The day ends just as it began…

The day draws near to its end, just as it began - me sitting here at my computer, working away with the help of Jim. I don't like too many of my pictures to get out on the net ahead of the publications I make, but I'm not too worried here because there are a few better frames from this dance, including one I believe to be a true knockout photograph.

How I love this work! I cannot tell you how much I love it! How fortunate am I, ever to have been able to stumble my way into it? I am a stumbler, a bumbler, timid, shy and weak and yet all these wonderful experiences just keep unfolding in front of my camera. I think I will work for another hour to hour-and-a-half and then go to bed.

Hello to all my friends who are gathered in Fairbanks tonight. Wish I could be there too, but it just didn't work out this year. 

Text added at 10:56 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues.

Farewell, safe travels, may we meet again

On the final night of dancing, with all the dance groups seated in a half-ring around the gym, a lot was going on in different places and I missed a special moment that took place between Canada and Nuiqsut. Nellie Nukapigak of Nuiqsut presented Aklavik dance group leader Andrew Gordon Sr. with an ugruk hide (bearded seal). Eva Gordon, Andrew's wife, then gave Nellie her dance parka. That's Eva on the left with Nellie next to her wearing her new Aklavik dance parka. Then there was a gift exchange between Eric Leavitt and Eva and Andrew's son, Alexander. That's Eric standing next to Nellie in the new parka that Alexander, with his arm over Eric's shoulder, gave him. 

Just before the Canadians boarded the plane that would take them to Fairbanks, from where they would drive east into Canada and on north towards home, a very long drive, much of it over gravel road, they posed for their Alaskan friends. Now that he had the dance parka Alexander had given him, Eric felt like he was a Canadian, too. He pranced into the picture.

Woodrow Oyagak is originally from Nuiqsut, but is living in Atqasuk with his wife Sherlene and their young son Mark. She was returning to Atqasuk but Woodrow was remaining behind to be of assistance to his ailing father, his family and whaling crew. Woodrow and Sherlene say their farewells.

Before the Canadians left, Bernice Kaigelak gathered everybody present at the airport together and all joined hands in a circle. She offered a prayer for their safe travels. This ends my iPhone/Instagram/blog coverage of Kuukpik Corporation's 40th Anniversary celebration for the village of Nuiqsut. There will be much more comprehensive coverage of the celebration in the 96 page document, shot with my "real "cameras, I will make for Kuukpik. I expect it to include a much better picture of this prayer. I still must post my "Logbook" entries of my travels from Nuiqsut to Anchorage, via Barrow, and then on home to Wasilla. The Logbook entries will be up before the day ends. 

Marie, Annie and Saaniaq sing gospel at the closing singspiration

Marie Rexford, Annie Tikluk and Elizabeth Saaniaq Rexford of Kaktovik sing gospel at the Nuiqsut singspiration, broadcast across the Slope by Isaac Tuckfield of KBRW. This singspiration was the last event of Kuukpik Corporation's 40th Anniversary Celebration to commemorate the founding of the new village of Nuiqsut. There was, however, another singspiration held in the Presbyterian Church to welcome the guests the night before the celebration began. I am going to post one image and story from that singspiration shortly.

Close together in a vast, spread out, land and seascape

This is an iPhone panorama I took at the Eskimo dance finale of Kuukpik Corporation's 40th Anniversary celebration to honor Nuiqsut. Seven dance groups, two from Nuiqsut, plus one each from the five other villages that sent drummers, singers and dancers, took their chairs in a 180° arc facing the audience in the bleachers at Trapper School and then in turn each performed songs and dances common to all, until finally they sang and danced together as one. The distance between Aklavik, Yukon Territory, Canada, the farthest east village to participate, to Point Hope, the farthest west, is as great as that between Ensenada, Mexico, and a point more than 200 miles north of San Francisco. A traveler starting in Aklavik and working his way by plane, boat, or snowmachine through the mostly roadless country to Point Hope will touch a maximum of nine villages ranging in size from just over to 200 people to about 1000, plus Barrow, the big city at 4500 - 5000. If the traveler is native to the region, it does not matter what village he or she enters, he will not be a stranger. People will know him – If not personally, then by his family; she will have relatives in each village. There will be a house to sleep in, a table to eat at. Most of the food will likely come from the land, the sea, the rivers and lakes. 

Jane Brower on the bank of the Kuukpik River

Many more things happened at Kuukpik's 40th anniversary celebration for the village of Nuiqsut, and I did my best to photograph it all. There was an Iñupiat fashion show with contestants ranging in age from infant to elder, there was a rock and roll dance with a 60s and 70s dance competition and there was another boat ride, this time upriver. There was a grand finale Eskimo dance. And there was gospel singing. It will all be in the publication I will make for Kuukpik to document the celebration. I did promise to include a photo of Jane Brower in this iPhone/Instagram series and here it is. She sits on the bank of the Kuukpik River (Coleville) at a picnic that was part of the second boat ride - quite a long ways up river from the village, late in the afternoon. I will make another one-picture post from the grand-finale dance. There is a point I want to make about the vastness of this country up here and the closeness of the very few people spread across it and I think this dance picture will help me to do so. I will follow this with a short series on the gospel singing, because it is just too important to the culture to leave out. And then I will make one more small series on the goodbyes and that will be it. I had planned to do this tonight before I go to bed, but I am exhausted. I think I might just try to relax, get a good rest and a decent night's sleep and then post this in the morning. But you never know, I could get restless and post it tonight. It could happen. But I'm going to try to resist and just relax.