Cooking for the entire community

The cooking of the bowhead portions for the first community feed lasted deep into the night. The cooking took place outside and it was cold out there - well below freezing.

Joy and elation of the Nukapigak crew as they near home after successful hunt

Even though I could not take a photo like this with my iPhone, I believe it necessary to give those who have been following this little side account of the past two-plus weeks some kind of idea of the joy and elation the Nuiqsut whalers experienced as they neared home. So here is an iPhone image of the LCD on my Canon 5d M III. It shows those on board Bryan's Nukapigak 3 boat as it races up the Kuukpik towards home near the end of Sunday's 92 mile boat ride from Cross Island to Nuiqsut.

Small boats meet us at Oliktok to lead us through shallow waters

Again, I back up to the day before yesterday as we boated our way back to Nuiqsut from Cross Island. We stayed well inside the barrier islands, but even there the water was choppy enough that I could not hold a telephoto on the other boats, two traveling with flags flying. I would try my hardest to lock into a boat and then motor through a dozen frames or so - some of which would capture nothing but sky above, others just the wake of our own boat and some just indistinguishable blur. Yet I believe that sprinkled in there I also got the images I sought.

The normal route up the Kuukpik to Nuiqsut would be through the Nigliq Channel, but that route was too exposed to the rough waters of the open ocean. This meant we would go up the Kuukpik Channel, which is very shallow. So Jonah, another Nukapigak brother, and some others came to meet us at Oliktok in very small river boats with shallow draft. They also brought a sonar. They would lead us through the deepest part of the channel, in places just barely deep enough. In addition to the oil well, there is also an old Cold War distant early warning radar site at Oliktok.

The boy goes ahead with flag and all the whale needed for first community feed

I back up to where I left off day before yesterday and the boat trip to Nuiqsut from Cross Island. I took a lot of pictures with my "real cameras" but kept my iPhone in my pocket until we reached Prudhoe Bay's West Dock, where Kenny left us. Traditionally, before a successful crew returns home, a boy carrying the crew flag jumps on a boat loaded with enough whale to feed the entire community. Kenny had done so the day before along with George Sam as Isaiah drove the boat, but a sudden windstorm hit them just five miles from the island, began to fill the boat with water and turned them back. The Mayor and the City of Nuiqsut then agreed to charter a plane to fly Kenny and the whale portions from Prudhoe Bay's Deadhorse Airport to Nuiqsut. Just before he left West Dock for the 15 or 20 mile drive to the airport, a very serious Kenny posed with dad Eric, brother Sonny Boy and the flag he would carry to Nuiqsut.

Final post from the Island this trip?

The boats await us, unless our departure is yet delayed, this will likely be my last post from Cross Island this trip. There are other things I could iPhone photograph and I believe there will be time, but my iPhone charger is packed away, the battery on this phone is so weak and I want it to stay alive long enough to get at least one scene from the boat.