xoxoxoBruce • Feb 24, 2019 10:22 pm
A salute to the people all around the Arctic Circle. Personally I think they’re nuts for living there but great respect and admiration
for their ability to survive generation after generation.
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for their ability to survive generation after generation.
Traditional whaling is practiced in tune with the unpredictable weather of the Arctic. Wind has pushed floating ice near the shorefast ice and the whalers must wait until it shifts again, sometimes weeks later.
This camp, erected miles out on the sea ice, is the Iñupiaq home away from home. Despite spending months living in cramped and frozen quarters, the captain of Yugu crew prefers it. “It is quiet here.” This setup is typical of spring whalers, who spend months on the sea ice waiting for whales by their skinboat.
Flora Aiken gives a silent blessing to the first bowhead whale of the spring season. The Iñupiaq have a rich spiritual life which centers around the gift of the whale to the community. Foster Simmonds offers a prayer, saying, “Hide something for me. Look at the food, the whales. Look at the sea, the whalers. A blessing for them. Take that and hide it in your heart.” The whale here is tied up after being towed to the ice’s edge and is awaiting the village to come and help haul it onto the ice.
Larry Lucas Kaleak listens to the sounds of passing whales and bearded seals through a skinboat paddle in the water. The sounds of bearded seals and bowheaded whales are unique and distinctive, and can be easily heard in the vibrations of the wooden paddle.
The frame of a skinboat rests on trestles, a reminder of Yup’ik traditional culture. For the youngest generation of Yup’ik, traditional culture can be a lifeline. 16-year old Sam Schimmel from Gambell says, “What I’ve seen is that when youth are not culturally engaged, you see higher rates of incarceration, higher rates of suicide, higher rates of alcoholism, higher rates of drug abuse — all these evils that come in and take the place of culture.”
A large polar bear investigates the freshly butchered carcass of a bowhead whale. The scent of this whale attracted 13 polar bears in a single day, which presented considerable danger to the wary Iñupiaq whalers who nonetheless allowed the bears to feed.
Kunuunnguaq Davidsen performs a Greenland kayak (qajaq) roll in the 2018 Greenlandic National Championships in Nuuk. Traditional kayak rolling was done to recover from capsizing during kayak-hunting. It has since evolved into a national sport with 37 increasingly difficult rolls.
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