Beyond fancy.

I took this picture in Nuiqsut, a North Slope village resettled by the Inupiat after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed in the early 1970s.  If you click on the photo, it should enlarge.  Before the permanent structures of the village were built, the residents lived in a tent-camp huddled alongside the riverbank for a year (see picture below).  I think the pictures here speak for themselves.    The people here are warmer than any I have ever met.

  

Post Office Sorrow.

Well,

   Apparently my excitement with the post office's "community center" feel was not such a great thing for one particularly important person in town: the postmaster.

   He quit on Monday, and now we can't get any packages.  Who knew that you have to have a postmaster in order to have the windows of the post office available for package pickup and delivery?  

   Given how much activity is normally occurring at the post office, I can only imagine how many thousands of packages must be building up inside that building.  But I know this . . . when the postmaster quit, he was genuinely fed up.  Jenny happened to run into him as he was walking out the door, and that's about exactly what he said, "I've had it and I'm outta here!"

   So, we will cling to the happiness of the packages we received last week so we do not descend into despair at having lost our link to the fruits of the Outside.   

   Sigh . . .

   But there is a funny thing that happened too.  On the same day the postmaster bailed on Barrow, I had to fly to a small coastal village known as Wainwright.  After I landed, I realized I did not have anyone there to pick me up.  You would think "no big deal, he could just hang out in the airport."  Well, that would have been great if there was an airport!  In many of the villages, the planes land drops you off on the runway, end of story.

   Well, I was luckily able avoid a half mile walk when I hitched a ride with another guy from the flight who was clearly more organized (he had a friend there to pick him up).  They drove me to the one small man-camp/hotel in the village.  These places are generally built for workers who come in on rotating and temporary shifts to work in the Arctic, then leave.  Unfortunately, however, and despite calling in to hold a room for me, there was none left!

   Given that there were no other hotels available, the manager of the camp (who was also the lead cook), Scott, began to call around to find a place for me to sleep.   Guess where he ended up finding a bed?  Wrong.  The jail!

   So, I ate my last meal, some very gravy-laden roast beef and powdered mash potatoes, put on my parka, said good night and "thank you" to the manager for lining me up a room in the pokey, and walked out the door.   Without getting into it, the manager was a great guy, who actually had lived in Utah for 12 years, and we had a great time laughing about Utah and Alaska.

   As I exited into the night (a paltry 20 degrees, the warmest its been in months), I made my way to the police department.  As I trudged through the snowy street, a large white Dodge truck pulled up along-side me and the passenger window rolled down.

   A large Inupiat man was inside.

   "Hey, Jonny!"

   I looked inside and wouldn't you know it, the one person I knew in the entire village, a fellow I had met in my own village of Barrow, was in the truck.

   "Hi, Boo!"  I said.  His nickname, the only name I knew for him, was Boo-Boo.

   "I heard you were going to stay in the jail, so I came to see if you wanted to sleep at my place," he said.  I sometimes forget that, in a village of 400 people surrounded by 2000 square miles of tundra, word travels fast when a skinny white guy is on his way to jail.

   "Oh Boo, I sure do!"  I said without an ounce of hesitation.  I am proud to say that I've never had to voluntarily or involuntarily stay in jail.  

   "Well, hop in."

   And there it is.  The next thing I knew, I was watching "Gladiator" on my first Eskimo friend's couch.   I slept like a baby and he took me back to work the next morning.   I've attached his picture here for all to see.  By the way, his real name is Jimmy.  That's my brother's name, too.  I know this isn't the only place where this could happen, but geese, it sure was cool.

   

The Less Selfish Life.

So, can we unlearn selfishness? I honestly don't know, but I think that's why living here is such a challenge. Quite simply, it is very difficult to live in this Arctic region if you are selfish. We thus have a choice: change or leave.

And yet here we cling. Me, representing this Inupiat Eskimo community and my dedicated family.

I am rightfully an outsider to the people here. This is not my place, as I am constantly reminded, but for some reason, I have already won some measure of respect (Thank God). Perhaps its because I am very self-deprecating and folks know that I love my home just like they love the North Slope and its Arctic Ocean garden.

Some things about the Inupiat that everyone should know.

1) The Federal Government once proposed to detonate a series of nuclear bombs outside of an Inupiat coastal village (about 200 miles from our village) in order to test the safe use of nuclear weapons. (See "Project Chariot" on Google and you'll see what I'm referring to).

2) When the Inupiat Eskimos successfully rallied opposition to the detonations, the government abandoned the project, but went ahead and dumped nuclear waste from the Nevada nuclear test site there instead.

3) In the late 1950's, Inupiat children here were taken from schools without their parents permission and injected with nuclear materials to test their thyroid's ability to regulate heat.

But the story doesn't end with these atrocities. They go on and on and on . . . And now, their pristine Ocean is on the verge of becoming an industrial oil and gas development . . . well, over 73.4 million acres of it, but who's counting?

This place and its native Inupiat people is so deeply sad in so many, many ways, I often don't want to be here. Its not easy to handle if you're fundamentally selfish. Can I change? The Inupiat people I've met, deep down in their core, do not seem to derive from selfish origins. Sure, that's romanticized (I've only been here for 4 months), but it makes sense when you consider that the subsistence lifestyle, to which the Inupiat still cling, is about sharing (for instance, when the whales come in, they are shared with the entire community). How could you come from a place as tough as this and not know how to share?

Teddy is struggling; we are all struggling - except Forrest (who is now known as Nasuk I believe and picks up new Inupiaq words everyday).

I've only been in Barrow since the beginning of October, and I will certainly never be the same again.

Not Cold Enough: My Life in the Arctic

December 7, 2008



Barrow – Alaska

According to the Weather Underground, the temperature here today is -13 Farenheit with a windchill of -39.

The sensation of the cold is exciting, yet perplexing to the extent of causing a certain sense of unease. If your car breaks down, or if you even get locked out of your house while taking out the trash, you are immediately faced with challenges that few of us ever face. The wind finds its way through any open space in your clothing. If you don’t have your undershirt tucked in, you may as well not even have a coat on because the chill travels up from your belly and penetrates your core immediately. You move fast, swiftly and without confusion because your focus is important.

The Eskimos are like this. Generally, they are concentrated and survival oriented. Imagine the contrast of a Southern equatorial people who relax, speak in a slow manner, and generally draw through the day with ease and understanding that food is easy to collect and the temperature is never too harsh to be outside. In the polar region, things seem the opposite. Words are sharp and few, ideas are direct, and the focus on survival and sustenance is real. Inupiat means “the real people.” Here, you must be real because you cannot fake your way through this place.

At the same time, it is so beautiful. The Arctic night is something I will always cherish. It carries a silent emptiness that is receptive to every energy, every sound, every whisper. Every person here is important and has the ability to disrupt things in a grand scale. Alternatively, every person has the ability to become like the Arctic itself and become more silent, more sustainable, more respectful.

The snow machine is a tremendously powerful tool here. Like all tools, it is abused by some, used to chase, exhaust and even run down fur-bearing animals, to destroy the calm of the night by racing the streets, and to pollute the clean Arctic air. It is cherished for its value in carrying folks farther and more easily than sled dogs, but it is unfortunate that it is not treated more as the tool it really is than merely as a toy to play.

I am struggling to live without the sun, which has been gone since November 17th. My days are brightened by the people, and by the fantastic leaders here. The Inupiat are so encouraged by the new administration. A chance exists to create a new policy towards the arctic: one that recognizes the people, the ocean and the wildlife as much as the oil underneath them.

Everyone here works so hard. There is always too much to do. I’ve given my work here a theme “Not cold enough: my life in the Arctic.” I hate to say it, but as cold as I get here, I know that this part of the world is warming nearly twice as fast as the rest of the planet. I am happy to be cold, and I know that I must help to keep it cold. Who would have thought a guy from West Valley City, Utah, could have such an awesome job!?

Arrival in Barrow.

October 5, 2008

Barrow, Alaska.  I arrived in this arctic town on a snowed over runway at 7 p.m. (9 p.m. in Utah time), concluding my fourth plane flight in one day: from Salt Lake to Seattle (1.5 hours), Seattle to Anchorage (3.5 hours), Anchorage to Fairbanks (1.5 hrs.), and Fairbanks to Barrow (1.5 hrs).  To say the least, after a prior night packing until 1 a.m., I was exhausted and generally afraid of starting my new job the next day without enough sleep.

Upon waling off the plane, my co-worker and office manager, Richard, approached me to offer a ride to my new home, a huge itinerant housing structure in Browerville (the "suburb" right next to Barrow).  Well, as it turned out, Richard said that his brother-in-law had just harpooned a whale!  Coincidentally, and almost fortuitously, my arrival paralleled the catch of the first bowhead whale of the fall subsistence hunt.  I asked Richard if it was okay for me to come watch them pull the whale in.  He said "sure."

We drove to the edge of Browerville, which is about a 5 minute drive from the airport (which is basically in downtown Barrow). Out at sea, we could see a small boat floating next to a black bulge, presumably the whale.    Noticeably, there were cars driving in from every direction, pulling up on the beach, parking, running the engine heaters (to keep warm!), and generally coming in for "the show" of watching the whale get pulled in.

Being with Richard put me right into the inner circle of the catch!  As it turns out, when a whaling captain kills a whale, it is then his family's responsibility to organize the initial gathering of the community to cut up the whale, remove its blubber, its meat, its organs, and every other useful part of the creature.  The captain's wife prepares soup (or some other easily served in bulk meal), Eskimo donuts (flour fried donuts), and tea.  Then, while the men cut and remove the blubber from the whale, the wife keeps the community fed, and also boils sections of the blubber and whale skin (Muktuk I believe its called) in salt water for everyone to eat while they watch the whole ordeal.    I can tell you, it is surreal!  No one in the community is left without food or whale.  

But wait, in my excitement, I forgot to tell you about bringing in the whale!

Much of the night, from about 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. was spent bringing in the whale.   While the crew of what I think was 4 or 5 men originally harpooned the whale, it required two other boats assistance to drag in.  The wife, who had never prepared a whale feast before, was happy because the whale was said to be small.  Richard also expressed relief on her behalf.  It then seemed somewhat unusual that the men were having such difficulty pulling it in.  Something seemed wrong, but the Inupiat people are very patient and they waited.  Coming from 80 degree temperatures in Utah, to 20 degree temperatures with 20 mile per hour winds gave me a reminder of the value of the parka in arctic.  I can honestly promise, there is not a chance of forgetting your coat here! 

Given how long it was going to take to get the whale in, and Richard's need for warmer clothes,  he drove me to my housing complex to get things settled in while he went home to change.  I was thankful because I was feeling scrambled and generally overwhelmed by my new surroundings (given their stark contrast to the tightly wound Utah world I'm used to).   In Barrow, the axiom "United We Stand, Divided We Fall," is proven.  Here, you must work together and laugh together, because you will either die or kill yourself if you don't.

Surprisingly, when we returned about an hour later, the creature was still out at sea and a blizzard had moved in from the sea.  We waited another hour and a half for the boats to get the whale strapped to the boats.  Apparently the whalers had trouble keeping the strap and float attached to the whale's tail or something like that.  Apparently, and as we found out when the front loaders were hooked to the beast and dragged it from the sea, what was thought to be a small bowhead turned out to be large, measuring at 40 feet 9 inches long and probably 8 feet high on its side!   Richards sister was going to be busy and so were we!    When the whale made it up on the sand, horns began to blaze and people began to scream and chant . . . HOORAY!   When the Whale was nearly on the shore, the strap broke and I learned how dangerous this practice can be.  If anyone would have been near the broken line, they would have been killed.   In the Spring, when the whales are dragged in by hand (by the whole community who pulls the rope), the strap has broken and, in its whip-like action, has whipped and killed people.   Combined with the dangers of what faces the brave men out in the boats hunting the whales, who face everything from shifting pack ice to waves and the possibility of being dragged to their death by the whales themselves, this practice is clearly one of necessity, and not of sport.  It is the people's subsistence; the heart of their economic, social, spiritual and even political well-being.

When the whale was finally landed, children from the community climbed it and stood on it.  I was able to touch it and look inside its mouth and baleen.   It took two front-end loaders to lift it and carry it to the cutting grounds . . . an old runway about ½ mile from where the boats originally landed it on the beach.   While the front loaders maneuvered, lifted and began to move the whale, the entire community jumped in their cars and lined up to follow.   It was a procession of joy and happiness I've never seen.  Women came to tears of joy and children jumped and screamed.  Many people smoked cigarettes in a collective sigh as it was indicated that everyone was safe and the whale was really caught.

The feast that followed was amazing.  A tend was set up, temporary stoves were brought in, and a division of labor quickly occurred.  Some older men set up stools and began to sharpen the saws and knives.  Younger men began to cut the whale blubber in 12-18 inch wide, 10 inch thick, and up to 7 feet long strips that they removed from the core meat of the whale and dragged to the women.  The women prepared tea and the food and cut the thick strips down into very small pieces that were boiled in salt water and then handed out the everyone in attendance.  This is a delicacy here and it is considered a very, very important thing to eat that skin and blubber.  The blubber is incredibly oily . . . so oily that I could not get it off my hands with a paper towel or a wet nap.  While the blubber tasted just like lard, I could not describe the taste of the skin, except that I think it would be much better with soy sauce or something like that.  

People seemed generally impressed that I liked it, or at least convincingly acted like I liked it.  I actually preferred the rice and chicken soup that Richard's wife had made!

Anyway, I needed to get this down because it was such an incredible and rare experience, not to mention it occurred as soon as I exited the airplane.

I now have a much deeper understanding and appreciation for why I am here.  It is my job to work for these people and the whales.  They are dependent on eachother.  The Inupiat need the whales to eat, and the whales need the Inupiat (and me) to speak for them to a world that would rather have oil than its indigenous people. 

Quite frankly, if the oil companies drill these oceans, it will almost certainly disrupt the whaling routes and possibly throw the whales even closer to extinction.   This would be nothing less than genocide for these people, who have lived and hunted the bowhead since time immemorial (approximately 10,000 years).

 jj