Logbook: Wasilla to Nuiqsut, ultimate goal, Cross Island, final entry: caribou cooking

I arrived about three hours ago and came over to the house of Edward Nukapigak and entered to the tantalizing aroma of caribou frying. Qipi was cooking. It proved as delicious as the aroma suggested. Edward showed me harpoon head, made by brother Jonah and Eric Leavitt. They landed a bowhead with it 'in 98. Here, people live from the land and the sea, as their ancestors have for millennia. Tools and methods adapt to time and circumstance, but the fundamental need for the food that nourished and formed them remains the same. Very weak, unreliable, cell reception trickles over to Cross Island from Prudhoe Bay. If you stand on top of a cabin you can sometimes pick it up and sometimes you can't. I am certain it is not going to be strong enough to transmit Instagram or blog posts so after we leave here, probably Friday according to the latest marine forecast, my posts will stop for awhile.