Ghost village ruins of an Inupiat home constructed from ship timbers, sod and the bones of Bowhead Whales. Tikigaq, Alaska September 3, 2011
Saltwater inundation caused by an encroaching sea forced the people of Point Hope to relocate further inland down Tikigaq Peninsula a few decades ago, but I am told that as recently as the 1970’s a few people still inhabited homes such as the one above. In fact, on at least one such structure we saw, there was a junction box for electricity. Along with these igloos (a term which refers not just to structures made of ice, but to any dome-shaped Inupiat dwelling), there were other more familiar-looking homes in old Tikigaq, but those too have long been abandoned to decay back into the Arctic tundra.
Three miles out on the frozen Chukchi Sea, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, thick fog lifts to reveal slabs of ice positioned by Inupiat whalers to serve as a hunting blind along the edge of a slushy lead. Both Bowhead and Beluga Whales are taken as they migrate through these open lanes between sheets of ice.Near Point Hope. Alaska, May 3, 2012
Inupiat whaling on the frozen Chukchi Sea near Point Hope, Alaska. April 26, 2012
As Bowhead Whales go, this was a small one – perhaps 10 tons or so. We had hiked approximately three miles from the village of Point Hope across the frozen Chukchi Sea to the camp where we had heard a whale had been caught. Locals had traveled by snowmachine and honda (snowmobile and ATV). There is always the danger of encountering a Polar Bear in this environment, and so we were armed. After snapping this picture I handed the camera to Barbra and took a place on the rope.
The open water in this picture is called a lead – an opening between two sheets of ice. You can see, across the water, the jumble of ice along the edge. Sea ice is often not the smooth sheet of white one might imagine. It continuously buckles, pushes up along pressure ridges, drifts apart and then presses back together. In a way, it behaves like the Earth’s tectonic plates, buckling, heaving, colliding, lifting. And so in order to make a whaling camp, trails must first be made through these places where jagged ridges of ice, individual chunks the size of cars, some much larger, must be broken through and smoothed out.
The Bones of Tikigaq Whaling Festival Site, Point Hope, Alaska. The larger bones presented as arches are the jawbones of Bowhead Whales. Traditionally, the skull is returned to the sea so that the whale’s spirit is properly released. Point Hope, Alaska, August 12, 2012
Our first view of Point Hope, Alaska – 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle (August 1, 2011)
Modern-day Point Hope is located on a narrow peninsula hooking into the Chukchi Sea. In the not-so-distant past, the village was further out on the peninsula, but erosion caused by an encroaching sea has wiped away a good bit of the peninsula, and the old village, called Tikigaq (which means index finger – for the peninsula’s shape), was relocated further inland due to seawater inundation. With evidence of habitation going back at least nine thousand years, Tikigaq Peninsula is regarded as one of the very oldest continuously inhabited sites in North America.
The very essence of an Alaskan bush village is its isolation and remoteness. The only road leading out of Point Hope, Seven Mile Road, ends abruptly a good bit less then seven miles: 250 miles from Barrow, 572 miles to Fairbanks, 694 miles from Anchorage. Thus Point Hope exists as a neatly lain out grid of homes and other buildings surrounded on two sides by water and on one by the vast Arctic tundra. Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes are regular visitors. To experience life in a place so thoroughly separated from the rest of the world is perspective changing – and in an unexpected way, exhilarating.
Large ocean-going barges freight in everything from the school bus – which keeps children safe from both frostbite and Polar Bears – to heavy equipment and building supplies; planes bring in smaller items, including groceries and mail. Hunting and gathering provide a great deal of additional food. This subsistence take includes Bowhead and Beluga whale meat and blubber, caribou, ducks, geese, ptarmigan, salmon, char and grayling along with cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) a few blueberries and in some families, seaweeds.
Photographs in coming days will show more of the village and perhaps lend some insight into life there. Thanks for reading.
A number of families kept teams of dogs, and during the wintertime holidays there were dog sled races. These were short races of perhaps a few miles. The speed and skill demonstrated was incredible. December 27, 2010
Blueberry picking on the Arctic tundra. This photograph was used in a Ted Talk about Climate Change. Sarichef Island, September, 2010
As is the case anywhere one might go, there are multiple realities in Shishmaref – or in any bush village. Some of these realities fit together neatly in a positive and even happy manner, like smiling faces after berry picking on a pleasantly crisp fall morning. Some realities exist more as collective memories, and you’d have to dig and observe closely to find their vestiges. Other realities contradict and clash and it can be difficult to understand how they are connected to the broader cultural, and still other realities go mostly undiscussed – pretended away – as they seep into village fabric like a sludgy toxin.
A reality in the “sludgy toxin” category in most bush communities we are familiar with are the schools. For anyone who was fortunate enough to be educated in a fairly decent k-12 system, or who has taught in such schools, the level of professional misfeasance and malfeasance – the combination of indifference, incompetence and outright corruption in Alaska’s bush schools – would probably defy belief. Before coming to Alaska, Barbra and I taught in good schools in the lower 48. So we know what that looks like. Nothing in that experience prepared us for what we encountered in the Alaskan Bush. The blame, when one talks to many teachers and administrators in bush Alaska, is placed on the children themselves and their parents. These educators and administrators spin their tales to state legislators, the governor’s office, department of education officials, university education departments and anyone else who asks, and Alaska’s state legislators, the governor’s office, department of education officials and university personnel nod along, agreeing that little can be done to improve matters.
But the reality is that any of the schools we taught in, visited or heard about from others could have easily… and I emphasize easily… been improved with a bit of competent administration. The acquiescence to self-serving fictions among Alaska’s leadership – the phony wistful sighs followed by reassurances among themselves that the problems can’t be fixed, so therefore they aren’t obliged to try – continues year after year.
Because it is easy to dismiss these bush schools and the Native communities they serve. After all, these are other people’s children.
Thank you for allowing me to finally get that off my chest. Comments, as always, are welcome. JD
In bush communities such as Shishmaref, virtually everything comes into the village either by plane or by barge. Trucks, boats, hondas*, snowmachines*, pipes, building materials, food, clothing, clothing washers, bags of chips, cases of pop, birthday presents… It’s not practical to ship out empty detergent bottles, worn out dryers, broken down vehicles or broken toys. So most of the refuse goes to a local dump. In these modern times, when most of what is consumed takes a very long time to return to its elemental or mineral form, whatever isn’t burned remains there – buried or piled high. And there it will remain till the sea comes one day. (Photograph by Barbra Donachy, October 31, 2010)
* “Honda” is the Alaskan term for quad or ATV. “Snowmachine” is Alaskan for snowmobile. Out in the bush, bicycles are often called pedal bikes to distinguish them from hondas/ATVs, which are also often called bikes.
This camp along the shore of the Chukchi Sea almost looks like an ocean going vessel, the cabin itself the wheelhouse, a flag marking the vessel’s bow as it faces a fall sea. Snow but no ice, you can see how the ravenous ocean eats at the shoreline of tiny Sarichef Island. All this will be gone one day… perhaps in not so many years. October 31, 2010
An abandoned home in Shishmaref faces an encroaching sea.
It is reported that since 1969, the ocean has eaten away 200 feet of land along the coast of already tiny Sarichef Island where Shishmaref is located. In the past, a sheet of ice forming in fall and lasting through spring kept the Chukchi sea blanketed and calm. Warming sea temperatures in the Arctic mean the ocean is freezing later. When fall and winter storms occur, packing winds that have traveled uninterrupted over thousands of miles of open sea, the surf thus generated claws at the barrier island without mercy. Particularly violent storms can rip away massive chunks of land. Entire homes have been washed away, a fate this abandoned house appears to be facing. Photograph: October 10, 2010
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