This is the photo Sarah took of the baby and me. Isn’t he cute!!!
Boxes and boxes of maktak and meat.
I think this is the fermented stuff, note the yellowness of the blubber. Maybe, not sure.
A bigger piece being chopped up.
And a close up.
The blanket toss. This was taken on the downward end.
And the moment you’ve all been waiting for…………………………………………
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POLAR BEAR!!!!!!
This is my new helmet, I love it a lot because it makes me feel badass. Hahaha. Little did everyone know I was wearing my mouse ear toque underneath.
Here I am at Joe’s museum. He’s a bit of a legend here. He was the town’s waterman for a really long toime. He started collecting things off the beach and storing it in his house. Evetually he had so much stuff he started opening his house up to tours. It is wall to wall stuff, including over a dozen full size taxidermied animals including a black bear, deer, polar bear, moose, beaver, porcupine and bobcat.
Can you guess what these are?!? They are oosiks, or baculas, or penis bones!!! These are from a walrus I think.
I went the a Nalukatuk yesterday and it was awesome. This is someone on the blanket toss. No broken bones yesterday but someone fell face first and broke his nose.
I made a friend!!! I was sitting down watching the dancing when a little boy toddles up to me. I think he might have been around 2. He was really excited about my camera so I held it while he took about 100 photos. He loved to push the button and then see the picture after. It was soo cute because he would put his arm around my shoulder to steady himself and lay his head on my head so he could see the screen. Sarah, Nadia’s mom, got a picture of the two of us which is really cute.
Here’s another cute tyke. I love her kuspuk (parka dress), I think I need one really badly.
This is how the women carry their babies. You can see the head of this baby, most of the others were completely hidden in their mama’s kuspuks, you could only see their outlines.
Happy Solstice everyone!!!!!
This is at the Warehouse getting ready to leave in the morning. The yellow ATVs are for the bear guards, note the gun case on the front.
That particular morning was extremely foggy. Going through the fog, the water beads on your face and combined with the churned up dirt from the ride it can get pretty nasty.
At the Inupiat Heritage Center. I bought some postcards and two books.
After our group and the pollutants group went to Pepe’s for dinner. Nice group shot.
This is our project truck, it is a real beater.
Very often it won’t start so we all got a mechanics crash course. Here I am whacking at the starter.
Another view of Barrow.
An example of the heavy machinery necessary to work up here. I’m not really sure what this is used for.
Alaskan Palm Trees!!!! For you Dad.
A lemming. This little guy was sitting outside my door last night. I sat in the middle of the road for about 20 minutes watching him.
This is Pepe’s restaurant. It is the northern most Mexican restaurant in the world. It is quite the place.
This is Fran, the owner of Pepe’s, she is quite a character, and a funny woman. She passed out the guestbook to sign and we will receive a calendar in the mail. She also gave us a certificate to say we had crossed the Arctic circle.
This is the view from Pepe’s. Note the ground? And the various bits of junk everywhere?
Today we went to a whaling event where the whaling crew pulled their Umiak onto shore and then fed all the community caribou soup and muktuk. This is the Umiak. All of the skins covering the boat are hand-stitched.
Here I am with the Umiak. It smelled slightly off, like salty water and something unidentifiable. Maybe meat? Dunno.
The whaling crew all had huge pots filled with soup and people would line up with bowls, tupperwear, and even ziploc bags to join in the feast.
Caribou soup!!
Fermented Muktuk
This is the whaling crew, minus Kyle, who decided not to show. They were the first whaling crew to harpoon a whale in the entire North Slope.
Eugene Brower is the whaling captain. His great grandfather, Charles Brower was born in New York City but traveled to Barrow in 1885. He created his own whaling operation shortly thereafter. The flag on the Umiak was passed down from Charles Brower, to his son Henry, and then to Eugene. Eugene is one of those people who have real presence. You just want to listen to what he has to say, which must be important as a whaling captain.
This was taken at the bonfire on the beach on Saturday night. It was 11:00 pm when the photo was taken. Weird huh?
This is everyone at the fire.
It is very beautiful here. I honestly can’t believe how spectacular this place looks most of the time, probably because I’m freezing my ass off most of the time……
This is the first morning, prepping to head out. Isn’t my coat awesome?! It was frickin’ cold.
This is Nuvuk. The tent on the left is the honey pot tent, the one on the right holds all our equipment. All my pictures of the point aren’t very good so I’ll take more and post them later. See you later!!
