Spring is in the air here in Barrow. The snow actually fell from the sky instead of growing from the air. For most of the winter, it is so cold that even what little moisture the dry arctic air holds freezes straight from gas to solid form. This “snow” accumulates in beautiful crystalline blooms on traffic signs, power lines, cars, houses and anything else the wind hasn’t blown away. It’s like living in a frozen Chia world, and you don’t even have to water it.
That “snow” tinkles as it blows across the snow-covered town. In the rare gentle breeze, it sounds like shards of the thin, colored, glass bulb Christmas tree ornaments I often dropped as a kid tumbling in all directions across the kitchen floor. It squeaks as you walk on it. The snow today is more like snow at a world-class ski resort—soft, light and fluffy. After a calm day of snow, only an inch blankets the wind-scowled snowdrifts in front of our house, but it’s enough to make the view from our window more like a winter wonderland than the foreboding Alaska Range pass it resembled the day before.
Spring is a time of renewal in Barrow, but instead of butterflies and fresh azaleas, we get an extra ten minutes of daylight every day and fresh sealskins on the whalers’ umiaks. The geese, swans, eiders and other migratory birds will soon fill the sky. Thanks to a snow road that connects Barrow to Prudhoe Bay to support a new oil field, this spring also brought a noticeable influx of shiny new pickups and SUV’s laying tracks in the spring snow.
Spring is for whaling, and the town breathes an ancient wind of excitement and hope in preparation for the spring whale hunt. The dwindling supplies of maktak in the cellars and frustrations from a disappointing fall harvest give way to prayer and preparation in anticipation of a successful spring hunt. The old ways are renewed with each hunt, and this year is no different.
With introduction to the western world over a century ago, the Inupiat incorporated a number of new ways into the old. The Inupiat’s earliest western contact was with whalers, men after the same bowhead whales the Inupiat had hunted for generations. They traded technology for hospitality, and the confluence of old and new had begun.
Soon after the white whalers came the white missionaries. Within a few generations and without forsaking many traditional beliefs, the Inupiat had largely converted to Christianity. Now, local leaders tell multi-national oil companies, the governor of Alaska and anyone else planning public meetings in Barrow not to plan their events on Wednesday nights or Sundays when most of the community is at church. Not only would the event be poorly attended, it would be equally ill-received.
The first Wednesday of April, whaling captains, their wives and local church and choral groups filled the Assembly of God church downtown for the Blessing of the Whaling Crews service. Songs filled the church with western hymns sung in both Inupiaq and English. By the last group to take their turn singing to the full sanctuary, I realized that I may have been the only person in the room who had not been on stage at least once. The others didn’t seem to mind, and I felt like I just got a personal performance from half the town.
What strikes me most about the Inupiat’s faith is the sincerity. Twice, little old ladies extemporaneously preached their faith in Inupiaq, liberally and rhythmically infused with English alleluia’s and praise God’s. I felt like James Brown and Elder Beck had filled the five foot tall, seventy-year-old Inupiat women to ensure that Eskimos not only had saved souls, but soul. I also felt their faith. As deserved, the congregation responded with amen’s and alleluia’s of our own. Unlike the mega-church pastor under projection screens and stage lighting down south, sweating out judgments and calling for donations, I believed her and trusted her passion and conviction.
The blending of old and new continues beyond faith. Some crews use only traditional umiaks made from driftwood and bearded seal skins. Others use store-bought wood to frame their umiaks, and still others use aluminum boats with outboard motors. Snow machines (snowmobiles for you non-Alaskans) have replaced dog teams as the primary way to haul the gear sleds to camp on the ice. Bulldozers and front-end loaders help haul the whales onto the ice if they can reach the site. If not, the community joins together to haul the whales like they have for centuries—with block and tackle and more than a few grunts.
Once isolated from each other on the ice, now whalers use VHF radio to communicate warnings and whale activity. The best way to judge the coming weather is still to get up just before six a.m., crawl out of the tent, and scramble to a high point on a nearby ice heave…to get the best reception for the National Weather Service broadcast on KBRW.
Does this make the tradition any less genuine? This is the arctic, and despite being one of the places where global warming is most evident, it is still far from warm or hospitable. Inupiat whaling tradition is all about the whales, not how they get them. If the people die, the traditions die. In the arctic, the tradition is to find the best way to survive. These people have for centuries lived in sod huts at temperatures as low as 60 below zero, hunted 60 ton whales from 12 foot, skin rowboats, and endured months of darkness each year. Just as no one faulted them for trading blubber for furs from inland Inupiat centuries ago, I am not going to fault them now for getting a little help hauling a creature whose tongue alone can weigh more than a ton out of the icy ocean before the polar bears invite themselves to dinner. Life is hard up here, and the Inupiat have survived for thousands of years by being smart enough to recognize a good idea when it blows in.
Knowing how to have fun is another survival tradition that helps the Inupiat survive on the northernmost edge of our continent. To that end, last weekend’s festival, Piuraagiaqta, kicked off the spring whaling season with games, contests and celebration. From maklak races and harpoon throwing contests to scavenger hunts and chess tournaments, the festival was another blend of new and old. Cook-offs included chili, the ubiquitous state fair standard, and Eskimo originals akutuq, muqpauraq, siignaq and uksrukuaqtaq. Akutuq, or Eskimo ice cream, is whipped seal oil or caribou fat often with shredded caribou tossed in for kicks. I don’t know what the other three entail, but if they taste as good as they sound, I hate that I missed them.
After a long stretch of overtime Luke duty, Layla gave me Saturday to enjoy the festival. I took in the parade, complete with sparsely decorated utility equipment and SUV’s, the state champion girls high school basketball team waving from the back of a stake truck, and the thinly veiled oil company attempts to be “part of the community.”
After the parade, the games began at the lagoon. In typical Barrow fashion, the crowd trickled in shortly after the set start time, but by the end of the first event, the main ring was surrounded by cars and trucks filled with spectators. Kids frolicked on the green, frozen water of the lagoon, and car horns proclaimed the spectators’ appreciation for good performances.
I was there alone, a white man with a camera and without a car, but I think I was the only one who felt odd about it. As I mingled before the first event, Tupiqqaurraq, where whaling crews race to set up their canvass tents, Molly Leavitt of Ben Itta’s crew, asked me to help form a team for the event. With limited instructions—outside of church I’ve found many Inupiat direct, but not verbose—Molly, Herman, Jimmy and I set up our tent and finished a distant last place. We all laughed at our ad hoc performance. I helped pack up the tent, and with a new sense of acceptance despite my comical performance, resumed my place on the periphery of the snowy field to enjoy the rest of the day’s events.
The festival closed with a community pot luck, nigliq calling contest, and awards ceremony on Monday night at the roller rink. Luke again enjoyed the native cuisine, charmed a few elders at the table next door, and otherwise enjoyed taking in the festival. A snotty nose, single digit temperatures and a friend’s birthday party kept him from te weekend games.
Luke especially seemed to like the nigliq calling contest, at least the first few callers, even though he knew even less about what a nigliq is than we did. We at least could tell it was some sort of bird, either a duck or goose, and after twenty callers each calling twice, we could tell which were the closest to genuine. The crowd would laugh at clucks where there should have been clooks, but after the first round of calls, I realized that through the obvious enjoyment of the event, many were scrutinizing each call and diligently taking notes on their favorites. My personal favorite was the “cluck-a-luck-a-luck-a-heeeere-birdie-birdie” call, but it didn’t win. Not even in the top three. Shows what I know about calling nigliqs.
The weather has been warm but windy since then (20 degrees above for highs with 30 to 40mph winds some days), and the various whaling crews are out breaking new trails through the pack ice to the open water. It’s all new to me, and like everyone else here, I’m excited for their success and for the coming season.
Aarigaa! (How nice or great!)
A few years ago, if you told Layla and I that our child would stay up well past sunset, rarely go outside, wear fur and eat protected marine mammals, we would have taken your keys and offered to call you a cab. But here we are, celebrating Luke’s first birthday, and until a couple weeks ago when the sun finally outlasted Luke, each of those unthinkable prophecies had proven true. So how in the pigs flying heck did we get here? I barely know myself, much less feel able to write it, but maybe these photos can tell just what’s gone down since a few months after that sunny, warm late summer day when Layla and I were both fit, energetic and planning our winter climbing adventure in Thailand. Why that day? That’s the day we had the “Babe, I’m pregnant,” pause, “Are you sure?” conversation. And the rest is in pictures…
Yup, she was sure.
Little man is freaking out the doctors, so off to Seattle we go on the midnight jet medivac. A week later, we’re back in Juneau.
Three days after we get back, Luke is born in Juneau 6 ½ weeks early. He and I are medivaced to the NICU in Anchorage.
Less than 48 hours later, Layla joins us in Anchorage after fast forewarding her recovery from surgery. Here with Luke in the Babytherm 3000 (it’s real name I promise) on day 6.
After a week on the “serious” side of the NICU, Luke graduated to the “stable” side.
We spent the next five weeks encouraging Luke to feed himself however he could. This is the first time he took a full feeding from the bottle, four weeks after we got to the NICU.
Nic-you, NICU! In the airport heading home after 6+ weeks in Anchorage.
Luke was unimpressed,
Still little, but slowly growing…
…and growing…
…into a happy little man.
Luke stole the show at the wedding.
“Hey Nonna, why are all these people hugging mommy and daddy? They’re supposed to be hugging me!”
By August, he was very happy to finally be able to hold down most his food and sit in his chair.
Still needed some help, but was getting much stronger.
So we took him on a day cruise to Ford’s Terror and the Dawes Glacier,
And then on a float plane to the Taku Glacier Lodge,
But he had had enough of glaciers.
He much preferred making new friends like his buddy, Wilder.
But we were restless after spending too much time in hospitals and not in the wilds of Alaska, So we went to Katmai National Park to see some brown bears like that one…
…and this one. It’s amazing how close to the red salmon you can get there.
Phew, what a month!
But it’s not over, back on the big plane…
...to Milwaukee to see Great Grandma! Four generations of Gnadt’s.
First “real” food, if you can call rice cereal “real” food.
Fun with Mom,
And more fun with that cute baby in the window.
New spacesuit for winter.
Two feet of snow in Juneau just before Thanksgiving, 
So we went to Mexico en route to our new home in Barrow.
Luke on lifeguard duty in Akumal.
Christmas a couple weeks early in Barrow
Four generations of Hughes’.
Grandma Gnadt better watch those grabby little fingers
Nonno and his horse.
Back in Barrow to play with the new toys!
No travel! But a lot of new tricks from Luke.
Out on the Arctic Ocean.
A week in Juneau for a visit with our friends and Luke’s favorite sitter, Lis.
Ok, so we let him open a couple birthday presents early, but he sure does like it!
Are we done yet?
Happy Birthday Luke!
Let’s eat some…
…table!
Hey Felix, I’m One! Woo hoo! 
