Logbook entry: Wasilla to Barrow: Bikers, cop, stewardess, Denali Italian tourist, salty ice and more

While driving down Lucille Street shortly after I left my house, very close to Metro Cafe, I saw these

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Charlie's raven show; Margie returns to Alaska; Thomas and the boys; biker in the rain; sky warrior remembered

I had to go to town to pick Margie up from the airport. I had not yet had a chance to see Charlie's raven show, so, an hour before Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive, I picked Charlie and Melanie up and we headed over to the Midnight Sun Brewery to take a look and have dinner.

I remain amazed at what Charlie has done with his raven photos. Everybody who reads this blog regularly knows that I photograph ravens when I happen upon them, but Charlie has gone beyond that. Some time ago, he gave himself a mission: to photograph a raven and a stranger every day.

He has done good.

Charlie had a little placard up and in it he gave me the credit for inspiring him to take up a camera and do what he has done. That was nice. He and Melanie should now be driving south, towards Homer, where they are going to join Rex and Cortney on a boat ride to Halibut Cove and then camp out in a cabin for the rest of the week. I hope they catch lots of fish and share with us.

Rex made a kayak and they are taking it, too.

I have written a few times before about how desperate Margie gets for Arizona during the winter, how badly she wants to go back. As always, when I picked her up at the airport, she was happy - no, thrilled - to be back in Alaska.

Of course, winter is over. The sun shines. She would soon greet her grandsons.

Big Thomas was on the go.

The sun does shine - today. But not yesterday, not when I drove to town to see Charlie's ravens and pick Margie up.

Yesterday, it rained.

Dad, top row, third from left, who died on Memorial Day five years ago. May you, your fellow B-24 crew and all the others who fought alongside you for this nation, in this war and others, so many to die in the fight, never be forgotten.

I can't believe I'm seeing green; blue and orange train wreck at the window; poet tells me of the generation that grew up not reading comic books

I really can't believe it...

...yet there you have it...

Green!

I zipped into town tonight, grabbed Margie and zipped right back home. Just before we left Anchorage, Jobe caused a train wreck in the window.

Today, I had my at least-once weekly breakfast at Abby's, the breakfast Arlene picks up for me in exchange for shooting the December wedding of her daughter, Aurora. 

You will notice that Allie, the poet and advanced student who, at the age of 16, graduated from high school with high honors, is no longer a blonde, but a red head - a bright red head. If there is a ever a slow moment when I am at Abby's and Allie is there, she will tell me a story or two or three or four about being a teenager in today's world.

Today, she told me about going to Blockbuster all winter long to check out and watch movies, but now that the darkness is gone and we are definitely into the season of light, she doesn't check out so many movies anymore, because who wants to sit or lie around in the living room watching movies when it's light outside?

So I asked if she had seen The Avengers, because to watch a movie in the darkness of a theatre rather than a sun-lit living room is quite a different thing. Yes, she said, in 3D and she had loved it. Fun movie. She asked if I had seen it. I told her how Margie and I tried on Sunday, but got shut out because it was sold out. I told her we will try again. She said we would enjoy it.

I told her I was sure we would, but I also said I doubted that any comic book movie could ever surpass or even equal the experiences I had reading comic books as a kid growing up. It was absolute Magic. "My generation didn't read comic books," she told me. Instead, she explained, they grew up watching movies and reading Harry Potter - but not comic books.

Allie very recently turned 17. She was very pleased. She got to go to an "R" rated movie. She told me which one, but I can't remember. It wasn't that bad, she said, but still... a bit surprising...

Note: As I put together my Return to India series, I continued to make my regular stops at Metro Cafe and Abby's and I shot quite a few pictures. Sometime within the next week, I will catch up with a major post, maybe even two, on both Metro and Abby's.

Just before Larry Aiken left the ice to go to the hospital, a bowhead whale came and looked him in the eye as if to say, "Here am I."

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.

I break away from my India coverage just long enough to go meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton and spend a few brief moments with my family

On my way to Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, I found myself behind this fellow on Fifth Avenue. It was one of those situations when I sorely wanted to remove the dirty, cracked, windshield in front of me so I could take a crystal-clear picture. But sometimes, you either get the shot through a dirty, cracked, windshield or you don't get it at all.

I was on my way to meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton when they got off the final flight bringing them home from Phoenix.

I had wanted to meet them as they came out from the secure area, but I didn't make it in time. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe did, though.

And here they are, all of them getting off the elevator near the baggage claim area.

And here came Melanie, who had just arrived home from Kuparak on the Arctic Slope, very near to Prudhoe Bay. Lynxton was overjoyed to see her.

"How does the cool air feel?" I asked Margie. On their last day in the Phoenix area, the temperature had reached 107 degrees (42 C).

"Good!" she answered.

"How does the warm air feel feel?" I asked Melanie. During her stay at Kuparuk, temperatures had ranged from -25 (-32 C) to a warm 10 (-12 C) at the end.

"Good!" she answered.

Here, the temperature was about 50 (10 C) - just about as pleasant as it could be.

The youngest boy: Lynxton, in his Aunt Melanie's arms.

The second youngest boy: Jobe, in the arms of his mother, whom he has not seen for a week.

The oldest boy: Kalib, in no one's arms, walking about on his own two feet.

Lavina had brought Margie to Phoenix with her so that she could babysit Lynxton while Lavina attended her workshop. Now that they were home, Margie would need to spend the rest of the week, at least through Thursday, babysitting the boys in Anchorage.

So the plan was for me to drive home and spend the rest of the week alone, just as I had the previous week, and the week before that, etc.

But instead, I brought Margie home, then got up early in this morning and drove her back to town. Then I drove back alone.

Tomorrow, I will return this blog to India. Some very neat things happened between the time we got off the train in Pune and the wedding functions began, but I really need to get Sujitha and Manoj married, so I will jump ahead, straight into wedding related functions.