Branson and his 6-9 year-old Avalanch teammates play on Aces ice - part 2: Boys and girls charge onto the ice, play hard and chaotic

Sporting pink skatelaces and a beautiful smile, Shailey Symbol prepares to go out and do battle for the Avalanche - against the Avalanche. For the exhibition game that fell between the first and second periods of the match between the Anchorage Aces and the Stockton Thunder, the team divided in half to play itself.

Kira Hietala of Wasilla's Avalanche, a team of six to nine year olds. There are fifteen players on the team, five of them are girls. They smile pretty, but they play as tough and hard as do the boys.

As his dad straps his helmet onto his head, Branson pysches himself up for the six-minute game.

Wasilla's Alaska Avalanche is now ready to skate out onto the ice and take itself on. The young hockey players just have to wait for the Aces, who still battle the Thunder - who they will defeat, 3 - 1.

Soon, the Aces exit the arena and pass by where the Avalanche awaits their turn on the ice. Most of the Aces scoot on by, but center Garry Nunn pauses to thump some helmets.

Coach Steve Johnson sent Branson onto the ice first, right behind Boomer, the Aces polar bear mascot. Johnson asked the other players if they knew why he wanted to send Branson out first. "Yes," they answered, it was a thank you to Branson's dad, Scot Starheim, for making the arrangements with the Aces to invite the Avalanche to perform on their ice.

I had thought the players would gather in the middle of the arena for introductions. This did not happen. The moment they all were on the ice was the moment they started to play. They had six minutes, total time, clock running. There was no time to waste on introductions. Once started, they did not stop for anything.

At first, it seemed to me to be nothing but chaos on the ice.

Soon, it became clear that these young athletes had come to Anchorage to play hockey. Brendon Creech battles an opponent for the puck.

Mikey Greco reaches for the puck.

Davi McGrew, also sporting pink skatelaces, takes control of the puck and then concentrates on the goal.

Davi shoots and scores against Phillip Brevogel.

A bit later, Phillip blocks what would have been another score.

The game is over. No one kept score and Coach Johnson thinks maybe only one score was made - Davi's. I told you the girls played as tough as the boys.

Wasilla's Alaska Avalanche won the game.

Boomer exchanged a congratulatory high five with Kaleb Estrada.

Inside, Boomer had love to give to all the Avalanche.

Branson exchanges a high five with Boomer.

Branson and his 6-9 year-old Avalanche teammates play on Aces ice - part 1: Branson, pre-game

One Friday night when I was in the middle of the process of putting together my David Alan Harvey Loft workshop series, I took a break to drive to Anchorage where Branson and his Alaska Avalanche hockey team of six-to-nine year olds was about to compete in a six-minute, running-clock, exhibition game on the same ice where the Anchorage Aces would take on the Stockton Thunder.

Branson arrived early with his dad and mom, Scot and Carmen Starheim, owners and operators of Metro Cafe. Here is six-year old Branson with mom Carmen at the gate to the Sullivan Arena. Dad Scot had disappeared to take care of some task that needed taking care of.

Once inside, the family accompanied Branson to the VIP room, where he got to dine on diced beef, pasta, salad and corn chips. Afterward, he needed to pick his teeth.

In the VIP room, Branson engaged a very tall man in some hockey talk. Clearly, the man was impressed. Branson knows his hockey talk.

Branson joins his family in the bleachers to watch the first period of Aces-Thunder competition. Carmen adjusts Branson's hair so that he can be presentable to pose with his grandparents, Tony and Eva Villasenor, originally from a small village in Mexico. They did not move to Anchorage until Carmen was ten. Her early life was spent barefoot on dirt floors. They had no cameras and so Carmen has only one photo from her early childhood in Mexico.

Branson with his grandparents.

Branson with grandparents, mom, aunts, uncles, cousin and friends.

The Avalanche exhibition will be played during the break between the first and second periods. As the Aces skate onto the ice, Branson and his dad point out different players to each other.

The Aces score the first goal. Branson and his dad celebrate.

Soon it is time for Branson to go down to the doors that open onto the ice and to get ready to compete. His dad joins him.

Branson, stick in hand, helmet on head, ready to go do battle on the same ice where the Aces now skate. He and his teammates will compete against each other before the same crowd that the Aces do their own battle on.

I will post Part 2 later today, which will feature not only Branson but his whole team, the Aces, and Boomer -their polar bear mascot.

Five mundane scenes photographed this afternoon while driving through downtown Wasilla

This is one of those nights when I feel I must take a little bit of a break from blogging - not a complete break, just a little break. So I am just going to post five mundance scenes that I photographed this afternoon while driving through downtown Wasilla.

Here I am, headed towards the Post Office, directly ahead at the next intersection. I am hoping I will find a check in my box. I will be disappointed.

Here I am, approaching Wasilla Lake. Hmmm... a few hours later... right now, to be precise... I will be overcome with an irresistible urge to return to this place and buy a banana split - or at least a small cone, dipped in chocolate.

I don't know why. But I am now being overcome with such an urge. I had better hurry up and finish this post, so I can go.

Here I am, passing by Wasilla Lake.

And here is a snowplow, keeping the road clear for me.

I needed an orange, so I stopped at Carr's and bought five. On the walk back to the car, I was thrilled to see a train rolling down the track. What could be better than that? Then along came a school bus - train and school bus together - that's what.

How could a man be so fortunate as I?

Update 10:51 PM: You will notice that even though the title says "Five mundane scenes" this scene actually makes six. Earlier, I had left it out, because I figured one school bus was enough. However, I just returned from eating the banana split (I went whole hog) I bought at Dairy Queen. Things look different after you eat a banana split - it makes you feel like there should be two school buses, afterall. 

So here is this school bus, taken when I was directly in front of Metro Cafe.

Lynxton is ill, gets three shots; boys who love trains; January ends in a snowy heatwave

When I drove into Anchorage Friday evening to pick Margie up from her week of babysitting, Lynxton was sick with a viral infection. It was hard on him and we could not explain to him why it was so. It was also hard on his parents, as he needed round-the-clock attention.

So we brought Kalib and Jobe home with us. They brought Thomas the Train and a few of his friends. And yes, we spent some time playing with the electric HO Thomas that their Aunt Suji had given us at Christmas as well, but for some reason, I forgot to take pictures. I shot this and the next few that follow with my iPhone.

Every now and then, as I would be sitting at my computer working, or maybe just goofing around, my office door would fly open and the boys would come bounding in. "Grampa!" Kalib would tug at me. "Your train! Go fast!" So I would have to get up and turn the train on.

Invaribly, by the time I returned to my chair, they had taken it over. Here they are, watching the train from my chair as Jimmy, the black cat, takes a drink from the large aquarium.

Oh, my goodness. The large orange fish in the large aquarium is staring at me RIGHT NOW! He wants to eat. "Get up out of that chair, Bill, and feed me!"

Kalib keeps his eyes fast on the train as it goes around, but Jobe gets distracted by Jim, who has finished his drink and is now looking for a good place to nap.

Kalib continues to watch the train. Jobe follows Jimmy with his eyes as Jimmy jumps up onto a crude cabinet I made from fibreboard. There, he will curl up and take a nap.

This morning, after getting nowhere near enough sleep, I had to get up and drive Margie back to Anchorage to spend another week babysitting. The boys had returned home yesterday, after their parents picked them up from us at the movie theatre.

When we first arrived, Lynxton was not home. He had gone to see the doctor with his dad. I hung around for awhile. Finally, Lynxton returned. He had gotten three shots. Kalib watched Thomas the Train on TV - or maybe Thomas the Train watched Kalib.

So I drove home alone, through a light snow flurry. The temperature had really warmed up. It was 5 above. It felt so warm and balmy. They say it could go up to 20 soon, maybe even warmer. After going down as cold as -65, it also warmed up in the Interior today - into the -30's and -40's.

Yes, I also got my daily school bus picture, my daily raven, and my daily moose, but I am tired and this is enough for now.

I feel like I might be getting what Lynxton has. If so, at least I can understand why.

Margie and I go to the Anchorage Premiere of "Big Miracle." Now I must figure out how to blog it as I saw it

The other day, I visited the website for the movie, Big Miracle, scheduled for national release Friday and in the storyline read this:

"Local newsman Adam Carlson (Krasinski) can’t wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska for a bigger market. But just when the story of his career breaks, the world comes chasing it, too. With an oil tycoon, heads of state and hungry journalists descending upon the frigid outpost, the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore). Not only is she an outspoken environmentalist, she’s also his ex-girlfriend."

Good grief! Except for the parts about "can't wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska" and "the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore)... his ex-girlfriend," it was like I had just read about myself.

In fact, among the real people of this earth, there is no one but me who those lines could have described.

I also read in the Anchorage Daily News about how all kinds of Alaskans, including our Congressional Delegation, had attended the Washington, D.C. premiere. According to the article, just about all the Alaskans there had come in a bit skeptical but had left with praises for the movie.

The article also reported that there would be a "by invitation only" premiere in Anchorage on Sunday, January 29, in the Tikahtnu Stadium 16 theatres. I do not want to sound like a petty person, but I felt a bit miffed. When I visited the movie set by invitation in November of 2010, my book, Gift of the Whale: The Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt - A Sacred Tradition, was everywhere. People kept bringing it to me for autographs and describing it as their "Bible" from everything to creating sets to costumes, and for helping them to understand what actually happened out there.

Yet, they had not sent me an invitation to the premiere. So I sent an email to director Ken Kwapis, who had treated me very well on the set and who I found to be most likable and down to earth. He immediately emailed back, apologized for the oversight, and let me know I should receive tickets online before the day ended.

The tickets came. So here I am with Margie standing in the concession line to pick up the free popcorn and drinks that came with the tickets. She is rubbing her hands together because they are cold. It has been pretty cold lately. In our neighborhood, it was -34 F yesterday morning and, at the warmest part of the day, struggled to break -20.

Of course, it was much colder in the cold parts of the state - Fairbanks, down into the mid - 50's and when I checked last night at 10:00 PM, Fort Yukon was -60.

When we left our house today, with Kalib and Jobe strapped into their car seats, it was -18. In downtown Wasilla, it was -7 and at Tikahtnu it was a pretty warm -2. Still, as we unbuckled the boys and turned them over to their parents, then walked from the mid-parking lot to the movie, Margie's hands got cold.

As we walked down the hall to Theatre 1, I spotted Tara Sweeney, mother of Ahmaogak Sweeney - the young Iñupiaq boy who played in one of the starring roles.

This is him: the young star, Ahmaogak Sweeney, who spoke briefly to the audience before the movie started. In his hands he holds a short message from Director Kwapis, who could not attend. Ahmaogak read the statement for him. I should have recorded it or taken notes, but, without quoting, I can report that Kwapis stated that he had never been to Alaska before the shooting of Big Miracle, but now he is determined to come back. He found Alaskans to be warm, friendly, and hospitable people and was amazed at the acting talent this state produced.

Of the actors, none - not even Drew Barrymore, Ted Danson, John Krasinksi, or Dermot Mulroney - outshone young Ahmaogak. He did great. He added a big dose of warmth and enthusiasm to the screen. I would not be at all surprised to see more of him in future films.

My favorite scene of the entire movie was the opener, where young Nathan sat with his grandfather Malik in the front of an umiak as the whaling crew paddled toward a bowhead. Awesome! In real life, Malik, Ralph Ahkivgak, was a most highly respected and successful Iñupiaq harpooner who brought his talents to a number of different crews. The movie Malik was not the real Malik, but a fictitious character who carried the real Malik's name.

He was played by John Pingayak, a Cup'ik from the southwest Alaska village of Chevak. Pingayak also did a superb job. I respect and admire him greatly, yet I could not help but want to hear an Iñupiaq voice, singing the Iñupiaq way, backed up by Iñupiaq drums.

I just couldn't help it - I wanted to hear those drums. I wanted to hear those Iñupiat voices.

This takes nothing away from John Pingayak. He performed superbly. His character had genuine Native depth and soul. I just wanted to hear Iñupiaq songs in Iñupiaq voice, with Iñupiaq drums. So beautiful. So powerful - These voices and drums should be heard in a movie about Iñupiat people.

Ahmaogak is being photographed by Bill Roth of the Anchorage Daily News. who I first met when he came to Barrow to photograph the rescue effort for the paper.

Going into the movie, I figured there was two different ways that I could view it. I could view it as someone who experienced the rescue operation from beginning to end, someone who has spent a lot of time in Barrow, who has come to love the place and who knows what everything looks like and where everything sits. If I were to view it this way, then I knew I could not help but be disappointed.

Or I could just relax, kick back, understand that it is impossible to make a feature film based on a real event that actually unfolds the way the real event did. I could watch it as a movie, made to entertain. So that is what I decided to do. I would not stack it up against what I experienced and what I know, but would watch it to be entertained, to be told a hopefully good story, even if not a wholly factual story. There was one thing that I felt the movie had to do. It might not be able to go deep into Iñupiat culture, it might have many non-Iñupiaq actors playing Iñupiats, it might not get every little thing just right, but it had to show respect to Iñupiat people and culture - their hunting way of life.

The book that served as the starting point for the movie, Freeing the Whales - How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event, by Tom Rose, did not show respect to the Iñupiat. It did not show respect to Barrow. It did not show respect to hunters. It did not show respect for truth. It was a terrible book. It sensationalized almost all that it touched. I say, "almost all," because it did show repect for a Colonel in the National Guard and a woman from the Reagan White House who fell in love and got married.

I'll give Tom Rose that, but not much more.

Early on, I heard that the movie storyline had broken away from the book upon which it was based. That fact, coupled with the fact that my friend Othneil Oomittuk, who I have great respect for, and the open warmth that I found in Mr. Kwapis and that I heard that a young Iñupiat, Ahmaogak Sweeney, had a big role, gave me hope that the movie would paint a different picture than did the book.

Here is Ahmaogak, after the movie, posing with a movie goer.

Indeed, the movie did paint a different picture than did the book. Even with its fictional inaccuracies, it did show respect to the Iñupiat whaling and hunting culture. I think viewers who know nothing about Iñupiat culture will leave the theatre with a warm feeling towards it. It was greatly entertaining and I enjoyed it - but to fully enjoy it, I had to put myself out of myself.

Here is Ahmaogak, after the movie, posing with his mother and with actors Liam Boles and Maeve Blake, who played the Lower 48 brother and sister, Cooper and Shayna Dobler, who watched the rescue on TV.

So I did enjoy the movie and I would recommend it to anyone, especially families - it is good family entertainment. Afterward, Margie and I stopped in at the nearby Red Robin for dinner. As we ate, there were some things that I could not stop myself from going back inside myself and wondering about. 

I won't give anything away, but there was one scene that if it had happened that way would have resulted in many fatalties among the rescuers. That was a little hard for me to watch, because I kept expecting everyone to get killed, even though I knew they wouldn't be.

And there's one more thing that kept bothering me a bit. It is a small thing, and again, it might sound petty. At the end of the film, at the end of the credits, they had a long list of thank yous. They could have listed Gift of the Whale, but they didn't.

One of the most dramatic scenes of the movie took place at night. Again, I will not give anything away, but to a signifcant degree that scene was partially accurate. It wasn't 70 below, it wasn't 50 below, but the whales were, indeed, in dire danger and their fate rested with two fellows from Minnesota. No one in all the media that had come up from elsewhere understood the situation and they were all back on land in Barrow, feasting at "Amigos" - Pepe's in real life. One video team, the same Adam Carlson, played by John Krasinski that I referred to at the beginning and the blond reporter, Jill Jerard had figured it out and got out onto the ice in time to document the event.

In real life, the media had also all retreated to Pepe's, except for myself and Jeff Berliner, a reporter for UPI. When the event upon this dramatic scene was based happened, it was documented by one media camera and one only. Mine. The picture is in Gift of the Whale. Without that picture, the filmmakers would have had little idea what the scene even looked like.

When I was on the set, the filmmakers let me know that they extensively used Gift of the Whale as a guide. So it might be petty of me, but I think that Gift of the Whale, with me as author and photographer, should have been named in the "thank you" part of the credits.

It would have been a very simple thing to do.

When I learned the movie was being made, I came up with a rough plan for this blog: I would dig up my negatives of the rescue, edit and scan them and then, beginning on the day that the movie is released, I would blog it, so that I could show it as I experienced it.

Recently, I had all but given up on that idea. I no longer have a working film scanner. There are cheap ones, but the quality of their scans is cheap, too. Towards the end of last year, I priced the good ones and there was no way I could buy one. Plus, I have been so busy. That plan has seemed impossible.

But now I have resurrected it. I have until Friday to figure out how to do it. Ideas are cooking in my head.

I might not spread it out over two weeks, but I am going to blog the gray whale rescue, as I experienced and witnessed it, as best I can.

On the drive back, Margie and I saw this tipped-over car at the side of the highway. I hope no one was badly hurt. I shudder to think of what it could be like to be driving in a light jacket and then get trapped in weather such as this, which at this place was about -10.

Complete index to the rescue series that followed:

Part 1: Context bowhead hunt

Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik

Part 3: Scouting trip

Part 4: NBC on the ice

Part 5: To rescue or euthanize

Part 6: Governor Cowper, ice punch, chainsaw holes

Part 7: Malik provides caribou for dinner

Part 8: CNN learns home is sacred place

Part 9: World's largest jet; Screw Tractor

Part 10: Think like a whale

Part 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik

Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers

Part 13: Malik walks with whales, says goodbye

Part 14: Rescue concludes

Part 15: Epilogue