Wales
Ten a.m., minus 2 degrees, wind: 50 mph. Joe keeps saying we’re losing daylight but there’s hardly any to lose. Mid-morning darkness is pixilated by horizontal grains of white. We haven’t really “seen” the village yet. We’d get lost if we went out there. But from this new part of town – built since Joe was last here - there appears to be no houses, no people, no animals, no village all.
The florescent lights in the hall are bright but I’m groggy. These days, explorers, climatologists, and journalists have lousy carbon footprints: too much flying around. Joe is making kupiaq with his Italian stovetop espresso machine and nuking instant oatmeal. He has lived in San Francisco, had shows in Chicago and New York, but doesn’t go far these days.
Ray Seetonik stops by to visit. He’s one of the village’s four whaling captains and a venerable “elder” at age 67.
Last month we saw small birds around. Maybe 10 or 20 of them. They were dark, grayish, smaller than snowbirds (snow buntings). They were by the pond. Then we saw a couple of hawks. Never saw birds here in winter time.
In spring the seagulls come just when the bowhead whales arrive. Last year we were the only whaling boat out there. I harpooned one but it went under the ice. My sons were able to find it because the ice was so thin. One used an auger and the other son had a tuuk and we finally got it out. Oh, we were happy. It’d been lost for 3 days. Before that was the time I got the big whale. It was 47 feet long. I dedicated that one to Mom. It was so big, it almost tipped us over….
I can feel it when a whale or a polar bear is out there. I’ll be working somewhere, doing something, and suddenly I’ll just feel it and I tell my crew, “Hurry up, we have to go out now.” We’ve always had plenty of food. But so many young people these days, all they do is (makes gesture of sitting at a computer keyboard)……what’s that word? Type.
I always had sealskin pants and mukluks, harpoons with handles made of driftwood, and seal nets. No one has these things anymore. But I teach my sons everything I know. One day I shot a bear but it didn’t die. It didn’t even get wounded. Then it turned around and looked at me and I saw a black mark on its rump. My Dad told me never to shoot a bear with such a mark. I was careless. I felt so bad. That was another kind of bear, you know, the kind that can’t be killed at all.”
Dear Gretel,
It is delightful to read this beautiful account from Raymond. You found a wonderful source for your book. I am so glad that you got this interview. One point of clarification. I need to check back in the phone book, but I think his name is Seetook.
My students interviewed him about the movement of floe ice.
This interview is on my web site at this address: homepage.mac.com/hamiltonpaul/iMovieTheater48.html
If this is the same person, you might enjoy listening to his voice again. I know I checked the phone book when I posted his name. But, I can double check to find out for sure.
Much luck on your extraordinary travels. I have since engaged in an imaginative journey through your books “This Cold Heaven” and “The Future of Ice” and understand now the points you were making to me about the work of Knud Rasmussen when you discussed him with me in my classroom with such enthusiasm.
We have also edited our student interview with you and Joe further from when you were in Wales and incorporated video images of the sea ice front.
That interview can be found at:
homepage.mac.com/hamiltonpaul/iMovieTheater43.html
You need to either have an apple computer or download quicktime to view the video clips. But, I can send you a DVD if you are interested and do not have these.
Again, thank you so much for the invitation to an imaginative journey on the ice through my discovery of your work and Knud Rasmussen.
Take Care… and all the best!
Paul Hamilton
School Teacher, Wales, Alaska