To Julia on the east coast, with love from Corey in Point Hope/Barrow/WMAT Arizona - kick off to fall whaling series

In preparation to finally launch my Barrow fall bowhead hunt series, I back up to October 3, when three whales were landed in Barrow. As I wandered about taking pictures, this young man stopped me to introduce himself. He told me he was Corey Ahnangnatoguk from Point Hope, was a student at Stanford and had a girlfriend he had met at college who was back at her home on the East Coast and said she reads this blog every day.

So I took this picture and told him it might take awhile, maybe a couple of weeks, but when I finally got around to posting my fall whaling series I would post this picture as a surprise "hi" from Corey to Julia. I did not think it would take me anywhere near this long to get to it, but this is how things often work out for me.

Sometimes, I plan to post something and then just get overwhelmed by other things and never post it at all. But not this time. This time, I am overwhelmed, but I am still going to post the fall whaling series. I have already put far more work into it than into any other blog work I have done since India.

I still haven't really figured out how to do it, but I am not going to post anything else until I post fall whaling. Maybe I will start it tomorrow night - Thursday - or maybe the day after. If its the day after, I might just wait until Monday. Not only would that give me three more days to figure it out and to work on it some more, even as I try to complete another most important task, but my readership tends to drop way down on weekends. Then it comes back up on Monday.

So Monday would be a good day to launch the series.

In the meantime:

"Hello, Julia! With love, from Corey!" Smoochy, smoochy, smoochy!

Corey did not tell me he knew the Apache/Navajo filmmaker, Dustinn Craig, who has done quite a bit of work on the North Slope and who puts on a filmmaking workshop most summers for Barrow's Ilisagvik College. Corey probably did not tell me this because he most likely did not yet know that Margie and I used to babysit Dustinn when he was a tyke living in Whiteriver, Arizona, capital of my wife and children's White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Dustinn's mother is also White Mountain Apache. His Navajo father, the late artist, poet, cartoonist, song writer and musician Vincent Craig, became my friend shortly after Margie and I settled on the reservation for five years. The last time I saw Vincent was on the day that he died and at that moment, Dustinn and I were outside, in the car, pondering many things.

And now here is Dustinn, working on a film in Barrow on the day that three whales were landed. It might look to some like he is shooting stills, but he is shooting video. These days, many professional filmmakers use Canon DSLR cameras to shoot video.

One week ago, I got an email from Dustinn with a picture he had just taken on the border to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. It is of Corey. He had gone to the reservation to work with Dustinn as his mentor.

"He's a great kid studying film at Stanford University!" Dustinn said of Corey.

Here this little guy who was a toddler when Margie and I first babysat him and now he is a mentor to a "kid" from Point Hope/Stanford University.

I wonder how this could be? I'm pretty sure I'm still a kid myself. How could this be?

Comments

[Julia]

Hi Bill! Thanks so much for this post! Corey was so sneaky....I had seen on your blog that you were traveling to Barrow and that Corey would be there at the same time and suggested that he should say hi. He then told me that he couldn't find you out on the ice, which I did find surprising but didn't make me suspicious of being in cahoots. And then, SURPRISE! I read your blog several times a day and I really look forward update, however long or short. I started reading WasillaBy300 for the North Slope pics and stayed for the pictures and stories about your family and other amazing friendships and journeys. Corey and I are both blown away by how small this world is (e.g. connections to Dustinn and others) and Dustinn was been so great in working with Corey; he's returning to AZ soon to keep editing. Thanks again--this was a truly special blog post!

[Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond]

You're welcome, Julia - thank you for following and I'm glad you liked our surprise!

[Dustinn]

Awesome post Bill! It's always a joy to see you even if briefly!

DC