Iñupiaq hospitality: uunaalik for lunch, two tuttu soups and maktak for dinner; beach walker seen from opposite sides of the green boat; girls on wooden walkway; Tlingit lullaby; Melanie departs hungry

Somewhere between 11:30 and noon, I stopped at the Leavitt home, where I was given my fourth cup of coffee of the day and drank it black. Marie was cutting up some maktak sent over from one of the whales recently landed by the Nuiqsut whalers on Cross Island. She cut with an ulu, made by her late father maybe 30 years ago.

If my surgery had gone as expected, with no complications, no followup surgery, no gigantic left-over hole-in-the-tummy and then no giant hernia, I would have been with the Nuiqsut hunters when they received the whale this came from. I almost joined them anyway, but it is very clear now that this would have been a dangerous mistake on my part. I still hurt significantly from my little experience flying up here when I had to sit in the Alaska Airlines seat that would not lean back.

Before coming over, I had planned to go to Pepe's and have two chicken tacos for lunch. No offense, Fran and Joe - you know I love your restaurant - but I got something even better: fresh boiled uunaalik. It was my first bite not only of uunaalik, but of Iñupiaq food, period, since before my surgery.

When my first bite of uunaalik slid through my mouth, down my throat and into my tummy, it was kind of like I myself had just slid into heaven - that's how good it tasted, after all this time.

I had seconds, of course.

Actually, I need to amend my first sentence. If I had knocked on the door and found no one home, then I planned to go to Pepe's. If someone was home, I knew I would be fed. That's Marie's son Gilbert observing as she hands me my lunch.

Later in the afternoon, after not finding about half-a-dozen different people I had gone out in search of, I stopped by the home of Roy and Flossie Nageak. We had a good visit and one that will prove helpful for my project. It was the seventh birthday of Allana and they had a party planned for her later on.

They were going to cook tuttu soup - caribou soup - and they invited me to come back and they badly wanted Melanie to come, too. We already had an invite for tuttu soup at the home of Savik Ahmaogak, but one can easily enjoy a bowl of tuttu soup in one house and then go to another and enjoy a second bowl there as well.

I walked back to the main part of Barrow from the Browerville subdivision. This guy was walking the other way.

The view of the other guy walking the other way as seen from the other side of the green boat.

Sadly, the job Melanie was working on would keep her busy right up until just before she had to catch her flight. I went to Savik's by myself. I ate this bowl of tuttu soup and this piece of maktak. Many people shy away from Iñupiaq food, but it is the natural food of the Far North and when you are in the Far North it can taste better than anything else and it sure did on this night.

I wanted a second bowl of soup, but I knew that another was waiting for me at Allana's birthday party, so I kept a little room open in my tummy for that bowl.

I wanted to see Melanie off at the airport, so I didn't have much time after I finished my soup and maktak at the Ahmaogak's, but I hustled back to the Akootchook's for my second bowl of tuttu soup. I could not stay for but a few minutes, but I discovered the celebration had become a double birthday party - for seven year old Allana and 74 year old Liilian Nageak. Lillian's birthday had actually taken place a couple of days before, but they were celebrating together.

So I ate my soup, shot a couple of quick frames and then rushed out the door and started hoofing it toward the airport.

Along the way I saw these two girls on the wooden walkway that curves around the lagoon.

Inside the terminal, I saw a young woman who I did not recognize carrying her baby. Then I heard her humming a Tlingit song to her little sweetheart. So I asked if she was from Southeast and sure enough, she was. Usually when I hear it, it is backed up by the power of Tlingit drums and of strong male and female voices. It is at once powerful and beautiful.

Hummed by a mother as a lullabye to her baby, it was sweet and beautiful - yet, somehow, still powerful.

Melanie arrived after me, with a bit of time to spare, but not a lot. I almost forgot to take a goodbye picture. In fact, I had given her a goodbye hug, left the building and walked maybe 50 feet before I realized I had been so wrapped up in saying goodbye to her I had forgotten to shoot a goodbye picture. I rushed back in and shot this one quick.

She was disappointed when I told her about the tuttu soup. "It would have been better than Sam and Lee's," she lamented. Again - this is no insult to Sam and Lee's. They do a good job. But tuttu soup is tuttu soup and the likes of it home-prepared Iñupiaq style is not to be found in any restaurant.

Then Melanie got on the plane and flew south. I walked back to the itinerant quarters in the old Ipalook Elementary School, now an office building for the North Slope Borough School District. Usually when I come to Barrow, I stay with Roy Ahmaogak in the little add on to the Savik house, but the district has put me up here. Right now, it is very nice as I am the only itinerant currently here and the wireless signal is the strongest I have ever had on the Slope.

This will change when I get to the villages. Hopefully, I will have a strong enough signal to make my posts, but sometimes it just isn't strong enough and I can't put a post up. People in the villages get their Facebook pages up okay but there is something about this blogging program that sometimes causes it to shut down altogether when faced with a slow connection.

We'll soon find out.

Comments

[Gr K]

Thanks, again, Bill, for another virtual trip to a wonderful place. It has my favorite wants when traveling, beautiful people, beautiful local food, water
and children everywhere. My armchair thanks you for your efforts on our behalf. Have a great work project and keep us posted when you can.

[Jim]

Sitting here reading your blog in a hungry state got me wondering. What spices are popular with the traditional Iñupiaq diet? I assume salt might be in areas along the coast. But in the interior ... especially in very remote villages that are served primarily by plane and I assume a very small if any supply store.