Hello again folks,
The weekend has arrived and we are now well into July. The heat wave lasted less than a week and yesterday the temps were as low as 44 degrees. My daughter Christy and her roommate Shawn flew in last Saturday, July 3rd, and were here for not only the Independence Day celebration, but they got to see the three day Kattivik-The Northwest Native Trade Fair.
They arrived on the 11am flight and we directed them to baggage carousel one to pick up their luggage. (Of course there is only one place to pick up your luggage. This happens to be a slanted ramp to the side of the building covered with sheet metal. It also has hanging flaps at the back to keep out the weather. This is where the bags gracefully appear from.) We then went out to the waiting trio of 4 wheelers as Cathy came with us too, strapped the luggage and the passengers wherever we could and took the dusty road home. After settling in and eating a bit of lunch, we took them down the beach to Cape Blossom which is a 13 mile one way ride (I finally clocked it with the odometer). On the way we passed a few seal carcasses and a huge walrus carcass. The seal carcasses are unfortunately not that uncommon because the usual way to hunt seal is from a boat with a rifle. After shooting the seal it is necessary to get to it rapidly or it will sink. Some boats carry harpoons for this purpose. Believe me the seals are not shot and left for sport. The walrus carcass I’m not sure about because the head was gone as the tusks and skull are prized for art. It is my hope that the animal died of natural causes and the head and tusks were harvested later. There was an article in this weeks Arctic Sounder, the newspaper of the Northwest Arctic region, about harvesting walrus and how to legally take the ivory from an animal found dead. I was in the EMS office completing a CPR instructor course and mentioned it to Ester who is a local. She queried me as to “was it fresh”. I could see the glint in her eyes as she was ready to ride out ulu in hand and harvest the meat and blubber. Unfortunately I had to tell her it was a bit ripe. One other note about walrus concerns Gary, Cathy's significant other (see how easily that term comes out now). Gary is an Inupiat Eskimo although he is about 6' 3". He and his family are very nice people but I swear he is a stomach with legs, we never have to worry about what to do with leftovers. Anyway we were talking about the walrus carcass and he was telling us about when he worked in Savoonga which is on St Lawrence Island. (This is another island located out in the Chuckchi Sea not far from the Russian/American dividing line.) He and some others were hunting walrus and while cleaning one they had laboriously hauled ashore, discovered the animal had recently feasted on clams. Well, they then feasted on these unfortunate mollusks that now had the rare distinction of being eaten twice. Gary said there were enough to take home and store in the freezer to enjoy later. Interesting dinner conversations here believe me.
In defense of these people use your imagination. They live where there are few trees and most vegetation is no more than a few inches high. Protein is out there in abundance in the winter in the form of caribou, moose, muskrat, beaver, ptarmigan, and yes, bear, although you do have to look for it. These people even net under the ice in winter so fish is available during the bitter cold months. Spring time is the time to harvest foods that round out the diet for the rest of the year. Migratory birds are in abundance as are their eggs. Salmon, sheefish, herring, and other fish complete with their eggs are accessible also. Berries ripen starting in mid July and last until September. Seals are more easily taken in the spring. Seals play a very important part as the fur provides warm clothing, and the meat and flippers are prized. The blubber however is the most important part as it is used not only to provide fat in a low fat diet, (caribou, moose, and most fish are very low in fat although caribou fat is an ingredient in Eskimo ice cream) but the oil is also used in preserving berries for the winter. As far as eating the stomach contents, as I have mentioned in past letters we have pamphlets telling locals who may not have learned it from their elders, to not pass up the contents of the caribou and ptarmigan stomachs as a food source. They eat vegetation we cannot and they also eat tender leaves we can but are very labor intensive to gather. So the paper recommends utilizing the efforts of the animal and harvesting this nutritious food from the stomach as they have already done the work. It even goes into how to store it allowing it to naturally ferment into a peppery tasting substance. Oh and let me mention that there is also something here called "stink flipper". This delicacy is made from seal flippers being stored in earthenware crocks and buried for a time. Ok, I suppose some of you are thoroughly put off you feed by now but don't look down your nose at these folks. Think of what you would come up with to eat if you had the limited resources these folks do and had to subsist here.
Speaking of ripe and berries, on the ride out we did see bunches of aukpiks (salmon berries) within just a week or two of harvest. Getting down on our hands and knees we could see unripe blueberries and blackberries (crowberries) which will be ready by the end of the month. As I have said in the past, the growing season is short here so the plants do not waste any time. The irises have gone away and the daises are also on the way out. The fireweed is blooming and the horsetail (my name) plants are starting to show up. Last year these were kind of the beginning of the end of summer. This and the cooler temps make me wonder if winter is coming early.
The morning of the fourth we got up early and went to the fire hall to assist in setting up for the annual 4th of July bar-b-q. Of course I got involved with a call on a boat adrift in the sound with no one aboard. Three of us hooked up the zodiac, jumped into the chiefs’ department truck, and went to check. It turned out the boat had broken its anchor line and no one was aboard at the time. We finished up just in time for the parade to start. We intended to just pull into the parade with the truck and zodiac when the alternator went out. We left the rig, walked the two blocks to the parade, and hopped on the fire department trucks just before the parade rolled. Engine 12 had a number of Eskimos aboard who had come in for the fair from the Russian side of the sound. I was told that even though it is less than 200 miles to where they live they had to travel a few thousand miles to get here. Apart from the language they spoke I could not tell the difference from local Inupiat. I road the parade on the Ariel while Patty for some reason watched from the sidelines with Christy and Shawn. After the parade I helped set up for the fundraising while Patty and the girls went to the fair. They watched the local Northern Lights dancers perform traditional native dances accompanied by the chants of those not dancing and drums made of bent willow and hide. There were several “booths” made up of tractor trailer containers each offering something different from food such as imported McDonald’s hamburgers, to Pizza Hut pizza slices, both at a cost of $5.00 each. There was also local fare such as caribou soup and a salad made with the usual greens plus Muktuk (whale blubber) complete with seal oil salad dressing. Some booths sold the usual Chinese fare and some sold local handmade artwork such as atikluks (cotton pull over smocks with large slash pockets in front, hoods, and embroidered trim). The biggest problem was it started to rain lightly during the parade and did not stop for most of the day. The usual competitions were held including the foot races, tug of wars, contests for Miss Arctic Circle, and Miss Teen Arctic Circle, and the baby contest. I helped cook most of the day and after picking up and changing into dry clothes we went out to watch the snow machine races on Swan Lake. They were canceled due to high winds after two racers sank. There is some type of float attached so if the machine sinks, one of the standby safety boats after picking up the rider just attaches the line to the boat and tows the machine to shore. That evening we went to the school gym to watch more games such as the high kick and the seal hop. The high kick is pretty impressive as there is the one foot and a two foot kick and both can have a running start. The difference is for the two foot, both feet must hit the approximately five inch across sack hanging from a string, then land on both feet. The one foot of course means only on has to hit the target. For both however after hitting the target you must land on either two feet or one foot depending on which kick you are doing, with no hopping around. It may not sound impressive but the two foot kick went over six feet and the one foot was 8' 3". Try it and see. The seal hop is performed with the palms down, fingers curled under with the nail beds touching the ground, and just the toes touching. It is a feat of endurance as is many of the local competitions. After that we called it a day and went home. The next three days had the trade fair scheduled and that held much promise of more to come.
Let me end this here as the fair is probably going to take me a couple of more pages. I may sit back down this evening or it may be a while as I am scheduled to go to Point Hope, a whaling village halfway between here and Barrow, for three days this coming week. So, hope you are enjoying this and I will write again as soon as the urge strikes.
Take care all,
Carlo
PS I goofed in my last email when I said Fairbanks is farther away from here than Anchorage-it is of course closer.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact
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Last updated:
08/29/05