Lunch break: Who do you think these folks want to see go to the Super Bowl?

Who do you think these folks want to see go to the Super Bowl? I feel a certain temptation to drop everything, conduct a journalistic investigation and find out the answer to this question – the who, why, what and all that? But I have other things I must do now. I have a feeling the answer may soon reveal itself to me, anyway.

Text added at 5:54 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues.

The Daily School Bus: they blow their horns

Whenever they pull up to a stop to pick up students, school buses in Barrow blow their horns. The sound reminds me a bit of the complaint of an unhappy cow, but louder and with a bit of hoarseness in the throat. On school mornings, these honks are heard repeatedly throughout Barrow.

A pretty decent little wind blows this morning. A fine, light, snow flies and swirls its way down the roads. Excluding wind chill, it is warm. Generally speaking, it does not snow when it is cold. It has to get warm before it can snow.

Text added at 9:16 AM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 55 and counting.

Leroy – whose mother sang hymns to him as he lay comatose – observes his wife and young daughter

On August 16, I put up a post of Caroline Cannon of Point Hope singing at a Singspiration in Nuiqsut, with one hand raised in praise and a cross on the wall behind her. She had just related the story of how two years ago her son Leroy Oenga had been comatose in the hospital and how the doctors told her he was brain-dead and she should pull the plug. Instead, she sang the same song to him she sung that night in Nuiqsut and she prayed for him. I mentioned that I had seen her son in his comatose state and had felt so bad for the two of them, as it truly appeared hopeless. Yet he recovered.

That's Leroy on the left, observing his wife Clara and young daughter Freda earlier today at The ICC food security meeting I mentioned in my previous post. I spoke with him and he was feeling good, he seemed happy and in good spirits. I really haven't set out on a quest to document miraculous healings as it almost appears from this and my story on Joe two days ago. It just happened that these two stories both presented themselves to me in this very short time period.

Text added at 9:49 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 54 and counting.

Food security in a time of huge change

Believe it or not, I did not come to Barrow this time to do a photo shoot - but of course I shoot photos wherever I go and whatever I do, even if only on my iPhone. I came to do research. Today, I have been doing research at the Iñupiat Heritage Center where, it happens, a food security meeting is being held, sponsored by the Inuit Circumpolar Council - Alaska. Participants invited me to listen in and join them for lunch - bowhead whale maktak, dried bearded seal soaked in seal oil and caribou soup - the very food the people here seek to keep secure. The challenges are great, due to climate change, offshore oil development, and a big increase in shipping in the Arctic Ocean - Tagiuq in Iñupiaq, with a dot over the "g," - as the Northwest Passage becomes ever more navigable in summer. 

On this map, Barrow is Utkiagvik, also with a dot over the g - the place to hunt snowy owls.

Barrow elder Wesley Aiken blessed the food. William Leavitt of Barrow and Caroline Cannon of Point Hope stand alongside him.

Text added at 3:48 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 54 and counting.

The Daily School Bus: the forecast storm has arrived

As Arctic storms go it is not terribly fierce, not nearly so bad as the one I just missed over the weekend, but it is a bit blizzardy and it could get worse. It is expected to last for a couple of days.

Text added at 8:56 AM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 54 and counting.