Friday, June 15, 2012 at 8:00AM ;)
While driving down Lucille Street shortly after I left my house, very close to Metro Cafe, I saw these
Monday, May 7, 2012 at 10:06AM ;)
The night before last, I got a text from my friend, Larry Aiken of Barrow, informing me that he was back in Anchorage, where he had undergone surgery at the Alaska Native Medicial Center. Yesterday, I drove into Anchorage to take Margie back to her weekly babysitting responsibilities and to attend a meeting about an excellent upcoming project it looks like I am going to get to do.
Afterward, I dropped by the hospital to visit Larry. He showed me this picture he had drawn, and told me the story behind it. On April 27, he was out on the sea ice off Barrow where he had gone whaling with his crew, captained by George Adams, but the time had come for him to pack up and leave, as he had stomach surgery scheduled in Anchorage.
This would be the latest followup to the many surgeries he has undergone since his first treatments for esophogeal cancer in 2010. The cancer had not returned, but there had been so much damage to his stomach that much tissue had to be removed. Another crew had struck a whale, so George and some of the other crew had gone off in the motor boat to help look for it. As he soon had to leave, Larry had stayed behind. He was in the tent, getting ready to pack up and go, but first he fixed himself a cup of soup.
Then he heard another whaler who had stayed behind come to the tent door. He spoke in an excited whisper and told Larry to come out right now, because a whale had come to his camp. Larry almost didn't believe it, because the whale had surfaced silently, without making hollow, explosive sound bowheads usually make when they first surface and blow, but he went out - and there it was, a bowhead whale, right in front of the umiak. Now, he needed to get into that umiak as quickly and quietly as possible, walk to the front, pick up the harpoon and darting gun and see if he could get in the right position to throw.
He tried to be quiet, but as he walked up the umiak to the front, the sound of his feet walking over the bottom of the umiak made much more noise than he hoped. He knew the whale could hear everything he was doing - but the whale did not dive. Instead, as he picked up the harpoon, the bowhead lifted its head above the water and then with one eye looked straight into Larry's eye.
He did not have a good shot to throw the harpoon as the head of the bowhead is framed in massive bone and a strike there will be ineffectual. For the next two full minutes, Larry told me, he and the whale maintained the basic position seen in the drawing, looking at each other the whole time. The whale studied him the whole time, looking him up and down, often making and holding eye contact.
It was, Larry told me, the most wonderful two minutes of his life.
;)
From the time he was small, Larry had heard the elders teach that as important as hunting skill is, when it comes to the bowhead whale, skill is not enough. For a crew to take a whale, the whale must give itself. The whale chooses the worthy hunter, the worthy crew.
Now, as he connected directly with the whale through eye contact, he felt this whale was giving itself to him. After the two minutes, the whale lowered its head back into the water. Here, Larry quickly draws another sketch to show me the position the whale took when it then resurfaced in front of him.
;)
Now, the whale was in perfect position to be struck. Not only did it hold the position, it tilted its head in such a way as to cause the vertebrae behind it to separate to allow the harpoon to sink in and the bomb that would be fired by the attached darting gun to penetrate through to a vital organ.
Larry thrust the harpoon. It sunk in. The darting gun fired. The whale disappeared below the surface of the water. He heard and felt the repercussion of the bomb as it exploded. He waited, along with the two whalers there with him. Having heard the news on the radio, George Adams and those in the power boat had turned around and were motoring their way back. As they drew near, the whale surfaced about 300 yards away from where Larry had struck it - dead - there had been no need for a second shot from a shoulder gun, there would be no need now for an assist from those in the motor boat or any other boat. The bowhead had shown Larry the spot and Larry had hit it.
Inside him, Larry knew, this whale had given itself to him.
"Thank you, Lord!" he prayed.
;)
The 27 foot-whale was taken to nearby place of thick, flat, ice and hauled up. Even before it could be completely cut up and hauled back to Barrow, Larry boarded the Alaska Airlines jet that would take him to Anchorage. After being given his anesthetic, as Larry lay waiting to be taken under the surgeon's knife, an image appeared in his head. It was of himself, out on the ice. He saw himself raise the harpoon, just as he gestures here...
Then he went out. At about this time, up in Barrow, elder Whitlam Adams offered a prayer and blessing over the VHF radio, so all the community would know it was time to come to the George Adam's home and be fed. He told the community the whale had been harpooned by Larry Aiken, who even now was going into surgery.
Larry did not get to partake of that feast. When he finally came to, two-thirds of his stomach had been removed. Even so, the surgery had gone well. When I visited him, Larry's spirits were good. He felt optimistic. He remained enthralled by the manner in which this particular whale had come to give itself to him.
Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 8:41AM ;)
The following summer, a number of gray whale carcasses lay on the beaches north and south of Barrow. About twenty miles to the southwest, Malik found two together and believed these might be Crossbeak and Bonnet. He reported his find, then returned to the site with NSB Wildlife biologists Craig George and Geoff Carroll, Marie Carroll and the Carroll's one-year old son, Quinn. I came along. One carcass lay on the beach, completely out of the water. The tail of the second lay on the beach, its body extended at an angle outward into the water. The biologists took measurements and studied the condition of the whales. The one lying on the beach measured twenty-six feet in length, seven inches off of the in-water length estimate they had made for Bonnet. Malik knelt at its head. A fond smile crossed his face as he gave the dead whale a pat.
;)
After comparing the skin damage and noting the distance the carcass had been pushed up the beach, the biologists concluded this was not Bonnet, but rather a whale that had likely died the year before the rescue. The other dead whale measured more than forty feet, compared to the thirty-foot estimate the biologists had made for Crossbeak. Here Craig George measures the bigger whale.
Many whale watchers venture each winter to Mexico's Sea of Cortez to observe gray whales. Following the rescue, the call went out for people to look for Crossbeak and Bonnet. The wounds they had suffered in Barrow would have turned to scars that should have been easily identifiable to those who knew what to look for. No sightings were ever reported.
Some people have told me that the observations in the Sea of Cortez are thorough enough that if the whales had shown up there, they would likely have been spotted and identified.
Still, the ocean is a big place and as big as whale is, by comparison it is a small thing. So, when it comes to the two gray whales, people are free to believe whatever they want: the whales swam free and lived; the whales died, if not at Barrow, somewhere enroute.
Whatever happened, it does not seem that there will ever be any way to verify it.
At the moment, I have no further funding to continue Uiñiq. It feels to me like my days making that magazine are over. So far, the magazine has had three incarnations, so I can't say for certain. I have thought this before and then, sooner or later, I have been asked to do an issue, or a few issues. Maybe at some, someone with the authority to fund it will want me to make Uiñiq again and if that should happen, I think it almost a certainty that I would - provided that the opportunity came with the necessary amount of freedom.
Uiñiq is one of the great loves of my life - not because of the paper and ink that it is made of, but because it has given me the opportunity to become somewhat familiar with a climatically harsh but fantastic piece of the globe, and to walk and boat and snowmachine among rugged, smart, and good people who have allowed me to document their way of life and who I have been fortunate to have been befriended and even adopted by.
The first incarnation began at the end of 1985 and lasted through the third quarter of 1996, when circumstance forced me to walk away from Uiñiq, and not without tears.
My love and ties to Barrow and all the villages of the Arctic Slope remained strong and the following summer, 1997, with a little help from the school district, I found my way back for a short visit. During that visit, Roy Ahmoagak invited me to go on an ugruk (bearded seal) hunt with him and his cousin, Richard Glenn.
As we motored through the July icebergs of the Chukchi Sea, a gray whale suddenly lifted its flukes up in front of us...
;)
...
;)
... please note the scars on the tail... many of these were likely made by the teeth of killer whales, perhaps some by the claws and teeth of polar bears, others by sharks - all members of the gantlet that Crossbeak and Bonnet would have had to swim through...
;)
...
;)
In early October of 2002, I received a phone call from Roy Ahmaogak, who spoke in a subdued and hurt voice. He informed me that a bowhead had been taken near Barrow. As always, the hunters attached a line to the whale and several boats hooked up to tow it back to shore. Somehow, the boat that Malik was in got in a tangle and flipped upside down. The others in the boat escaped, but Malik got trapped beneath. Before his fellow whalers, Roy included among them, could right the boat and save him, Malik drowned.
He died as he lived - whale hunting. Shortly afterward, I was contacted by the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and asked to make a large, framed, print of this photo for display at the funeral. The photo now hangs in the Iñupiat Heritage Center - Barrow's museum. I badly wanted to go to the funeral, but it came at one of those moments of famine in the feast-and-famine cycle that I live through as a freelance photographer. I did not have plane fare. The fact that I missed the funeral is one of my great regrets. Normally, a body will be transported from the funeral site to the graveyard in the bed of a pickup, but little Malik - the Little Big Man, Ralph Ahkivgak, was so beloved by the people of Barrow, whom he had served, taught and helped to feed throughout his life, they spontaneously hoisted his coffin onto their shoulders and carried him to the cemetery, where he was laid to rest in the permafrost.
Malik - the man who could watch a whale dive, then direct the crew to a certain spot and that is where the whale would rise. Malik, who befriended three gray whales stuck in the ice off Barrow and became instrumental in the effort to rescue them. Craig George said this about Malik's role in the rescue:
"Malik seemed to have a rapport with the whales. I can tell you one thing I learned. We had gray whale biologists here, all kinds of people, but Malik was the one to listen to.”
"He was looked up to as a man with great knowledge and he taught a lot of young guys," said Roy Ahmaogak. "He meant a lot to Barrow and a lot more to me, because I knew we were in good hands when we were with Malik. We didn't need any gps or technology, because he knew the ocean very well."
One day in the summer after the rescue, I stopped by Malik's tiny house in Browerville for a visit. He told me that when I had seen and heard him talking to the gray whales during the rescue, what I hadn't heard was the gray whales - but he did hear them. Just as he spoke to them, they spoke to him. “‘Malik, we’re scared,’ they tell me. ‘Malik, we’re scared. Help us, Malik. Help us.’ I tell them, ‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. We’ll get you to the lead. You’ll be safe there.’”
And in the eyes of the late, great, whale hunter and whale rescuer, I saw tears.
Complete series index:
Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik
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 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik
Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 9:21PM ;)
The next morning, the icebreakers waited just beyond the pressure ridges that blocked the way to the open lead. The whalers went out to cut one last, big, extra long hole about four miles from shore where the whales could wait as the breakers cut a gap through the ridges. There were now 250 media people in Barrow and many of them found their way to the holes. Many sightseers had also come out and there was a great deal of whale patting going on.
Perhaps because I had been averaging about 21 hour days, my mind went into overload phase out and I lost my desire to photograph all that action. There was too much of it - but there was one man I wanted to get connecting with the whales - Malik, the Little Big Man, perhaps the most successful Iñupiat harpooner of modern times. Malik, the man who had so often stopped to speak to the whales as he had helped lead them from their original hole to this point. I had a gut feeling that something exceptional was going to happen out here between Malik and the whales.
Ron Morris ordered everyone but the chainsaw crew to leave the ice and go to shore as the whalers worked on the final hole. Soon, the whalers would have to leave as well - once the icebreakers began to cut into the ridge, the ice would become too dangerous to be on. For as long as the whalers remained, I had to stay. I had to be there when Malik said goodbye to the whales.
So, as everyone else but the whalers began to leave the ice, I stayed put. The crowd left, but most members of the media lingered for as long as they could. Then the order became specific - media, leave the ice! The media all began to leave, but I stayed put. They hadn't gone far before one of them looked back and spotted me standing there with my cameras and bag. He turned around. Then they all turned around and started back,
The order for media to leave came again. Again they left, again I stayed, again I was spotted and again they came back. "Bill," Arnold Brower Jr. told me. "I'm afraid you're going to have to leave, too. Everytime those other guys start to leave, they see you and come back." So I made like I was going to leave, but shortly after all the media had turned shoreward, I stashed my camera bag behind a snow machine where they could not see it. I had been wearing a beaver hat throughout the rescue and had seldom pulled up the hood to my parka. Now I pulled the hood up, I picked up a chainsaw and, keeping my back to the media, I walked towards the whale hole. If any turned around and spotted me now, I hoped they would think I was a member of the crew.
It worked. The media vanished. I stayed with the crew. Soon, the job was done. Most of the crew then left, but Malik and a few others lingered. Soon, a whale rose - Malik reached out to pat it, even as it blew. The man standing closest to Malik and the whale is Mayor George Ahmaogak; behind him, Johnny Brower and Alfred Brower. I am unsure who the man at the end is.
Ron Morris was now far away, of no worry to me.
;)
Mayor Ahmaogak carried a hand-held radio and was communicating with all parties and staying informed about the status of the icebreakers. "The Russians are coming. We've all got to go now," he finally said. So he and all the hunters, save one, turned and left. It was Malik who stayed. I knew I would be safe on the ice as long as I was with Malik. The picture I knew was coming had not yet happened. So I stayed with him. When Crossbeak rose, he was there to greet it.
;)
Malik walks alongside the whale, talks to the whale.
;)
Together, they move farther along. Malik never ceases his conversation. He speaks Iñupiaq. His voice is calm, quiet.
;)
Malik and whale reach the end of the hole.
;)
Malik and whale.
;)
They turn, and start to come back. Now Malik walks and talks with both whales.
;)
Malik says goodbye.
p>
Complete series index:
Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik
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 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik
Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 12:37AM ;)
Billy Adams and Malik. Although I doubt it was what Malik was thinking at the time, it seems to me that in a way, Malik, The Little Big Man, the truly great hunter, is stepping back, making room, looking on with pride as he lets the young hunter step forward into his place. This is how life works, how it is supposed to work, how it would work.
I had stated that my next gray whale rescue post would focus on the Soviet icebreakers. Indeed, I have spent the last several hours preparing that post, but it is late, I am tired and if I try to proofread it now, it will be a total disaster. So I will save the proofread for tomorrow morning, before Margie and I head out to visit folks here on her res - and one of my true homes as well.
And yes, I shot what I feel is a very nice little picture story during our wanderings today. Hopefully, I will post it, and some of the other material that I have shot and will shoot on this trip, but for the moment I must get this rescue series done.
p>
Complete series index:
Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik
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 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik
Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers
