I visited Point Hope this summer as part of a project funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting with photographer Katie Orlinsky on Alaska Native foods and climate change. So far we’ve written and shot photos for The Guardian and National Geographic and we have a third story planned this fall. (Also, because I happened to visit Point Hope, I was asked to write an essay to introduce some photos of whaling crews taken by Nathaniel Wilder. )
Anyway, here’s what I brought back from the trip on my phone, mainly food photos, from one of America’s most northern communities.
We visited Point Hope in June for the three day whaling feast.
Feast food: fermented whale and homemade donut.
Fermented whale, pink cupcakes.
Bowhead bones.
Trampolines are huge here.
Drying rack for preserving meat turned into a swing set.
Whale fermenting at the home of whaling captain Clark Lane.
Flipper aging in the Lane’s arctic entry.
Village kiddos.
An elder praying and talking during the second day of the three-day feast
Aana Lane passing out whale on the second day of the feast.
Everybody asked me if I had a Ziploc.
The sky is always changing.
Flipper was distributed on the second day.
Here is a slice of flipper.
My friends Susie and Eddie.
Here is the whale I tasted at the Lisbourne’s house.
The cemetery.
Whale bone fence at the cemetery.
Eddie Lisbourne showed me the bearded seal he took this year.
Hook for hauling in bearded seal.
Eddie Lisbourne shows me bearded seal meat.
Seal oil, made from rendered bearded seal.
Every whaling crew has its flag. The Lanes have matching jackets.
Whale cuts cooking on the third day, along with all kinds of other subsistence foods.
More whale.
Bearded seal.
Beluga tail
Birds.
Whaling fest cake. (That’s a picture of elders)
Katie.
Me.
Pete Lisbourne still keeps up his family house in the old townsite. (The town was moved because of erosion.)
There are the steps to the school that used to stand in the old townsite.
Pete Lisbourne at one of the last sod houses at the old townsite.
Katie photographing the inside of an old ice cellar in the old townsite. (With Pete Lisbourne)
Whaling feast grounds at the old townsite.
Pete Lisbourne’s collection.
Pete Lisbourne’s arrowhead.
Pete Lisbourne’s stove. Gull eggs.
Arctic ocean.
Awesome! I’m adventuring here in Alaska!