Wrapped in the sweet, hymnal embrace of their community, Johnny and Lloyd go to their graves

August 22, 2013: As his sons Jordon and Joe join the other pall bearers and carry my good friend Johnny Lee Aiken down the aisle of Barrow's Ukqeagvik Presbyeterian Church, the choir and congregation sing, My Savior First of All. They sing in Iñupiaq, and their voices blend together in a gentle, sweet, beautiful loving caress that wraps around all present. It is a communal embrace, both around the family to assure them that Johnny was loved and cherished in this community, will not be forgotten and those whose pain runs deepest will find support through the darkest days, and around Johnny, whose body may rest in this casket but whose soul, it is strongly believed here, has begun a new and exciting journey and has already been reunited with loved ones and the Savior he himself embraced before his death.

Johnny Lee Aiken, April 26, 1988. His father, Jonathan Aiken, Sr., had just harpooned a bowhead whale. Eli Solomon had followed with a shot from the shoulder gun. The whale had disappeared briefly beneath the surface, come back up, rolled over and died. It was an intant kill. "Praise God!" Kunuk had exclaimed as he raised his hands above his head. 

Johnny flung his arms around Claybo Solomon. They embraced.

August 21, 2013: The day before Johnny was buried, the community had also gathered in the same chapel for the funeral of another hunter who was well thought of in Barrow and across the Arctic Slope - Lloyd Nageak. He, too, would be carried out of the chapel wrapped in the sweet, loving, embrace of the community singing My Savior First of All. Before that, speeches of remembrance were made. Hymns were sung.

"How Great Thou Art!" Lloyd's brothers and sisters sing, with much help and support from the community.

Glimpses from Lloyd's life, as seen at his funeral.

To family members and friends of Lloyd and Johnny: I must leave here in just over an hour to begin my journey to Nuiqsut and from there on to Cross Island. I still have to pack. Yesterday, an unanticipated work-related emergency arose and I simply had to deal with it. It took the better part of the day and I did not complete it until midnight. I have made an initial pass through of all the photos I took at the funerals of August 21 and 22. I will still make and post the special albums for family and friends after I return home, sometime in mid to late September.

A quick bite to eat

I found myself shedding tears more than once, but I must say the funeral of Johnny Aiken was a beautiful gathering - as the funerals of good people so often are. Along with deep sorrow, good people generate an outpouring of love at death and that love translates into beauty at their funerals.

This is the blessing of the food at the post-funeral dinner inside the house that Johnny Lee Aiken built and with wife Marietta made into a home for their famiily. That's Marietta to the right, with niece Ruby Aiken Donovan and her baby, Shaelynn. I had a plane to catch so I took just 5 minutes to eat a bowl of soup and grab three strips of smoked salmon and then headed toward the door, but it took longer than that to pass through all the hugs and to make it to the car of Marietta's brother, Tony Edwardsen, who drove me to the airport.

The plane is delayed. I could have stayed longer and enjoyed my food. If time permits before I leave again in just a few days, I will blog the funeral, but I don't believe I will Instagram it.

Between funerals, 2: dinner at the Aikens

This is from the community dinner that took place tonight in the home of my good friend, Johnny Lee Aiken, Executive Director of The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, who will be buried tomorrow, and his wife, Marietta. Johnny is the son of Kunuk, whose bowhead whaling crew I followed for four seasons and featured in my book, "Gift of the Whale."

Those who followed my posts before I went to Nuiqsut are reminded that I drove into Anchorage four days straight without ever saying much about why and on the final day featured a photo of the Christus statue outside Providence Hospital. Johnny was staying there after prolonged cancer treatment in Long Beach, California, just before returning home to Barrow to be with family and loved ones as he departed this life.

The woman in the middle with the yearbook is his sister, Anna. In October, 1988, I, who am not a wedding photographer, photographed her wedding to the late Joe Stenkewicz. The wedding started late because her dad Kunuk was out in a tiny motorboat helping to tow home a fall whale. Anna refused to begin the wedding until her father arrived. The beautiful young woman to her left is her and Joe's daughter, Amelia. Pikok, Marietta's sister, sits to her right. Today, Lloyd Nageak was buried. Tomorrow, Johnny. It is not an easy time in this very close-knit community.

Between funerals, part 1: James plays guitar and sings for his brother

Along with his large family and huge extended family, James Nageak buried his younger brother, Lloyd, today. In his speech, he stated that as the older brother he was supposed to be the first to go, but instead God had given him this pain to bear. The Reverend Dr. Nageak is a minister in the Presbyterian Church, a Phd and retired professor from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he developed Iñupiaq language study programs and taught.

In his speech, he also recalled what a bookworm Lloyd was and how he excelled at mathematics. He recalled going on an ugruk (bearded seal) hunt with Lloyd. They spotted an ugruk but it dove and swam away under water. Lloyd sat down in the boat, recited a mathematical formula, did some calculating, then guided the boat to a certain spot and told James to get his rifle ready. Sure enough, the ugruk surfaced right in front of him. Shortly after I took this picture at tonight's post funeral singspiration, James sang a duo with his sister, Priscilla Sage: When the Saints Go Marching In. He did a pretty good imitation of Louis Armstrong and he told a good story about how this song became part of his repertoire. I'll save that for another time.

Logbook: Wasilla to Barrow, entry 3: preview of winter

It is a one-hour and four minute flight from Fairbanks to Deadhorse. I closed my eyes just before takeoff and resolved not to open them again until touchdown so that I could get as much rest as possible. Yet, just now I did open them and looked out the window. This is what I saw: a glimpse of winter, drawing near. This will melt, except maybe in the mountain tops, but it is coming. And just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in Nuiqsut, the temperature down there would have reached the upper 70's, maybe 80's.