Qaataaq - flash frozen

From the net of Tommy Nukapigak, Kuukpik River (Coleville), Nuiqsut.

Tommy catches Qaataq in the Kuukpik River

Tommy Nukapigaq found me today during the period of noon twilight and took me down to the river where he had set a net under the ice. He pulled out 97 Qaaqtaq, or Arctic Cisco. It has been a good season for Qaaqtaq, but a bad one for Aanaakliq, or whitefish, a very popular, fat and tasty Arctic fish Nuiqsut is famous for. The Aanaakliqs are here, but they are mysteriously blemished, perhaps with a fungus, from what I am told, and people are reluctant to catch and eat them. As for the Qaaqtaq harvest, Tommy is very pleased. 

A fish persuades Lynx to disobey his grandmother

I brought Margie into my office to look at a picture I had taken on Cross Island. Lynx came with her. After she admired the picture, Margie gave Lynx an order: "Come on Lynx, let's go out now."

"Goodbye!" Lynx said to her. And so he stayed for awhile, to hang out with Parrot Fish and me.

Text added at 11:18 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues.

The fish who shouted out orders

"Hey Bill!" 13-year old Parrot Fish called out to me as I sat at my computer trying to accomplish something.

"What?!" I answered, annoyed. When you need to accomplish something it really doesn't help to have a parrot fish shouting at you. Sometimes, I wish I had got a different kind of fish. A kind that can't learn how to talk.

"I bet I can make you do something you said you weren't going to do," Parrot Fish challenged.

"No you can't!" I rebuffed.

"Yes I can! You said you weren't going to make another Instagram or blog post today. I can make you do both."

"No you can't!" I angrily shot back. "You're just a fish! You can't make me do anything I don't want to do."

"Bill! Take my picture! Instagram it! Put it on your blog!" Parrot Fish demanded.

"No!" I emphatically refused. "You can't make me!"

"Bill!…" The fish ordered again - not once, not twice, but 3822 times until I was about to go insane. I got up. I took his picture. I Instagrammed it. I am about to put it on my blog. I don't know how one can accomplish anything, with a fish such as this around. 

Jimmy takes his afternoon drink

Having so far put in a good hard work day, Jimmy was in need of a drink. He jumped up onto the edge of the 90 gallon aquarium and started to drink. I wasn't paying any attention, as I know he needs his water and this happens every now and then throughout the day. Suddenly, I realized that the office train was going to pass right over him as he drank, but my phone was a little ways away. By the time I could get it and turn the camera on, Jimmy had finished his drink and was jumping off the tank. Jimmy prefers water with a bit of fish flavor to it.