High in the Arctic !! Eskimo .. .. !

A whale has been caught. The celebration begins, and so does the incredible amount of work involved. Truely remarkable to see people so excited about FOOD. there is no money involved, no one gets paid one cent, This is food only. Shares are handed out in the order of which each umiaq reaches the whale after the captain has harpooned and received the whale.

The flippers are brought back to town, the church bell rung over and over and over, Everyone in town knows what that means.! The flippers are brought to the elders, every elders home for close examination.

Some people have to stay in town, the old & fraile ones, some that are employed w/important jobs. but when work is over. down to the ice!

A bowhead whale is huge and can outswim any umiaq. That whale can instantly pulverize that umiaq and send that crew to the bottom with a mere flick of the tail alone.

That whale has incredible vision, smell, and hearing!

In other words, Eskimo captains receive that whale .. when the whale gives itself over to the captain of its choice. They wait !for that whale to come to them.
That whale no matter which year it is, will ALWAYS do the exact same thing for each captain to match his personality. and so does the weather!

This is hard to explain and more difficult to ever understand.

Whales are like little children, they will match a captains personality, some whales like to play hide and seek when they have been harpooned, some run south some, run north, some show off, some are tiimid and just give up easily.
Some will make a big fuss about giving themselves over to the captain.
Some captain(s) will never receive a whale, because of their personality.

And then and some.. like to make (some)people look like an idiot. (yours truely).

The whale will ALWAYS do the same thing each year for that specific captain.
And so does the "weather". Yes ! when the whale dies, the weather always changes, and does the same thing for the same captain each time.



This truely sounds bizarre and when it was explained to me, I thought for sure that it was just superstition or folklore or ??. Irma Oktollik is explaining everything to me. She knows I don't beileve her.. she keeps laughing at me.

Then I saw it happen, in a most vicious manner which I do not care to experience ever again.

1983 I was still learning the ways of the Eskimo people in many ways and methods, especially how to listen & quit asking so many questions, they didn't like that. WATCH the weather I was told, it is a warm year, this is Joe Frankson's weather I was told, He will be the captin this year to catch a whale, When a whale lgives itself over to Joe, the whale will be very close to his camp, there will be no noise, it will be very quick, the whale will give up instantly, THEN... the weather will change very quickly with no warning.
The wind will come in at 100 mph. the temperature will drop 100 degrees.

and she laughed, you better be ready for that, Your going to be very very cold.

she called it perfectly, it was awful. that wind, everyone running, so cold. Joe was all smiles !!

A 48 FOOT WHALE IS HERE


This was no easy task, as the ice kept breaking, Pulling 48 tons is no easy chore no matter how many people you have.


17 grueling hours were spent, getting this massive animal upon the ice. 48 tons has to be cut up and divided and packed up back to the village. This is a lot of work.



The bowhead whale has hundreds of slabs of "Baleen" with long fine hairs to sift the plankton out of the water. This is their food. the microscopic is eaten by the biggest.




Whaling, what a way of life, exciting, adventureous, and so sad that groups and ag encies want to take this away from these people. In days of old the Eskimos would get enough for the village only. Now they are restricted to 7 attempts.. 7 strikes,, if you miss.. go home.. Last year there were no whales for us. We failed. 7 strikes and your out & we have to obey, No one is watching us. but we obey. Japan is currently harvesting 1000 whales for scientific purposes. The people of Point Hope are out on the ice this very minute, .. .. here in town we are waiting to hear over the CB radio or the VHF radio that someone has "Kappii" harpooned a whale!

I have to go home, drop off some of this film, re-arrange everything in my plentiful array of having too many pockets and always loosing things.

Believe it or not, I lost three rolls of film, they were found 5 years later and processed.. .. The elderly couple in fur parky's Aapa & Aaka ! According to Kaptain Kodak.. .. latent image capablities under optimum conditions, can be as long as one year! LOL imagine that ! (wink)

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Taking frozen film and processing it immediately was someting I did all the time. I had no problems what-so ever using MY newly designed arctic method of processing frozen film & rushing the results down to the ocean ice for all to see. I had cases and cases of 11 x 14 paper sent up here with the appropriate Kodak chemicals, (I leaned long ago.. the hard way, concerning color.. only trust Kodak).
But that was then, this is now. Auto Focus, auto electronic.. ha ha ha.. come on down to the ice with that rig.. you won't last 12 hours. 2 months ? My camera was encased in ice many times, there was no place to go to warm it up and if there was, the condensation was "dripping wet". there is no way you can bring a camera outside like that, so ? I used cameras that required no batteries ! and they worled PERFECT even with 3/16's inch of ice all over them, I had to chip out the viewfinder to see at times! Pentax K1000 & Mamiya RB67 Mamya C220 Cannon AE1


This is gotta be a FIRST .. ..11 X 14 GORGEOUS COLOR prints, delivered down to the ocean ice. same day. FREE SERVICE. yes I gave these all away to the Eskimo's.. I didn't need or want their money. BUT TO THE TOURISTS in Anchorage LOL.. In 27 years, It is uncanny that I still have the only, collection of Native hunting available in the entire state ! In living brillilant COLOR !
done by hand, the ol fashioned way, using snow!

My house was so cold from all that snow in bags around the house.


I remember when I was a child in school we were taught that blubber is eskim ice cream. No it is not. Eskimo Ice cream is Aqutak and is made with "meat" berries, and bone marrow, and seal oil.


How is maktak eaten ? RAW & FROZEN, dipped in ugruk oil. quite flammable ! burp! It is like trying to chew a hockey puck, It must be cut very thin in small strips.


and it is very delicious, but not my idea of what I need to meet my dietary needs, I am a chocoholic of the most serious kind.

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The skull is thrown back into the ocean, so that a new whale will grow, there is much rejoicing in this event.


1983 I went back to Boston as my father passed away, I had an album of all my photographs with me. Greenpeace was everywhere in the streets of downtown Boston, After man attempts to speak to these people I finally ended up in one of their offices. There are only 250 RIGHT WHALES left said the Greenpeace brochures, Stop Eskimo's from hunting.

Excuse me? Isn't a Right whale the same thing as a bowhead whale? Well yes they are, they said.
Well I just came from a place that had a federal census taken of the bowhead whale population. during a ONE MONTH period over 15,000 whales were counted.! Greenpeace was not interested in my photos or anything I had to say. They kicked me out!
The elders scoffed at that figure only because they didn't see the whales that came up before they arrived and didin't take into consieration the amount of whales after they left the elders say with great certaintity that over 200,000 are still out there. We have seven attempts! Even if we succeed, 7 whales is not enough to feed this entire village.

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This is a peaceful place, a vanishing paradise is being taken away, by people that can't understand our way of life. We don't want your way of life, we see that all the time when we travel to other places. too much noise and polllution.
for the last 20 or so years the ocean ice has been getting closer and closer to land. for many years we had to stay on land. but during the last 4 years in a row, we have had the best ice in a long long time.! GO FIGURE!

Thank you all so much for the appreciation you express concerning my images. I froze my ISO off believe me. BUT it was all worth it. and I have so many spectacular images to present with some delightful reading that will just amaze you I am sure.

See that white stuff, we call it snow, In Eskimo. there are over 100 words used to describe that white stuff. Upaun = snow. But what type of snow?? LOL.

More soon to come!