Layla thought the "middle finger pull" was going to be easy. A few seconds into this match with Doreen, I believe the line was, "I could do this forever."

Then Doreen busted the Eskimo experience on her.

Layla did get third in the finger pull after loosing a close match to our friend Aurah from Juneau who was visiting with her fiance, Mike, another of our close friends from Juneau.

I managed to actually get second place in my age bracket. Can you guess who got first?

The locals are never too old to have some fun. They even brought out the chairs for the septagenarians.

The finger pull was hard, but the arm pull was real hard.

Or friend, Mike, bested me in the arm pull...

...but met his match a few rounds later.

He still placed second and got $10, a bruised hand and a real sore arm for his efforts. Not bad for getting off the plane just minutes before the competition. Cash money to the winners: $15 for first, $10 for second, and $5 for third.

All in all, each of the four of our crew, Mike, Aurah, Layla and I all brought home some cash that night. Watching the 18-25 and 25-30 brackets made me realize how it sometimes pays to be old. Those kids were strong. Winners or not, we had a lot of fun, and even had some fans in the crowd. As we left, a couple people mentioned how they enjoyed watching us compete. I'm not sure I would've risked my ability to walk by competing in the high kicks, but I did want to watch. But believe it or not, we were just too busy and too tired from a full day that day to make it. Guess I'll have to wait until next year.

Fun with what you have

2008-01-02T15:59:00.000-09:00

In the lead up to the holiday season, we realized the real impact of not having some things in Barrow that we took for granted in other places—like trees. Barrow is 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and the closest tree is probably closer to there than here. So if we wanted to cut our own, it would be a really long walk across the blustery tundra to get it since there are no roads in or out of Barrow. So what to do? Hanging ornaments on the Christmas tundra didn’t quite seem the same. Artificial trees are all made with lead and PVC, both of which are toxic to the touch, especially for curious toddlers. That and the $189 price tag for the tree at the Stuaqpak gave us ample excuse not to go either of the usual tree routes. But what is Christmas without a tree? And what were we going to do about getting one?

This was our first Christmas together as a family at our own house, and we wanted to make it special. One night, the Alaskan ingenuity hit us like a blast of icy spindrift. We would make our tree. After almost losing the motivation by jumping on a last minute dog sled trip, we rallied and began to assemble the necessary ingredients:

1 ratty yellow broomstick
12 metal coat hangers
1 Moose’s Tooth beer growler partially filled with Luke’s college savings coins.
1 New York Times International Edition fresh to the arctic from South Africa
15 or so feet of duct tape (this is an Alaskan project after all)
even more masking tape
1 green crayon
1 brown crayon (and many other colors to taste)
mamboes (markers)
2 sheets paper

The plan had changed from cardboard to paper mache and then changed again a few times once we began. Luke loved the winning idea, especially once we got to the coloring and taping stages. He got his own vice grips to help cut and bend the coat hangers, but after prepping only a couple hangers, he waved me the “all finished sign” and began looking for more exciting projects of his own. But once the broomstick was upright in the jar of coins and the first hangers made their way onto the trunk, he was back in the spirit.

He and I colored, taped and retaped all afternoon while Layla baked, mixed, baked and baked some more. My box of Snickers had sat untouched above our cabinets for, well, a long time, waiting for me to eat them. I really only like Snickers when I’m on a long hike or otherwise exerting myself outdoors, and I must say I’ve done a lot less of that since we moved to Barrow. I’m not sure how the shelf life of a Snickers compares to that of a Twinkie, but Layla didn’t want to find out. Snickers cookies, Snickers brownies, Snickers pie—if you could bake it with a Snickers, she baked it. It was a family craft day worthy of a ‘50’s sitcom, and that was just the morning.

Luke and I had just a few more branches to go by the time the first batch of Snickers brownies came out of the oven, and he gave his last ounce of energy to coloring the star for the top before taking a nap. Then our neighbor called. They were building a “snow house,” better known to southerners (which from here is all of you) as an igloo, and they wanted to know if we wanted to help. “Of course I do!” I thought in the spirit of the day. One thing we had more of than Snickers was snow, so hot cookies in hand, out I went.

A few days earlier it was 42 degrees—below zero, but today it had warmed back to zero and the wind was soft. I had been a bit delayed leaving the house, something to do with fresh cookies and brownies, and by the time I arrived the rest of the crew was already in a groove.

Craig was sawing blocks of snow from a snow bank with a chainsaw. His sons, Luke and Sam, were hauling them into a rough circle around Chris Finkler, the wife of Barrow’s famous radio personality, Earl Finkler who keeps the airwaves alive on KBRW every morning while the rest of us stumble to find the coffee. The rest of Alaska knows Earl as the funny writer whose Andy Rooney type expositions, often about his beloved dogs, occasionally end Alaska News Nightly on Alaska public radio. Thanks to Earl and Chris for these photos of the snow house construction.

Chris was leveling the snow and marking the perimeter of the house, both of which I would later find out make a difference as you stack the blocks in an inward-leaning spiral to make the self-supporting house. We worked for a couple of hours, sawing, hauling and stacking blocks. When the house got about waist-high, we took a break, then began again after some hot chocolate…and a few more Snickers brownies.

A snowy owl perched on a nearby telephone pole to survey our work, and once satisfied with our work, flew off to hunt whatever crazy critters are left on the North Slope this time of year. Craig and I worked from the inside shaping and stacking blocks one at a time. Luke hauled blocks and handed them in to us, and Chris began chinking the gaps along the walls. When the walls got to high to pass the 20-30 pound blocks over them, Luke dug a tunnel that would become the entrance to the house and passed them through to us.

All in all, it took us about four or five hours, and the house will hold four or five folks comfortably. OK, so comfortable is relative, but inside the house was noticeably warmer than outside, even before all of the cracks were chinked. With a house that size, it takes a few people, or a nice lantern, to really warm the inside, and even then, it's no hanging in your briefs kind of climate. Haven’t slept in it yet, but one of these nights I just might. UPDATE: We made the local weekly paper, thanks to Earl. Click here and go to page 8 to read about the snow house.

As I chewed my second antacid before bed later that night, I couldn’t help thinking of all the brownies and other Snickers-related sugar I had eaten that day. But as the heartburn subsided I felt this great pride in our having made such a great day from scratch. In other places I guess we could’ve just bought a tree, popped a tent a scarfed down a bag of Oreos. The heartburn would’ve been the same, but not the memories.

Since that day, neighbors and guests have enjoyed our tree, the Snickers goodies and the snow house. The Snickers treats are all gone, and despite Luke’s great joy in having us turn on the Christmas tree lights, we’ll soon have to take it down. But as far as I know, the snow house is still waiting for its first overnight guests. With summer thaw still five months away, I have plenty of time to find the motivation. But one thing is for sure, I’ll need a fresh batch of brownies to take with me when I go.

Lil travelin' man

2007-12-14T10:36:00.000-09:00

November was quite the traveling month for us. Between Layla’s work trips and a Thanksgiving vacation in Mexico, we covered some serious ground. It’s a good thing Luke is pretty good on planes, but by the end, we were all a bit tired of hotels and restaurant high chairs. Survival became paramount to manners, but we never got kicked out and we still managed to have a good time. Fun as it was, I was actually excited to get back to the unseasonably warm temps (10 degrees above) and frozen cubes of mac and cheese in Barrow.

Here’s the jist, with a few surely welcome gaps…

The weather isn’t the only reason Luke would rather play indoors in Barrow. Catch a rerun of “A Christmas Story” if you need to jog your memory of the joy of snowsuits.

We spent a few days in a cabin in Girdwood where Luke showed his undeniable male instincts. The ridiculously large TV was a magnet, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out the power, channel, and volume buttons. When he had it just right, he found himself a seat and the vegging began. Couches were too far from the TV, so he found a crab cooking pot in the cabinet that was just right.

This move momentarily made me think we needed a TV for the house…momentarily.

We traded the snowsuit routine in Alaska for the sunscreen routine in Mexico. Despite the fact that it takes about as long to put it on, even with Luke’s help (above), we were happy to make the switch.

Luke loved the water, almost too much. After a couple days in the pool, he decided he could lunge into the water himself, go under, and…uh, well that’s when mama or dada scoops him up. Brave and fun, yes…

Flat water squashed my surfing safari dreams, but Luke loved letting the calm ocean lap over his legs.

It was great to have Nonna and Grandpa join us.

Luke was in heaven exploring the rocks and tide pools…

…and jumping head first into the pool, the sand, our laps, the couch pillows…whatever was around.

My moment of heaven.

Of course, that couldn’t last too long, so off to Seattle to cruise the town while Layla went to a meeting. The nice thing about work trips is that we get to stay in hotels that are convenient to the meeting, not just the cheapest one that doesn’t have roaches. Nice view eh?

Pike Street Market is a toddler’s dream, at least for a couple hours. Good thing these crabs were some of the only things within Luke’s reach, but that didn’t stop him from running the halls, chasing pigeons, dancing to the live music and otherwise entertaining the crowd.

Luke was a bit surprised by his first bite into an apple that was actually crisp. Not our usual fare.

Look over there!

Whoa! Music!

Watching Luke dance was definitely worth a buck. Teaching Luke not to reach into the tip jar to get his buck back is another story…

Got to stop in Portland to visit Harper, his summer fling and, if Layla has her way, his future wife. Big hugs and a great visit for us too.

Maybe it was his aversion to the arranged marriage thing, or maybe it was the lingering 60’s vibe still in San Francisco, but it didn’t take long once we were there for Luke to attract attention from cute little women. Don’t worry Harper, he’s only begging for her toy cell phone.

When Ella had to take a call, Luke decided it was time to chase some more pigeons…

…and jump off a few steps.

By this time, we had had enough of hotels, even our regal digs in the towering San Fran Marriott. Good thing there was a park across the street.

All in all, it was a great trip. A bit hectic sometimes, but fun. Now, as the temps get closer to normal here in Barrow and the glow from sunshine farther south mocks us on the horizon for a few fleeting hours, we’re thinking of how we can get back to Baja and the sandy feet sunsets of just a few weeks ago.

Going to the dog food store

2007-10-29T10:03:00.001-08:00

Things aren’t cheap in the Arctic. And the heavier things are, the more they cost here compared to anywhere else. The problem is obvious. We are 330 miles above the Arctic Circle and 150 miles across frozen marshlands and heaving sea ice to the nearest road. That’s only the end of the mostly unpaved Dalton Highway and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, still 400 miles or so from the nearest dog food store in Fairbanks. A few barges each year take advantage of the short summer window of ice-free passage through the Bering and Chukchi Seas to bring building supplies, fuel and shiny new cars to Barrow, but the dog food, people food and other daily goods come by plane. That isn’t cheap, and you pay by the pound.

So a gallon of milk, even the hormone-ridden cheap stuff, is eight or nine dollars a gallon. Amazed to even find it, we splurge on the organic milk for Luke at $7.99 for a half gallon ($7.69 on sale!). A jug of OJ runs between eleven and fifteen dollars depending on your brand and pulp preference, and a quart of Gatorade is $3.69—on sale. Spices aren’t too bad because they are light, as long as you aren’t looking for anything too crazy, like nutmeg or ginger, then you’re just out of luck. Not being a dog owner and still nursing the bruise on my chin from my jaw hitting the floor at the $2.89/lb sale price of a head of cabbage, I didn’t check the dog food prices, but I’m sure they would be enough for me to further put off getting Luke that puppy I know he wants.

It’s no wonder snowmachines have replaced dog teams as the preferred means of travel on the North Slope. But what did people feed their dogs before technology and Purina retired them to the menial tasks of guarding doghouses and barking at passers-by? And why does our friend Geoff still run a dog team when he has a perfectly good snowmachine?

Layla and I found out on the day after we got back from a week in Colorado with Luke’s grandparents. We came home Sunday to a few messages from Geoff, who always seems to invite us on fun adventures when we’re out of town, saying that Monday was the last day that he would be taking the dogs to a nearby lake to go ice fishing. We briefly contemplated whether to bring Luke, but decided that since nether of us really knew what we were getting into, we’d better not. After a few phone calls and some hectic Luke packaging, we had a plan. Layla would take Luke to work for the last hour or so of the day while I went to the lake with Geoff and the dogs. At five, Layla and our neighbor Craig would come out on his snowmachine, and Craig’s wife, Cyd, would watch Luke. That settled, we were on our way to solving the Barrow dog food mystery.

I showed up at Geoff’s fairly well prepared, but not trusting that I was. Geoff and Craig are both experienced outdoorsmen, even by Alaska standards, and like many old hands, forget what us greenhorns still don’t know. Maybe they just know enough not to make any promises or predictions about the arctic, so explanations of what to expect are sparse. Layla and I have each spent enough time outdoors to know that it’s always colder than you expect and it’s always wise to be prepared to be self-sufficient. I must admit I was less than prepared to be self-sufficient, but I was plenty warm and was traveling with a man who has taken a dog team hundreds of miles to the North Pole, so I didn’t worry too much about our evening trip onto the thinly snow-cloaked tundra. Nonetheless, I’m not used to going so blindly into a winter activity, so I borrowed an extra jacket and a neck gaiter from Geoff.

Geoff has eleven dogs for a ten-dog sled, and every dog he has craves to pull. They know that one of them will be left out each time, and each dog has its own set of enthusiastic tricks to curry favor with the boss when he brings out the harnesses. Some dance on the top of their houses, others spin and wag until they wear an almost perfect semi-circle through the snow and straw to the dirt. Their howls carry the excitement through the air and into my suddenly strident limbs as I lead them to their place in front of the sled. Or did they lead me?

With all of their energy, strength and excitement, there’s no stopping them for the first few hundred yards after they start pulling. My job was to stand at the road and signal when it was clear for the team to blast from the yard, cross the first street, turn through the next yard and over the second street at the edge of town. Once across the second street, I chased the team in my oversized snow boots and jumped onto the sled to enjoy the ride.

After the dog’s bellowing chaos of anticipation before the first “Kiita!” and my short burst of adrenalin from jumping onto the moving sled, we shot through an invisible portal to the serenity of a silent world where the only sound was the soft swishing of the sled on the supple snow. The panting dogs pulled happily as the whines of two-stroke snowmachines burning through town faded into the distance. In my first two minutes on the sled, I already had the answer to why Geoff still prefers dogs to snowmachines.

The dogs knew the ancient trail we were following well, and even the two snowy owls (or was the one a Gyrfalcon?) didn’t stray them off course. Geoff let me “drive” while he skied behind like a canine powered, snowy bearded water skier in full arctic gear. We traveled so silently, that even though he skied twenty or so feet behind the sled, we could talk without raising our voices, and it almost seemed profane to scar the sublime silence with any unnecessary volume.

I have no idea how far we went or how fast we traveled, but it seemed like we went just fast enough and not nearly far enough. Occasionally I kicked my feet off the runners to run behind the sled then hopped back on to enjoy the ride. Even ducking under a gas pipeline that feeds town didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the quiet expanse swishing underneath me forty furry steps at a time. After riding and driving back on the sled that evening, Layla said it was the best time she had had since we moved to Barrow, and I knew exactly why.

When Geoff and I got to the lake, the sun was setting behind a low bank of clouds on the Chukchi Sea. Geoff secured the sled with a set of hooks in the back and set a mountaineering ice screw in front of the second set of dogs and clipped it to their lead. I grabbed a bag of now frozen fish from yesterday’s haul and gave one to each of the dogs. Scales, heads, bones and all, I think the slowest dog finished his in about twenty seconds.

Least cisco, a cousin of the more famous arctic cisco, are white fish about twelve to twenty inches long and are plentiful in this lake. The lake also has a few of the fatter, more tasty broad whitefish, which, if caught, will find its way to the frying pan, not the kennel. With the dogs content to rest and digest, Geoff and I reopened the holes in the frozen lake and began to haul out the first net. Each net had progressively larger holes, and we began with the smallest.

The easiest way to clear a fish from the net is to push them through head first instead of trying to back them out, but in the small net, that wasn’t always easy. After a few brutal gill tearing episodes and one beheading begot of frustration, I was almost half as fast as Geoff at removing the fish from the nets. We cleared the hundred or so foot nets in sections so the fish wouldn’t freeze before we could get them out of the net.

Layla and Craig arrived just as we began the second net, and despite being a bit taken aback by the flopping, then twitching then stiff fish scattered on the snow, Layla jumped right in and began her education on clearing fish from a net. The larger nets were more forgiving, and by the time all three nets were clean, we felt like we were actually helping out not just tagging along.

Usually, Geoff and Craig would haul the nets, clear the fish, then use a rope attached to the far end of the net to pull the net back into the lake and across the span to another hole where they would secure the rope. Because today was the last day Geoff was going to fish this lake, Craig and I packed the nets into nylon bags while Layla and Geoff counted and bagged the catch. From three nets, we landed almost 250 least cisco and one cherished broad whitefish. The cisco reward the dogs, and the whitefish the fisherman.

As we worked, the sun dipped below the cloud bank where it had been hiding and turned the undersides of the clouds a vibrant pink. The dogs howled in anticipation when I went to the sled to grab my camera, and even Craig, a twenty year arctic veteran, had to grab his camera to try to capture the scene. I would have been more comfortable on the ride home had we left then, but we still had to fill the holes and break up the chunks of ice that they had removed from the surface of the lake to access the water below. Leave no trace, yes, but this also keeps other unsuspecting travelers from riding into the erratic chunks in dark or whiteout conditions.

No problem. I grabbed the heavy duty ice axe and began to break up the chunks. I mistakenly walked to one chunk from the side where the hole was, and as I hit the chunk, my boots broke through the newly forming ice and I plunged into the pond up to my knees. With stronger ice all around, I managed to haul myself out of the hole while the others were just turning to respond to my faint and reflexive call for help. Luckily, we were about ready to go, so I wrung out my socks, loaded the sled Craig was pulling behind his snowmachine, and we headed for home. Layla went with Geoff and the dogs, and I rode on the sled behind Craig’s snowmachine.

It was well past dark when we got home, and Luke, Layla and I were all ready for dinner. As a recent victim of global warming (holes in lake ice usually freeze solid in hours this time of year and this hole had not solidified in over a day), my toes were a bit cold and my pants were frozen stiff, but a hot meal and a glass of wine made the perfect ending to our trip to the Barrow dog food store. It may have taken a little while longer and a few more people, but feeding the dogs here sure beats a trip to the florescent lights and pungent packages of the grocery store’s pet care isle, and it was a trip we won’t soon forget.

What it's all about

2007-10-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

Like proud cultures everywhere, the Inupiat of northern Alaska portray their heritage in many ways, but they aren’t just remembering their heritage, they’re living it. Many high schools around the country have nicknames that honor those traditions, and the North Slope schools are no different. The nickname for the high school team in Barrow is the Whalers. In Point Hope, it’s the Harpooners. Bowhead whale skulls adorn the entrances to each school in town—a small one in front of the elementary school up to a twenty feet long, five-ton skull at the local college. Instead of a favorite sports team or labor union, local people have the names and flags of their whaling crew on the backs of their jackets. Around town, painted dumpsters sport depictions of bowhead whales and whale flukes. On the side of one dumpster, it reads, “Save the Bowhead…for dinner.”

In Barrow, life really does revolve around the subsistence whale hunt. Unlike the tri-corned hats in Williamsburg or the bead and blanket shops outside tribal casinos, the whale skulls and whalebone grave markers you see here are not reminders of a heritage past, but active parts of an ancient culture still alive in the present.

Before moving to Barrow, I, like most outsiders, thought of Inupiat whaling as a novelty, as something they did to honor tradition. I had been in Alaska a number of years before moving to Alaska’s farthest point north, but mostly urban Alaska. I thought of subsistence as a supplement to a “normal” diet, a way to eat cheaply, and to eat well. To me, the subsistence lifestyle meant carrying Alaska’s proud history of frontier independence into the internet and supermarket age. It was a nice touch, but that was all.

Even in Barrow, it took me until this weekend to really understand what a true subsistence lifestyle means to the people and communities who live it. It’s deeper than the holes it fills in their checkbooks or the facetious comments on dumpsters that make Greenpeace cringe. It’s deeper than words can adequately describe.

When I hear the North Slope Borough Mayor try to explain it to a gathering of oil industry and government officials, I wondered if his trouble describing the importance of subsistence, whales and otherwise, stemmed from a lack of suitable English words. Now, as I try myself, I know that if the words are there, I definitely don’t know what they are.

When I saw the smile on the successful whaling captain’s face and the enthusiastic cooperation of the crew members butchering 30 tons of meat in about as long as it would take me to butcher 30 salmon, I felt it. Like when Layla was pregnant, I’m not claiming to know what it means to be pregnant or to be a hundredth generation subsistence whaler, but I know that it’s more profound and deep than I can understand. The Mayor doesn’t need to find the words to explain it to me. I can never hope to know it, but now I get it.

There is no other culture left in our country which has as direct and active ties to its pre-Columban heritage than that of the Alaska Natives in the far north of Alaska. They may use aluminum boats with outboard motors for the fall whale hunt now, and bulldozers and forklifts to move them onto an abandoned military runway to butcher them, but using these modern conveniences has not taken the pride or meaning out of the hunt. And it has not made the hunt any less important to the hunters and their families than it was ages ago. It’s not just about the tradition or the fact that subsistence supplies eighty percent of their diet, it’s what connects them to each other, gives them identity, frames their rites of passage and otherwise defines the Inupiat as a people.

I can still see the reverence of their ancestors in the hunters and crew, which did include some young people, although I cannot help but feel that I am witnessing the last generations of a great culture. I fear that the constant currents of western life are carrying Inupiat youth away from this ancient culture on rafts of plastic and ephemeral satisfaction, and that the strong ties to the past are today facing their most daunting challenges on multiple fronts. The dozens of enthusiastic Inupiat helping to clean, portion and haul the three whales caught on Sunday still show the same connection to the whale as ever before. But with the constant and unstoppable pressure from outside sources like climate change, the incessant encroachment of oil drilling in their hunting grounds and the temptations of western life, history may well remember these Eskimos the last of the intact culture.

We arrived at the old steel plank airstrip just in time to see the forklift lower the first whale onto the rusty planks. The Navy built the airstrip with steel grids linked together over the natural gravel because no other hard surface could withstand the harsh environment. Just north of town, the old airfield sits on a spit that divides the Beaufort and Chikchi Seas as it projects north from mainland Alaska. A few dozen people were there when we got there to see the first whale of the season, and over the two hours it took to process the whale, more people would come and go.

A whaler paced anxiously around the whale with his long carving blade fastened to the end of a broom-length wooden pole. The instrument looked as if it had been handed down for generations, as it likely had, and seeing it in the weathered hands of the parka-clad man instantly made me forget the five ton yellow hydraulic forklift that had placed the whale in front of us. The sight propelled me back in time better than any sci-fi, time-travel movie could ever do. I reached out and touched the whale’s tail to beam me back to the present.

There were spectators, mostly locals and a few lucky tourists, but the event was anything but theater. After a prayer and a few photos of the captain and his family and crew, the captain made the first cut and the pragmatic dismantling began. The crew and a few others working for their share of the catch quickly allocated tasks and took to their jobs with business-like efficiency and head-down hard work. Bystanders soon realized they needed to give the crew plenty of room or they would be run over by six foot slabs of steaming maktak. That light bulb clicked for me early in the process when I looked up from my camera’s viewfinder to barking admonishments and four crewmembers in rubber boots and bloody Helly Hansens charging toward me. They drug their pink burden with ropes attached to medieval hooks. Two went to my left, and two to my right. In a move wrought of necessity and reminiscent of my childhood dodgeball days, I hurdled the spindly ropes and narrowly avoided an embarrassing and sure to be unpleasant face-down ride on the fatty sled. Pay attention and stay out of the way, son. These people are working.

It was a relatively warm day, probably in the mid-twenties, but after a couple hours I began to get cold. The wives and daughters of the crew boiled slices of the fresh maktak and fed it to the gracious workers, many of whom had shed their parkas and hats to keep themselves from overheating with all the work. I find maktak palatable, but after a couple hours of standing around only yards from two chilling arctic seas, I was hoping one someone would offer this gaper one of the steaming morsels of instant energy. No luck, and as it seemed to disappear from the tray as fast as she could bring it, I decided not to ask.

Some women cut maktak with their ulus, or “women’s knives,” and others worked the stoves. Two other women collected the whale’s intestines in large burlap sacks to be cleaned an served at the community feast that evening along with the tongue and kidneys. An elder man sat near the stoves with a file, sharpening the various cutting tools. One man explained to him that a notable hunter of a past generation gave him his adze-shaped butchering tool. The old man smiled as sharpening that blade had taken him back in time as well.

In all, the hunters landed three whales that day. Their sizes increased at almost perfect intervals with each new catch—26 feet, 37 feet and the last was 47 feet. Harry Brower Jr., Chairman of the Board for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission got the first whale, and Jake Adams, former President of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation got the second. The Mayor of the North Slope Borough, Edward Itta landed the third whale, which took two heavy duty forklifts and a bulldozer to slide the behemoth onto the airstrip.

Itta struck the great bowhead around mid-day, and the sun was setting around six o’clock when the heavy equipment brought it ashore. Onlookers took pictures and kids climbed onto the enormous whale while the Mayor hauled out his boat and drove to the scene. A cloud hid the last sun, and cold and fatigue (yeah, it was tiring just watching) set in for the three of us. We piled in the car just as the crew began to carve the first slats in the giant whale. The crew had plenty of work ahead of them, and the crowd had thinned, now composing of more spectators than helpers. Their enthusiasm and deliberate work would keep the crew going into the darkness, but we needed some dinner. Even after being here almost a year, I was glad to have been able to take a brief glimpse into an age-old culture still fighting to stay alive today.

Here are some more photos of the day...warning, some are a bit bloody...

Is it something in the air?

2007-09-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

So there we were, staring intermittently at each other and at the shimmering little car as it sat in a muddy lot just feet from the Arctic Ocean. Kids of all ages scampered around with rags, hoses, rocks and candy. Some had been cleaning the car; others had been more intent splashing in the muddy puddles created by the event. The car wash was a benefit for the Barrow Dancers to raise money for their trip to perform at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Anchorage, and dancers of all ages were there to help, each in his own way, on this sunny Barrow afternoon.

A young mother popped in and out of a door onto a fire escape on the second floor of the Top of the World Hotel. The hose also came from that door and I assumed she was working the water. Another seemed to be the one taking the money, and a couple young grandmothers were constantly chasing toddlers and other youngsters from puddles, buckets and other places that were more interesting than safe. Of course, Luke was compelled to join the exploration, and so I joined the grandmothers in their chase. A few elders sat watching from the shade, it was in the mid-50’s that afternoon, and a handful of grade school to high school age kids brandished rags, sponges and towels in an effort to help me discover what color paint was under the months of dirt caked to our car.

Their efforts had tapered from intermittent to sporadic when the young man, maybe in his late twenties, and I began exchanging discreet glances. He had done the bulk of the work on the car with a large brush on a broomstick and seemed to be the one in charge of the car washing part of the operation. I glanced at him to see if I could tell if they were finished. He returned a quick glance as if to say, “Yo, we’re done.” Or was it, “yo, be patient, I’ll tell you when we’re done.” Confused, I glanced back, “huh?” He returned another indecipherable glance. “Don’t you get it, Taniq?” I thought. Or maybe he was asking if they had done a good enough job.

The car looked fine to me. With no paved roads in the whole town, the $20 I gave them to spend in Anchorage would last longer than the car wash anyway, so of course the wash was good enough. But now my mind was in hyper drive. Was he trying to tell me they were finished with those glances? Or was he asking me if the job was satisfactory? I’m sure my confused glances could have signaled that I wasn’t content about his glance about being finished. Is there some deeper meaning of these kinds of glances? Did I cross some cultural line with my glances or how I received his glances? When could we be finished with the glancing?

An Inupiat friend once told me that traditionally, Inupiat do not verbalize “no.” They will blink both eyes and then say something affirmative or positive, but their answer is still ‘no.’ If blinking both eyes signifies “no,” then what might these subtle glances at the car wash mean? I couldn’t keep glancing. I decided to risk being the pushy outsider and ask if the car was ready. He nodded, and I thanked him, grabbed Luke and headed down the road.

It didn’t take long before it hit me. Something about this place seriously piques my senses and stimulates my mind. If there was anything to the glances, I likely made it up in my head. But what is it about living in this village 330 miles above the Arctic Circle that gets my mind going like that?

Maybe it’s the stimulation of being a member of a cultural minority for the first time—a newcomer to an ancient culture only half-cloaked in the clapboard houses, litter and not-so-durable goods of the West. This place is so foreign—from the culture to the environment—that not a day goes by when I don’t find my mind wandering on thoughts or questions that I never could have imagined in the mass market worlds from which I came.

Is it the air? The air here is so fresh that, while traveling south of town on a friend’s boat about fifty yards offshore, I could smell the cigarette lit by a man on the beach in time to watch him pull the lighter away from his face. On that same trip, we came across a group of sod houses on a bluff above the beach, some still scattered with human bones from possibly hundreds of years ago. Get that on your interstate commute home from work?

Is it the sun? A few months ago the sun circled overhead for 84 days straight, but even then its trajectory changed each day and dramatically so in the first and last weeks of those 84 darkless nights. Now, in mid-September, we’re losing 10 minutes of daylight every day.

Is it the tundra that changes from snowy white to brown, to green, to red, to yellow and back again to white in three and a half months? Or is it the ocean that was almost indiscernible from the snow-covered land only a few months ago, is now placid blue and ice-free, and in another couple months will again regain its icy grasp of the shore? Or is it the thousands of birds that descend on the tundra each spring, fill their bellies, have their babies and leave again all in a few short months? Or the gray whales who come to feed in the Arctic Ocean and scrape the parasites from their skin on the same beaches where Luke and I play, local teenagers build bonfires and petrified bones and driftwood from ancient forests wash ashore?

More likely, it is the lack of distraction that frees my mind and sends it spinning in torrents so unanticipated that each whirl sparks another five. There are no billboards, inviting storefronts or any other of the myriad of marketing gimmicks that are inescapable in the lower-48. There are no mountains to scan for dreamy ski runs or climbing routes, and there is no traffic or other frustrations to make life more hectic than it needs to be. We generally have what we need and have learned not to fret over what we can’t get. The stark environment and absolute remoteness force life to be slow and quiet here, and that leaves plenty of time for a brain to run wild.

But when I look at Luke, I realize that maybe it’s just me, or me getting older. My glances with the car washing dancer were nothing compared to the candy wrapper in the dirt to Luke. Sure, Luke has plenty of stimulation here. He’s amazingly interested in the chunk of wax he broke from the candle, and he finds enough fun in the toys, books and cabinets to keep him going non-stop from the time he wakes until his afternoon nap and then again until bedtime. He loves playing with his friends at the playgrounds or in the gym, and not much beats climbing on the chairs, the couch, and even into his high chair (gasp!).
He even loves examining the stones on the beach and the dried pea that got away from him at lunch that is now curiously on the floor in the living room. But as stimulating as life in Barrow is for a toddler like Luke, it just doesn’t compare to, say, Chinatown.

On our recent trip to San Francisco, Layla and I took Luke for a walk through Chinatown and up to the Coit Tower. Although we had preemptively restrained his body in the baby backpack, we couldn’t contain his eyes. When we hit the trinket mania and open market mayhem, Luke’s eyes bulged the whole time as if a little clown inside his head was squeezing little brown and white balloons through his eye sockets. I could almost see the wheels inside his head spinning off their axles with each passing tassled lamp, and the aromas of five-spice and roast meat barely overpowered the smell synapses forging new connections in his brain. The constant chatter in five or fifteen different languages and the clanging bells of passing streetcars kept his head swiveling from one colorful scene to the next. He liked it so much I took him there again the next day, just to watch him soak it all in.

Ok, so for now a box of plastic Buddhas are more exciting to Luke than a 35 ton whale and its calf two steps and an icy plunge away from the stroller, and like most parents at Disneyland, I’m realizing that a person’s inspiration definitely changes with age. I can only imagine what Luke will think of Chinatown when he’s old enough to know what the Samurai swords, Peking duck and toy snakes really are. And I can only hope that when he’s old enough to appreciate the mental playground of natural wonders and places like Barrow that he’ll be able to find them.

Where have you been?

2007-07-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

It’s been a busy summer for us this year. Lots of travel, some visitors and a few festivals to keep us busy. Since my posting has been a bit delinquent in all the chaos, I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking. Oh, and because everyone asks, today, July 20, 2007, it’s 39 degrees with winds around 15 miles per hour. Pick up your jaws, it’s supposed to get into the low 50’s by this afternoon and a few days ago we had a record high of 64 degrees. I’m even getting a bit of a tan on my forehead.

In May, we hit the road, er, airways, to the east coast. Luke was psyched to ditch the warm clothes...

...get cleaned up at the hotel...

...put on the cool beach clothes...

...and hang out with cute chicks.

When we got home, the ocean was just starting to thaw.

The whale had fermented for the party,

Grandma and Pops were in town,

and everyone was having a good time.

The old jacket and hats didn't keep Luke from playing with friends...

...and he was excited to get the walking thing dialed in.

Dude, I'm BIG.

June is Nalukataq time. A time to celebrate the spring whale harvest with the successful crews...

...with a feast and a blanket toss. Woo Hoo!

Arghh, but it was still pretty darn cold in late June, and we hadn't been camping since 2005. So off to Juneau for Luke's first camping trip.

No Luke, you can't bring Avu...

But Oliver will be in Juneau.

Yeah, he liked camping...

...way better than hiking...

...although hiking is more fun without a pack.

The climbing skills Luke honed on the purple chair (and now the windowsill, coffee table, bathtub etc.) prepared him well for his first rock route.

Luke loves rocks.

No problem sleeping after all that.

So back to Barrow and the now thawed Arctic Ocean.

Hey, what's with this cold beach?

And the sand tastes different!

Oh well, at least Avu still loves me.

Bye bye.

Remembering the whale feast

2007-05-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

Luke awoke this morning hungry, excited and slightly hung over. He licked his palm and tried to calm the curls that had plagued him since he was a year old. A good looking man, those curls had brought him both good and bad—a few girlfriends, and more than a few jokes—so the palm licking routine was now a nervous habit, no matter how gross his hands. The last few days of travel had been rough. Without the green machines of Europe, Africa and the South Pacific, getting through the United States had been expensive, cumbersome and seldom safe. Fortunately, along with his curls, Luke also retained his resourcefulness, charm and sense of humor from his infant years and so was able to navigate with some success the black markets and corruption of this stubbornly ancient oil economy.

He should reach Barrow tonight, but what will he find? Years ago at this time of year, his parents would still have to bundle him in his snowsuit just to get from the house to the car. When the sun set for the last time of the summer on May 10, snow buntings, or snowbirds as the locals called them, would sing throughout the darkless night. A fresh early May snowfall would clean the view from his window as it covered the dusty snow banks and dirt streets that had recently melted through their eight-month cloak of ice. Today, the only sound he heard were the mosquitoes buzzing in his ear, and his leftover longtime favorite, mac and cheese, was beginning to sweat oil in the warmth of the early May sun. The snow had long ago melted here, just a few miles south of Barrow.

In 2007, spring whaling season brought Luke the only food he liked better than mac and cheese, and that was bowhead whale. He ate the meat, the maktak (blubber) and even the kidneys, but his favorite was the maktak. His parents told him stories about their first spring in Barrow when his father took him to a feast hosted by the whaling captain down the street. With only two teeth and a third just poking through, he couldn’t chew the rubbery tongue, meat and blubber, but he enjoyed the softer kidneys, fry bread and whatever other small pieces his father cut for him. He especially enjoyed picking the small morsels swimming in the juices on his father’s plate.

Most people came to the feast, got their pre-bagged but still warm portions of whale, said their thank-you’s, and retreated back through the arctic entryway, across the snow machine-filled driveway to their still running pickup trucks and SUV’s. Inside, school-age girls divided the chunks of whale into clear plastic produce bags from the Stuaqpak and handed them to the near continuous flow of people coming in and out of the front door. Opposite the kitchen, a group of elders sat around a large slab table with an assortment of large pans filled with the different parts of the whale for filling the bags and eating around the table. One pan had the maktak, another the cooked meat, and yet another the tongue. A fourth pan held the kidneys and intestines, sliced into one-inch sections about two inches in diameter. His father, Mark was game to eat each delicacy, that is except the intestines, which he discreetly avoided.

As the only two non-Native people staying to eat—Luke’s mother had chosen politely to work from home that night—Luke and his father were given a paper plate, a filet knife like they used in Juneau to clean fifty pound halibut, and an invitation to take as much of the bounty as they liked. An elder man pulled an end table for them to sit on to the corner of the table of whale and brought another plate and knife. The company at the table smiled as the two unzipped, shuffled, and began selecting, sawing and chewing through the offerings. Note: The feast is only a small portion of the whale. The above photo is of the much larger portions of raw meat and other parts divided for the community to eat throughout the year.

“Where are you from?” asked an elder woman at the far end of the table. The rest continued chewing, half looking at the cute, rosy-cheeked baby, and the other half now paying no obvious attention to the newcomers. It was comfortable.

“We just moved here from Juneau in December. We live down the street, Mark replied.

“Are you a teacher?” A common question to new, young, non-Native people in Barrow. Most teachers came for the school year and quickly left on the last day of school having made their money for “doing their time” in Barrow.

“No, my wife works for the Borough, and this is my full-time job,” Mark said as he nudged Luke with a smile.

“Boy or girl?” asked another more senior woman with short, white curly hair sitting next to another woman who must have been her sister. At first glance, they looked almost identical. Both were still wearing their traditional floral-patterned, fur-lined parkas despite the well-heated room ventilated only by the occasional waft brought in from the arctic entryway by someone picking up their share of tonight's feast. Both had short, white curly hair that gleamed even more brightly around their brown, weathered faces and wise but surprisingly youthful eyes.

“He’s a boy. His name is Luke,” Mark answered as Luke gave a very charismatic, whale juice drool smile to the sisters. Luke was born with a full head of dark, thick hair that eventually thinned and was replaced by a lighter brown, finer batch. As Luke’s second round of hair grew longer, waves and curls began to protrude in all directions, and coupled with his handsome face, often brought questions about his sex from strangers.

The focus returned to the whale, and Mark was glad to have time to continue chewing the rubbery tongue. “There’s no fast way to eat a whale,” he thought to himself. After a few minutes and a few more visits from neighbors stopping in for their whale-to-go, the first woman spoke again, not bothering to swallow her work in progress.

“It’s very brave of you to come,” she said. “One other doctor at the hospital came once.”

Mark smiled. Normally if someone tells you you’re brave for coming to a place, it means that there must be some danger in being there, but here, there was nothing to fear but the preconceived thoughts he had about what it must be like to eat a whale. Luke didn’t notice anything odd about them being there, and Mark could tell that it must be unusual, but got no sense that anyone minded or, other than including them in the tableside conversation, was changing their ways in any great way due to the presence of a new white face and his son. Luke definitely made the experience easier for everyone. Babies are a universal sign of love and trust, and babies who laugh and smile like Luke bring laughter and smiles from everyone—brown, white, black or purple, whale-eaters or vegetarians.

They had been in Barrow long enough to understand that locals were understandably reluctant to reach out to newcomers who usually came to make an inflated salary for the same work they did elsewhere, then left with their money after completing the time set in their predetermined contracts. But, Luke’ parents were learning that if they made an effort to participate in the local life, the Inupiat would meet them with kindness and generosity even if they usually wouldn’t go out of their way to bring each ephemeral passer-by into the traditions of their ancient culture.

The conversation continued in short spurts with the occasional stare, smile or funny face directed at Luke. Mark recognized one elder woman as one of the extemporaneous prayer chanters at the church service for the whaling captains a few weeks prior. He smiled to himself, remembering how Jesus had brought a piece of James Brown into this old woman’s soul whether she knew it or not. She said she hadn’t eaten whale until she was around twenty when she had also moved to Barrow. That was 1946, when she had moved from an interior arctic village to live with relatives on Alaska’s northernmost coast. Mark appreciated her attempt to find commonality in their experience, and everyone continued sawing, chewing, making faces and nudging themselves into small talk.

After an hour, his father packed the remaining meat from his plate into the plastic grocery sack with the other various whale delicacies he had been given, and bundled Luke into his seemingly endless layers of fleece and down. He thanked the hosts and the elders and asked them to pass his thanks to the captain of the Neakok Crew that landed the whale. With the distinct taste of whale still fresh in their mouths, Mark carried Luke into the single digit temperatures and steady wind for the short walk home under the Arctic’s high evening sun.

Luke heard stories of that night, and others like it, throughout his childhood. His father told him about the dreams of whales he had that first night he ate the meat of a bowhead whale. Luke remembered those things now, as he prepared for what he hoped would be the last of a long string of hard days getting back to Barrow, or what was left of it.

He hoped with every ounce of faith, justice and truth he could muster that he would at least be able to share that ancient experience once more, now, when he was old enough to remember it for the rest of his life as his father did. He longed for that direct connection to a time before nature was confined to the television, monitor or, at best, the other side of the window. The shortsighted greed of the generations before him had cost him the chance to know polar bears, seals and walrus. Now, he prayed that it hadn’t also deprived him of knowing the bowhead whale and the culture that had survived on it for thousands of years.

Did any bowhead whales survive the unprecedented changes of the last few decades? What was left of the culture that was inextricably dependent on those whales? Would he ever again get to chew maktak and feel the warmth stored in its fat as it rolled through his body like an incoming tide through the breached levee of his belly, filling every fingertip and every toe with tingles of renewed energy? Would he still like it? Like it or not, tasting its connection to the earth, or just knowing this culture from the past had survived to the present, would give him the hope he was seeking for the future.

My boy wears fur - Luke's first year in review

2007-04-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, if you told Layla and I that our child would stay up well past sunset, rarely go outside, wear fur and eat protected marine mammals, we would have taken your keys and offered to call you a cab. But here we are, celebrating Luke’s first birthday, and until a couple weeks ago when the sun finally outlasted Luke, each of those unthinkable prophecies had proven true. So how in the pigs flying heck did we get here? I barely know myself, much less feel able to write it, but maybe these photos can tell just what’s gone down since a few months after that sunny, warm late summer day when Layla and I were both fit, energetic and planning our winter climbing adventure in Thailand. Why that day? That’s the day we had the “Babe, I’m pregnant,” pause, “Are you sure?” conversation. And the rest is in pictures…

March 2006

Yup, she was sure.

Little man is freaking out the doctors, so off to Seattle we go on the midnight jet medivac. A week later, we’re back in Juneau.

April 2007

Three days after we get back, Luke is born in Juneau 6 ½ weeks early. He and I are medivaced to the NICU in Anchorage.

Less than 48 hours later, Layla joins us in Anchorage after fast forewarding her recovery from surgery. Here with Luke in the Babytherm 3000 (it’s real name I promise) on day 6.

After a week on the “serious” side of the NICU, Luke graduated to the “stable” side.

May 2006

We spent the next five weeks encouraging Luke to feed himself however he could. This is the first time he took a full feeding from the bottle, four weeks after we got to the NICU.

Nic-you, NICU! In the airport heading home after 6+ weeks in Anchorage.

Luke was unimpressed,

But we were very relieved.

June 2006

Still little, but slowly growing…

…and growing…

July 2006

…into a happy little man.

Luke stole the show at the wedding.

“Hey Nonna, why are all these people hugging mommy and daddy? They’re supposed to be hugging me!”

August 2006

By August, he was very happy to finally be able to hold down most his food and sit in his chair.

Still needed some help, but was getting much stronger.

So we took him on a day cruise to Ford’s Terror and the Dawes Glacier,

And then on a float plane to the Taku Glacier Lodge,

But he had had enough of glaciers.

He much preferred making new friends like his buddy, Wilder.

September 2006

But we were restless after spending too much time in hospitals and not in the wilds of Alaska, So we went to Katmai National Park to see some brown bears like that one…

…and this one. It’s amazing how close to the red salmon you can get there.

Phew, what a month!

But it’s not over, back on the big plane…

...to Milwaukee to see Great Grandma! Four generations of Gnadt’s.

October 2006

First “real” food, if you can call rice cereal “real” food.

Fun with Mom,

And more fun with that cute baby in the window.

New spacesuit for winter.

November 2006

Two feet of snow in Juneau just before Thanksgiving,

So we went to Mexico en route to our new home in Barrow.

Luke on lifeguard duty in Akumal.

December 2006

Christmas a couple weeks early in Barrow

Then off to the east coast for the holidays with family and friends.

Four generations of Hughes’.

Grandma Gnadt better watch those grabby little fingers

Nonno and his horse.

January 2007

Back in Barrow to play with the new toys!

February 2007

No travel! But a lot of new tricks from Luke.

Out on the Arctic Ocean.

March 2007

A week in Juneau for a visit with our friends and Luke’s favorite sitter, Lis.

Ok, so we let him open a couple birthday presents early, but he sure does like it!

Are we done yet?

April 2007

Happy Birthday Luke!

Let’s eat some…

…table!

Hey Felix, I’m One! Woo hoo!

So just a month into his second year, and at least we’re now getting out more. It’s warmed into the 20’s this week, and the winds are light, so out we go! Luke still loves his furry mukluks. The whalers are on the ice now, and the migratory birds are on their way back to the tundra, so I’m sure he’ll get his chance to eat some more protected species. But hey, he’s a great kid. It’s amazing how far he’s come. I’m sure we have many more nervous moments to come, but right now, all is better than well. What a year.

Springtime in Barrow

2007-04-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Spring is in the air here in Barrow. The snow actually fell from the sky instead of growing from the air. For most of the winter, it is so cold that even what little moisture the dry arctic air holds freezes straight from gas to solid form. This “snow” accumulates in beautiful crystalline blooms on traffic signs, power lines, cars, houses and anything else the wind hasn’t blown away. It’s like living in a frozen Chia world, and you don’t even have to water it.

That “snow” tinkles as it blows across the snow-covered town. In the rare gentle breeze, it sounds like shards of the thin, colored, glass bulb Christmas tree ornaments I often dropped as a kid tumbling in all directions across the kitchen floor. It squeaks as you walk on it. The snow today is more like snow at a world-class ski resort—soft, light and fluffy. After a calm day of snow, only an inch blankets the wind-scowled snowdrifts in front of our house, but it’s enough to make the view from our window more like a winter wonderland than the foreboding Alaska Range pass it resembled the day before.

Spring is a time of renewal in Barrow, but instead of butterflies and fresh azaleas, we get an extra ten minutes of daylight every day and fresh sealskins on the whalers’ umiaks. The geese, swans, eiders and other migratory birds will soon fill the sky. Thanks to a snow road that connects Barrow to Prudhoe Bay to support a new oil field, this spring also brought a noticeable influx of shiny new pickups and SUV’s laying tracks in the spring snow.

Spring is for whaling, and the town breathes an ancient wind of excitement and hope in preparation for the spring whale hunt. The dwindling supplies of maktak in the cellars and frustrations from a disappointing fall harvest give way to prayer and preparation in anticipation of a successful spring hunt. The old ways are renewed with each hunt, and this year is no different.

With introduction to the western world over a century ago, the Inupiat incorporated a number of new ways into the old. The Inupiat’s earliest western contact was with whalers, men after the same bowhead whales the Inupiat had hunted for generations. They traded technology for hospitality, and the confluence of old and new had begun.

Soon after the white whalers came the white missionaries. Within a few generations and without forsaking many traditional beliefs, the Inupiat had largely converted to Christianity. Now, local leaders tell multi-national oil companies, the governor of Alaska and anyone else planning public meetings in Barrow not to plan their events on Wednesday nights or Sundays when most of the community is at church. Not only would the event be poorly attended, it would be equally ill-received.

The first Wednesday of April, whaling captains, their wives and local church and choral groups filled the Assembly of God church downtown for the Blessing of the Whaling Crews service. Songs filled the church with western hymns sung in both Inupiaq and English. By the last group to take their turn singing to the full sanctuary, I realized that I may have been the only person in the room who had not been on stage at least once. The others didn’t seem to mind, and I felt like I just got a personal performance from half the town.

What strikes me most about the Inupiat’s faith is the sincerity. Twice, little old ladies extemporaneously preached their faith in Inupiaq, liberally and rhythmically infused with English alleluia’s and praise God’s. I felt like James Brown and Elder Beck had filled the five foot tall, seventy-year-old Inupiat women to ensure that Eskimos not only had saved souls, but soul. I also felt their faith. As deserved, the congregation responded with amen’s and alleluia’s of our own. Unlike the mega-church pastor under projection screens and stage lighting down south, sweating out judgments and calling for donations, I believed her and trusted her passion and conviction.

The blending of old and new continues beyond faith. Some crews use only traditional umiaks made from driftwood and bearded seal skins. Others use store-bought wood to frame their umiaks, and still others use aluminum boats with outboard motors. Snow machines (snowmobiles for you non-Alaskans) have replaced dog teams as the primary way to haul the gear sleds to camp on the ice. Bulldozers and front-end loaders help haul the whales onto the ice if they can reach the site. If not, the community joins together to haul the whales like they have for centuries—with block and tackle and more than a few grunts.

Once isolated from each other on the ice, now whalers use VHF radio to communicate warnings and whale activity. The best way to judge the coming weather is still to get up just before six a.m., crawl out of the tent, and scramble to a high point on a nearby ice heave…to get the best reception for the National Weather Service broadcast on KBRW.

Does this make the tradition any less genuine? This is the arctic, and despite being one of the places where global warming is most evident, it is still far from warm or hospitable. Inupiat whaling tradition is all about the whales, not how they get them. If the people die, the traditions die. In the arctic, the tradition is to find the best way to survive. These people have for centuries lived in sod huts at temperatures as low as 60 below zero, hunted 60 ton whales from 12 foot, skin rowboats, and endured months of darkness each year. Just as no one faulted them for trading blubber for furs from inland Inupiat centuries ago, I am not going to fault them now for getting a little help hauling a creature whose tongue alone can weigh more than a ton out of the icy ocean before the polar bears invite themselves to dinner. Life is hard up here, and the Inupiat have survived for thousands of years by being smart enough to recognize a good idea when it blows in.

Knowing how to have fun is another survival tradition that helps the Inupiat survive on the northernmost edge of our continent. To that end, last weekend’s festival, Piuraagiaqta, kicked off the spring whaling season with games, contests and celebration. From maklak races and harpoon throwing contests to scavenger hunts and chess tournaments, the festival was another blend of new and old. Cook-offs included chili, the ubiquitous state fair standard, and Eskimo originals akutuq, muqpauraq, siignaq and uksrukuaqtaq. Akutuq, or Eskimo ice cream, is whipped seal oil or caribou fat often with shredded caribou tossed in for kicks. I don’t know what the other three entail, but if they taste as good as they sound, I hate that I missed them.

After a long stretch of overtime Luke duty, Layla gave me Saturday to enjoy the festival. I took in the parade, complete with sparsely decorated utility equipment and SUV’s, the state champion girls high school basketball team waving from the back of a stake truck, and the thinly veiled oil company attempts to be “part of the community.”

After the parade, the games began at the lagoon. In typical Barrow fashion, the crowd trickled in shortly after the set start time, but by the end of the first event, the main ring was surrounded by cars and trucks filled with spectators. Kids frolicked on the green, frozen water of the lagoon, and car horns proclaimed the spectators’ appreciation for good performances.

I was there alone, a white man with a camera and without a car, but I think I was the only one who felt odd about it. As I mingled before the first event, Tupiqqaurraq, where whaling crews race to set up their canvass tents, Molly Leavitt of Ben Itta’s crew, asked me to help form a team for the event. With limited instructions—outside of church I’ve found many Inupiat direct, but not verbose—Molly, Herman, Jimmy and I set up our tent and finished a distant last place. We all laughed at our ad hoc performance. I helped pack up the tent, and with a new sense of acceptance despite my comical performance, resumed my place on the periphery of the snowy field to enjoy the rest of the day’s events.

The festival closed with a community pot luck, nigliq calling contest, and awards ceremony on Monday night at the roller rink. Luke again enjoyed the native cuisine, charmed a few elders at the table next door, and otherwise enjoyed taking in the festival. A snotty nose, single digit temperatures and a friend’s birthday party kept him from te weekend games.

Luke especially seemed to like the nigliq calling contest, at least the first few callers, even though he knew even less about what a nigliq is than we did. We at least could tell it was some sort of bird, either a duck or goose, and after twenty callers each calling twice, we could tell which were the closest to genuine. The crowd would laugh at clucks where there should have been clooks, but after the first round of calls, I realized that through the obvious enjoyment of the event, many were scrutinizing each call and diligently taking notes on their favorites. My personal favorite was the “cluck-a-luck-a-luck-a-heeeere-birdie-birdie” call, but it didn’t win. Not even in the top three. Shows what I know about calling nigliqs.

The weather has been warm but windy since then (20 degrees above for highs with 30 to 40mph winds some days), and the various whaling crews are out breaking new trails through the pack ice to the open water. It’s all new to me, and like everyone else here, I’m excited for their success and for the coming season.

Aarigaa! (How nice or great!)

If I 'click here,' is it clicking in there?

2007-03-29T12:21:00.000-08:00

Not having the energy for our normal philosophical discussions or even our not-so-serious games of Scrabble while Layla was pregnant, we developed a habit of watching DVDs at night before bed. The circumstances are different with Luke around, but not our energy level at night, so we’ve kept the habit. Tonight, a group of U.S. agents are working vigorously to stop a virus from disabling their computer network security. If they fail, terrorists will be able to access their computers and use the information to attack our country.

The heavily dramatic music, aggressive camera angles, flashing lights and blaring sirens try to portray the sense of severity, intensity and stress facing the agents. To me though, it’s just a lot of stressed out people typing really fast and yelling geek talk back and forth. What happened to just shut it off and then turn it on again? That usually fixes most of my computer problems. Where’s the big rolling boulder or flaming cauldron that Indiana Jones was stressed about? Or Darth Vader and the fleet of Tie Fighters that had Luke Skywalker sweating in his spacesuit?

I can feel the intensity of bone-crushing boulders, fiery pits and even futuristic lasers. But flashing cursors and spinning hourglasses only stress me out when I’m trying to catch the updated scores of a close Carolina basketball game. Maybe it’s intense because they're just typing and waiting. They cannot tell if their code is correct or if it's working until the computer tells them so. Maybe, but it’s still lame TV. It does however remind me of how I sometimes feel with Luke.

Teaching Luke that his fingernails hurt, the trash can is not for climbing and that waving good-bye does not have to be a two person task is a lot like typing random code into a computer in hopes that it will give the desired result. You cannot see if it’s working right away. You just hope that the right connections are being made.

Over and over, I try new tricks, new code. I can see his hourglass and flashing dots on the screen of his face telling me something is happening, but are my efforts working? Are they hurting? How long is it going to take? Indiana Jones could see the boulder roll by after he just managed to get out of the way. Luke Skywalker could see the Tie Fighters exploding behind him as he flew into the Death Star. I watch Luke learn all sorts of things outside of what I teach him, but so far, regardless of my pleading, he gives no indication that he will ever learn that poopy diaper changing time is not the time to twist, crawl and reach for the, er, that.

Despair? Not us. The nation’s safety doesn’t yet depend on Luke’s ability to keep his hands clean, wave or stay out of the trash. Heck, even those on whom the nation’s security does depend have a hard time with two of those three. Luke has come a long way in almost a year of life. He’s even learned a few things I’ve tried to teach him.

He knows the xylophone is for playing and the pots are for banging. He can turn pages, drink from a sippy cup and beat himself in the head with a spoon. He learned that last one all by himself, so I guess that’s progress.

The last couple days Luke has been devouring everything we put in front of him, even food. He loves foods it took me years to learn to appreciate. He can’t get enough Indian food, pallack paneer specifically, Inupiat foods like caribou stew and maktak (Bowhead whale blubber), and cottage cheese, which I still think deserves the name it gets on our receipts from the Stuaqpak—“dairy by-products.”

He knows “high-five” means slap the hand someone is sticking in his face, and “no” means shake your head back and forth. He pulls himself up and pushes his walker around the house. He’s even getting the idea that the rings can go back on the post.

His first tooth broke through a week or so ago. He discovered that if he pulls his hair, it hurts, and if he does it again, and again, it still hurts. He knows that no matter how many times I show him how the shapes fit through the same shaped holes, it’s way easier just to take off the top and dump them all out for Dad to put away later.

We’re still working on gravity. Not that gravity is any different on the North Slope, just that Luke hasn’t learned to respect it. To Luke, beds, chairs, couches and laps are for crawling off of head first. How do you teach an infant not to dive off of things on purpose? Yeah, there’s that way, but I’m looking for another way. That way still seems scary and is likely to be ineffective. The kid is willing to sacrifice his body to get what he wants.

All in all, Luke is doing great. He’s escaped from a few flaming cauldrons and rolling boulders in his first year for sure. We are constantly amazed at how quickly he’s growing into his own individual identity. He’s shown no lack of love or self-confidence, and no fear for that matter, so we’ll assume we’re on the right track in the long run.

In the short term, he seems to be learning quite well even if he rarely, or at least not immediately, lets on that it has anything to do with the effort we put in to teach him. Sometimes that frustrates me, but just when I think the “crazy-dad” dances I do to amuse him might be more truth than act, the hourglass disappears from his blank screen stare, and he sends a message that his computer is loading successfully. So we try not to stress, even if we can’t tell whether the agents on the DVD will fix the computer and save the nation or if the airplane game will ever get Luke to eat his strained green beans.

What the bulldozer giveth, the bulldozer taketh away

2007-03-05T15:58:00.000-09:00

Exhausted, I gaze through the window at the pink snow glowing on the mountains in the distance. It’s three o’clock, and naptime is finally here. But not for me. Picking up all those pointy little wooden blocks that always find their way under my sock feet, wiping spaghetti-O’s from the floor…and the walls…and everything else within a toddler toss of Luke’s high chair—I have plenty to do despite my dreams of dreaming. But I’ve earned the next five minutes of rest, and I’m glad I have the glowing view to help me enjoy them.

The great thing about Barrow in February is that the ever-increasing daylight treats me to sunrises after I awake and alpenglow in the mid-afternoon. Rose petal snow wisps across the streets toward mountains and rooftops pink in the light of the slowly setting sun. The view out my window transforms my couch into a snow drift bench at the top of a tough alpine climb. I stop to catch my breath and take in the view before clicking on my skis and floating down untracked powder to the other world below.

The mountains have long turned from push-up-pop orange to bubble gum pink, so it’s time to begin my descent. Just as I hit my internal snooze button, hoping to grab one last moment of relaxation before hitting the first steep drop, I notice something terribly wrong.

A giant Eskimo third grader, clad in camouflaged hat, Fox Racing goggles and a much too large, hand-me-down parka from a relative’s whaling crew appears on the summit ridge of the glowing mountain. His red mittens breaking false summits and toppling gendarmes like King Kong throwing police cars and small buildings, or like, well, like the kid he is playing on a roadside snow pile. The illusions of my past life are shattered.

Stunned and confused by reality, I toss my throw cushion skis from the couch, remove my goggles to rub my eyes and ease back into today’s “All Things Considered” on KBRW. There are no mountains in Barrow. The nearest of those grand ripples on the earth’s crust are a few hundred miles to the south. We didn’t even move our downhill skis to Barrow, and Luke can’t stand on his own, much less climb or ski. Strangely, as much a part of our lives playing in the mountains had been, it is now just as absent.

Yes, what my parents always said is as true now as it was unconscionable then. “Do that stuff now while you can. Once you have kids, everything changes.”

“Yeah right, my kid is gonna be right there with me. First in the backpack, then carrying his own,” I thought to myself in those days.

After dragging Luke up the Mt. Roberts trail in Juneau a dozen or so times, I realized that Luke may like the mountains someday, but now it’s just a bumpy ride and a chilly breeze on his drool-laden cheeks. He’d usually sleep the whole way then, and now, if his rides in the backpack around the track at Barrow High School are any indication, he’d rather be crawling than carried. Mountains are unnecessary and unnoticed by a kid who only cares about what within a short reach might fit into his mouth. Dragging him on a long hike now would be much akin to cramming my whole extended family into a Porsche and driving around a speed-bump ridden parking lot outside a racetrack. All the elements are there, but no one is having fun.
The day the red-mittened mountain masher yanked me from my nostalgia, the phrase that came to mind was, “the mountain will always be there.” It’s a common phrase disheartened climbers use when retreating from an unsuccessful summit attempt, but it applies nicely to steepaphiles with new babies living in flat places. In my memory and in my future, if not in my window, the mountains will always be there.

That time will come when we’re ready to hike, climb and ski as a family, and until then, we’ll be patient knowing that the mountains will be there when we’re ready for them. In Barrow our time here is not marked by peaks, places and expectations. Here, it’s blocks, books and bottles, and we’re happy with that. Luke doesn’t compete with powder days and clear skies for our focus, just the occasional snow pile daydream.

Most things in life are ephemeral, like snow piles, and the time, energy and especially the energy to go mountaineering. The uncompromised attention we’re able to give Luke will have eternal benefits. We’re finding that it’s much easier for us to do that when it’s 20 below and everything outside is flat and white.

A day later, the bulldozers returned to take the snow mountains away. Even the Eskimo third graders have to spend some time on the flatland. Like our time in the mountains, the snow piles will be back soon enough, although in a slightly different form. In the meantime, sofa-cushion mountains and peek-a-boo will have to do.

'til then, peek-a-boo

food, friends and birthday fun

2007-02-19T17:43:00.000-09:00

The last was an eventful week for our arctic family. We hosted our first big dinner party one night and had some fun on Eskimo radio for Layla’s birthday the next. We enjoyed Kivgiq, the tri-annual festival, or more recently, the whenever the mayor wants to throw a three day party festival, and most exciting for me, Luke learned to high five.

As full-time homemaker, I was determined that our first Barrow dinner party would be unlike our usual Juneau dinner events. Our guests would not have to wipe grease from their glasses and shout over the din of the hapless and loudly complaining exhaust fan. The fan, which, like a high school basketball coach spouting profanities at the ref or a college kid whose computer actually did erase his final project, was as loud and obnoxious as it was unsurprisingly ineffective. Despite its useless cacophony, I, like the coach and the undergrad, still felt compelled to use it well into the social part of the evening, but no more.

Still frantically cooking well after our guests arrive must be a holdover from my restaurant days where ingredients went from pan to plate to table in seconds, or you could hurl insults at the waiters like sticky spaghetti at the wall, but seeing how the neighbors store their family size frozen dinners (see photo at right), I now knew how to avoid it. Luckily, use of the endless Barrow community freezer is free and convenient for all residents, so Luke and I made two dozen enchiladas the day before and kept them just outside the back door of our house. On party day, we calmly pulled in the trays hours before the first guest even got off work. When the first of our friends arrived, I even had time to enjoy a glass of wine, and the party went on without a hitch.

After our dinner party success, Luke and I were confident we could do it again the next night. His naps keep his attention only a bit longer than the tags on his stuffed toys, so I opted for the high chair and Cheerio prison, er, game, to buy some time in the kitchen. The only catch is that I have to manually regulate his Cheerio intake to one or two at a time so his oft-practiced fun in stuffing doesn’t outpace his relatively new practice in chewing. Nonetheless, after a few hours of Cheerio prison and emptying, refilling, and re-emptying the lower kitchen drawers, we had done it again. Vegetable sushi and our first birthday cake. Thanks to Layla liking her sushi on the less-than-interesting side and a great cake recipe from our friend Kate in Juneau, both were a success, and we ate happily while listening to the early edition of the Birthday Program.

Yes, on Layla’s birthday and after we gave everyone she knows the number and standard time to call in a “happy birthday and many more” to Layla, KBRW decides to move the Birthday Program up an hour in order to cover the evening Kivgiq festivities. Although everyone in town knew that it was very unlikely for the festival to resume promptly at 7:00 as scheduled—the sense of time based on hours and minutes is as new and awkward here as it is engrained and worshipped down south—the Birthday Program ended promptly at seven just as Layla’s friends and family across the globe were gearing up for their 15 seconds of arctic fame. Thankfully, a few people got my last second email about the change and made it on to the air. Layla was very surprised and laughed out loud at how “Eskimo” the wishes from her friends and family sounded, and all in all had a great birthday evening.

We really enjoyed the three-day Kivgiq festival that began on Layla’s birthday and continued until the early hours of Sunday morning. The three of us went to an Inupiat traditional foods lunch where Luke, and Layla and I, got our first real Eskimo food. We’re not sure what to think about the fact that he made the “what-the-heck-are-you-feeding-me” face after his first bite of chocolate birthday cake but couldn’t get enough of the caribou stew. But hey, the stew was good, they’ve been cooking those recipes for thousands of years, and that was only my first cake.

Luke was covered in seal oil and rice as we finished our plates, and so was I as his acting high chair, but that didn’t stop Layla from proudly introducing us to her boss, North Slope Borough Mayor, Edward Itta. The mayor greeted us less as a boss or politician and more like a father greeting guests at his son’s graduation party. He was a proud man that day, as he should have been with hundreds of elders, children and their great, (great) grandchildren coming from hundreds of miles across the tundra for the gathering. On the North Slope, they aren’t just constituents, they’re family, and the mayor’s smile showed it. We were proud parents as well, as Luke quickly and directly gave the mayor “five” on his first prompt. I don’t know if it says more about the mayor or about Luke that his first “five” to someone other than Layla and I was such a confident gesture with the mayor of the nation’s most expansive local government, but either way, it made everyone smile.

The days of Kivgiq were filled with dancing, drumming and otherwise celebrating the proud Inupiat culture of northern Alaska. Traditionally, the festival would draw Inuit from western Canada and nearby eastern Siberia, but new passport requirements and other recently effective Homeland Security measures prevented it this year. Although it’s unlikely that terrorists will plan to attack the U.S. through the North Slope, or that an Inuit elder would hide a bomb in her mukluks or refuse to put her seal oil in a Ziploc bag, broad laws have broad effects, and no one here complained, at least not loudly. That’s not because they didn’t miss the company of their Inuit brethren from both East and West, but more because the culture seems to have learned to endure, not whine. On the Slope, you can find plenty to complain about, but complaining never made it warmer or the whales any lighter to pull onto the ice.

The Alaskan Eskimos carried on the celebration in grand fashion with deafening drumming and dancers in colorful parkas presenting stories of hunting and other interactions with the wild world around them. Children of all ages were everywhere. Amidst the happy chaos, speakers would begin and end their parts with a loud “Aarigaa!” loosely meaning “good” or “how nice!” The young people needed no signs or ropes to tell them to reserve the best seats for the elders, who with their deep wrinkles and whitening hair sat in quiet approval of how the following generations were reviving and continuing the old ways. The performers and contributors emphasized the core Inupiat values, and elders told stories of history and humor. As a “taniq,” I could’ve used more interpretation and maybe some descriptions of what I was eating, but we got the feel of it and enjoyed it very much. The MC’s constant reminders, heard frequently at the event and over the airwaves, described the atmosphere better than he knew. “Parents, please control your children so the elders can hear.”

Thanks for enduring this long entry. More, or less, next time…

Back to the bright side

2007-02-07T21:38:00.000-09:00

Well, we’re finally settling into our cottage on the edge of town, one block from the lagoon and 5 from the sea. The house was turn-key ready, complete with tarp-covered boats, a windowless wooden box of a shed, a traditional skin whaling boat and other artifacts that the wind uncovers every few days. Even though they aren’t ours, they sure have helped us feel a part of the community.

Since the sun came up a couple weeks ago, I watch the sunrise every morning, er, afternoon. Just like in westerns and romance movies, the sunrises blend into the sunsets, and the moon continuously circles large around town. For days, Luke would sleep or occupy himself from sun-up to sun-down giving me enough time to mix a refreshing glass of Tang or to drain the water-heater with a luxurious, hot, five-minute shower.

We feel safe here. Not only do we leave our keys in the car, often, we leave it running. Luke gets a two-stroke serenade that sometimes lasts long into the night from the local kids, and each night the community sends well-wishes over the radio to those with birthdays or anniversaries. Almost without fail, each greeting ends with, “and many more….hold on…” as they pass the phone to other family members lined up to send the same wish to the same people. Frequently, the well-wishers extend their blessings to “anyone else who has a birthday or anniversary today…hold on.”

We found a great little car, and it’s proven to be quite economical. One door stays closed, almost all the lights work, and we average slightly more than 2 miles per dollar. Not to be a snobby new neighbor, but as it rolls, and has windows, it does seem like a nicer car than most of the ones we see parked, or buried, around many of the other houses in town.

Layla’s been hard at work, and Luke and I have been slouching around, spending all of her money. Many of the locals already know Luke by name, and he has his favorite librarian, Stuaqpak (“big store”) check out girl, and kindergarten ballerina girlfriend. Luke says,”kfhbvghhhji777777777777777vjj bnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
‘;;;;;;;; vy.”

Quyanaqpak (“big thank you”)….hold on…