Branson and his 6-9 year-old Avalanche teammates play on Aces ice - part 1: Branson, pre-game

One Friday night when I was in the middle of the process of putting together my David Alan Harvey Loft workshop series, I took a break to drive to Anchorage where Branson and his Alaska Avalanche hockey team of six-to-nine year olds was about to compete in a six-minute, running-clock, exhibition game on the same ice where the Anchorage Aces would take on the Stockton Thunder.

Branson arrived early with his dad and mom, Scot and Carmen Starheim, owners and operators of Metro Cafe. Here is six-year old Branson with mom Carmen at the gate to the Sullivan Arena. Dad Scot had disappeared to take care of some task that needed taking care of.

Once inside, the family accompanied Branson to the VIP room, where he got to dine on diced beef, pasta, salad and corn chips. Afterward, he needed to pick his teeth.

In the VIP room, Branson engaged a very tall man in some hockey talk. Clearly, the man was impressed. Branson knows his hockey talk.

Branson joins his family in the bleachers to watch the first period of Aces-Thunder competition. Carmen adjusts Branson's hair so that he can be presentable to pose with his grandparents, Tony and Eva Villasenor, originally from a small village in Mexico. They did not move to Anchorage until Carmen was ten. Her early life was spent barefoot on dirt floors. They had no cameras and so Carmen has only one photo from her early childhood in Mexico.

Branson with his grandparents.

Branson with grandparents, mom, aunts, uncles, cousin and friends.

The Avalanche exhibition will be played during the break between the first and second periods. As the Aces skate onto the ice, Branson and his dad point out different players to each other.

The Aces score the first goal. Branson and his dad celebrate.

Soon it is time for Branson to go down to the doors that open onto the ice and to get ready to compete. His dad joins him.

Branson, stick in hand, helmet on head, ready to go do battle on the same ice where the Aces now skate. He and his teammates will compete against each other before the same crowd that the Aces do their own battle on.

I will post Part 2 later today, which will feature not only Branson but his whole team, the Aces, and Boomer -their polar bear mascot.

Lynxton is ill, gets three shots; boys who love trains; January ends in a snowy heatwave

When I drove into Anchorage Friday evening to pick Margie up from her week of babysitting, Lynxton was sick with a viral infection. It was hard on him and we could not explain to him why it was so. It was also hard on his parents, as he needed round-the-clock attention.

So we brought Kalib and Jobe home with us. They brought Thomas the Train and a few of his friends. And yes, we spent some time playing with the electric HO Thomas that their Aunt Suji had given us at Christmas as well, but for some reason, I forgot to take pictures. I shot this and the next few that follow with my iPhone.

Every now and then, as I would be sitting at my computer working, or maybe just goofing around, my office door would fly open and the boys would come bounding in. "Grampa!" Kalib would tug at me. "Your train! Go fast!" So I would have to get up and turn the train on.

Invaribly, by the time I returned to my chair, they had taken it over. Here they are, watching the train from my chair as Jimmy, the black cat, takes a drink from the large aquarium.

Oh, my goodness. The large orange fish in the large aquarium is staring at me RIGHT NOW! He wants to eat. "Get up out of that chair, Bill, and feed me!"

Kalib keeps his eyes fast on the train as it goes around, but Jobe gets distracted by Jim, who has finished his drink and is now looking for a good place to nap.

Kalib continues to watch the train. Jobe follows Jimmy with his eyes as Jimmy jumps up onto a crude cabinet I made from fibreboard. There, he will curl up and take a nap.

This morning, after getting nowhere near enough sleep, I had to get up and drive Margie back to Anchorage to spend another week babysitting. The boys had returned home yesterday, after their parents picked them up from us at the movie theatre.

When we first arrived, Lynxton was not home. He had gone to see the doctor with his dad. I hung around for awhile. Finally, Lynxton returned. He had gotten three shots. Kalib watched Thomas the Train on TV - or maybe Thomas the Train watched Kalib.

So I drove home alone, through a light snow flurry. The temperature had really warmed up. It was 5 above. It felt so warm and balmy. They say it could go up to 20 soon, maybe even warmer. After going down as cold as -65, it also warmed up in the Interior today - into the -30's and -40's.

Yes, I also got my daily school bus picture, my daily raven, and my daily moose, but I am tired and this is enough for now.

I feel like I might be getting what Lynxton has. If so, at least I can understand why.

Margie and I go to the Anchorage Premiere of "Big Miracle." Now I must figure out how to blog it as I saw it

The other day, I visited the website for the movie, Big Miracle, scheduled for national release Friday and in the storyline read this:

"Local newsman Adam Carlson (Krasinski) can’t wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska for a bigger market. But just when the story of his career breaks, the world comes chasing it, too. With an oil tycoon, heads of state and hungry journalists descending upon the frigid outpost, the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore). Not only is she an outspoken environmentalist, she’s also his ex-girlfriend."

Good grief! Except for the parts about "can't wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska" and "the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore)... his ex-girlfriend," it was like I had just read about myself.

In fact, among the real people of this earth, there is no one but me who those lines could have described.

I also read in the Anchorage Daily News about how all kinds of Alaskans, including our Congressional Delegation, had attended the Washington, D.C. premiere. According to the article, just about all the Alaskans there had come in a bit skeptical but had left with praises for the movie.

The article also reported that there would be a "by invitation only" premiere in Anchorage on Sunday, January 29, in the Tikahtnu Stadium 16 theatres. I do not want to sound like a petty person, but I felt a bit miffed. When I visited the movie set by invitation in November of 2010, my book, Gift of the Whale: The Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt - A Sacred Tradition, was everywhere. People kept bringing it to me for autographs and describing it as their "Bible" from everything to creating sets to costumes, and for helping them to understand what actually happened out there.

Yet, they had not sent me an invitation to the premiere. So I sent an email to director Ken Kwapis, who had treated me very well on the set and who I found to be most likable and down to earth. He immediately emailed back, apologized for the oversight, and let me know I should receive tickets online before the day ended.

The tickets came. So here I am with Margie standing in the concession line to pick up the free popcorn and drinks that came with the tickets. She is rubbing her hands together because they are cold. It has been pretty cold lately. In our neighborhood, it was -34 F yesterday morning and, at the warmest part of the day, struggled to break -20.

Of course, it was much colder in the cold parts of the state - Fairbanks, down into the mid - 50's and when I checked last night at 10:00 PM, Fort Yukon was -60.

When we left our house today, with Kalib and Jobe strapped into their car seats, it was -18. In downtown Wasilla, it was -7 and at Tikahtnu it was a pretty warm -2. Still, as we unbuckled the boys and turned them over to their parents, then walked from the mid-parking lot to the movie, Margie's hands got cold.

As we walked down the hall to Theatre 1, I spotted Tara Sweeney, mother of Ahmaogak Sweeney - the young Iñupiaq boy who played in one of the starring roles.

This is him: the young star, Ahmaogak Sweeney, who spoke briefly to the audience before the movie started. In his hands he holds a short message from Director Kwapis, who could not attend. Ahmaogak read the statement for him. I should have recorded it or taken notes, but, without quoting, I can report that Kwapis stated that he had never been to Alaska before the shooting of Big Miracle, but now he is determined to come back. He found Alaskans to be warm, friendly, and hospitable people and was amazed at the acting talent this state produced.

Of the actors, none - not even Drew Barrymore, Ted Danson, John Krasinksi, or Dermot Mulroney - outshone young Ahmaogak. He did great. He added a big dose of warmth and enthusiasm to the screen. I would not be at all surprised to see more of him in future films.

My favorite scene of the entire movie was the opener, where young Nathan sat with his grandfather Malik in the front of an umiak as the whaling crew paddled toward a bowhead. Awesome! In real life, Malik, Ralph Ahkivgak, was a most highly respected and successful Iñupiaq harpooner who brought his talents to a number of different crews. The movie Malik was not the real Malik, but a fictitious character who carried the real Malik's name.

He was played by John Pingayak, a Cup'ik from the southwest Alaska village of Chevak. Pingayak also did a superb job. I respect and admire him greatly, yet I could not help but want to hear an Iñupiaq voice, singing the Iñupiaq way, backed up by Iñupiaq drums.

I just couldn't help it - I wanted to hear those drums. I wanted to hear those Iñupiat voices.

This takes nothing away from John Pingayak. He performed superbly. His character had genuine Native depth and soul. I just wanted to hear Iñupiaq songs in Iñupiaq voice, with Iñupiaq drums. So beautiful. So powerful - These voices and drums should be heard in a movie about Iñupiat people.

Ahmaogak is being photographed by Bill Roth of the Anchorage Daily News. who I first met when he came to Barrow to photograph the rescue effort for the paper.

Going into the movie, I figured there was two different ways that I could view it. I could view it as someone who experienced the rescue operation from beginning to end, someone who has spent a lot of time in Barrow, who has come to love the place and who knows what everything looks like and where everything sits. If I were to view it this way, then I knew I could not help but be disappointed.

Or I could just relax, kick back, understand that it is impossible to make a feature film based on a real event that actually unfolds the way the real event did. I could watch it as a movie, made to entertain. So that is what I decided to do. I would not stack it up against what I experienced and what I know, but would watch it to be entertained, to be told a hopefully good story, even if not a wholly factual story. There was one thing that I felt the movie had to do. It might not be able to go deep into Iñupiat culture, it might have many non-Iñupiaq actors playing Iñupiats, it might not get every little thing just right, but it had to show respect to Iñupiat people and culture - their hunting way of life.

The book that served as the starting point for the movie, Freeing the Whales - How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event, by Tom Rose, did not show respect to the Iñupiat. It did not show respect to Barrow. It did not show respect to hunters. It did not show respect for truth. It was a terrible book. It sensationalized almost all that it touched. I say, "almost all," because it did show repect for a Colonel in the National Guard and a woman from the Reagan White House who fell in love and got married.

I'll give Tom Rose that, but not much more.

Early on, I heard that the movie storyline had broken away from the book upon which it was based. That fact, coupled with the fact that my friend Othneil Oomittuk, who I have great respect for, and the open warmth that I found in Mr. Kwapis and that I heard that a young Iñupiat, Ahmaogak Sweeney, had a big role, gave me hope that the movie would paint a different picture than did the book.

Here is Ahmaogak, after the movie, posing with a movie goer.

Indeed, the movie did paint a different picture than did the book. Even with its fictional inaccuracies, it did show respect to the Iñupiat whaling and hunting culture. I think viewers who know nothing about Iñupiat culture will leave the theatre with a warm feeling towards it. It was greatly entertaining and I enjoyed it - but to fully enjoy it, I had to put myself out of myself.

Here is Ahmaogak, after the movie, posing with his mother and with actors Liam Boles and Maeve Blake, who played the Lower 48 brother and sister, Cooper and Shayna Dobler, who watched the rescue on TV.

So I did enjoy the movie and I would recommend it to anyone, especially families - it is good family entertainment. Afterward, Margie and I stopped in at the nearby Red Robin for dinner. As we ate, there were some things that I could not stop myself from going back inside myself and wondering about. 

I won't give anything away, but there was one scene that if it had happened that way would have resulted in many fatalties among the rescuers. That was a little hard for me to watch, because I kept expecting everyone to get killed, even though I knew they wouldn't be.

And there's one more thing that kept bothering me a bit. It is a small thing, and again, it might sound petty. At the end of the film, at the end of the credits, they had a long list of thank yous. They could have listed Gift of the Whale, but they didn't.

One of the most dramatic scenes of the movie took place at night. Again, I will not give anything away, but to a signifcant degree that scene was partially accurate. It wasn't 70 below, it wasn't 50 below, but the whales were, indeed, in dire danger and their fate rested with two fellows from Minnesota. No one in all the media that had come up from elsewhere understood the situation and they were all back on land in Barrow, feasting at "Amigos" - Pepe's in real life. One video team, the same Adam Carlson, played by John Krasinski that I referred to at the beginning and the blond reporter, Jill Jerard had figured it out and got out onto the ice in time to document the event.

In real life, the media had also all retreated to Pepe's, except for myself and Jeff Berliner, a reporter for UPI. When the event upon this dramatic scene was based happened, it was documented by one media camera and one only. Mine. The picture is in Gift of the Whale. Without that picture, the filmmakers would have had little idea what the scene even looked like.

When I was on the set, the filmmakers let me know that they extensively used Gift of the Whale as a guide. So it might be petty of me, but I think that Gift of the Whale, with me as author and photographer, should have been named in the "thank you" part of the credits.

It would have been a very simple thing to do.

When I learned the movie was being made, I came up with a rough plan for this blog: I would dig up my negatives of the rescue, edit and scan them and then, beginning on the day that the movie is released, I would blog it, so that I could show it as I experienced it.

Recently, I had all but given up on that idea. I no longer have a working film scanner. There are cheap ones, but the quality of their scans is cheap, too. Towards the end of last year, I priced the good ones and there was no way I could buy one. Plus, I have been so busy. That plan has seemed impossible.

But now I have resurrected it. I have until Friday to figure out how to do it. Ideas are cooking in my head.

I might not spread it out over two weeks, but I am going to blog the gray whale rescue, as I experienced and witnessed it, as best I can.

On the drive back, Margie and I saw this tipped-over car at the side of the highway. I hope no one was badly hurt. I shudder to think of what it could be like to be driving in a light jacket and then get trapped in weather such as this, which at this place was about -10.

Complete index to the rescue series that followed:

Part 1: Context bowhead hunt

Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik

Part 3: Scouting trip

Part 4: NBC on the ice

Part 5: To rescue or euthanize

Part 6: Governor Cowper, ice punch, chainsaw holes

Part 7: Malik provides caribou for dinner

Part 8: CNN learns home is sacred place

Part 9: World's largest jet; Screw Tractor

Part 10: Think like a whale

Part 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik

Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers

Part 13: Malik walks with whales, says goodbye

Part 14: Rescue concludes

Part 15: Epilogue

Brief interlude from Loft into near present: Kalib forgives me - three studies with Thomas the Train; his brothers; the cold road

Even as I blog my Loft Workshop experience, I want to keep this blog rooted in the near present (the absolute present already being the near present the instant we perceive it). So here are some studies of Kalib and his brothers, who spent Sunday night and all day Monday with us.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 6982 - Kalib forgives me:

Sunday night, Kalib very nicely asked me if I would get Thomas out. I did, and set him back up.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 7: slowy, Kalib says:

 Several times, just for fun, I tried to make Thomas go fast around the tracks - as fast as Thomas could go. "No, grandpa!" Kalib protested each time. "Slowly! Slowly!" Then he would go to the controls and slow Thomas down to as slow as Thomas could go without stopping - because Kalib loves to study Thomas as Thomas goes slowly by.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 2424: Kalib did not cry:

Kalib keeps his eye on Thomas for as long as he can, but once Thomas goes by, he studies the cars that follow. Kalib has come to understand the situation. When it came time to put Thomas up and take Kalib and his bros home, Kalib did not protest. He did not cry. He did not pout.

Kalib gave me a hug. He knew that Thomas would be here waiting for him, the next time he comes to visit.

Jobezilla study # 54: He did not get to wreak havoc.

Jobezilla went to sleep very early. He slept through the entire running of Thomas the Train. He did not get to wreak havoc. He did not get to send Thomas or his cars flying all about.

Upon arising, he did, however, get to the still assembled tracks and tear them apart. He bent some of the connecters, but I am certainly I can easily bend them back.

Lynxston study, # 9,999,999.999999: He sleeps in Rex's cradleboard:

Lynxton was awake for awhile, and he looked so damn cute I could hardly stand it - but I could not find my camera, which I had hidden away for safe keeping so that Jobezilla could not get to it. When finally I did find it, Lynxton was asleep in Rex's cradleboard. If any of you have access to the February, 1980, issue of National Geographic, you can see a picture of Rex in this very cradleboard, made for him by his Grandma Rose.

He is not sleeping in the picture. He is wide awake. He has a serious look on his face. I always thought National Geographic used the wrong picture, in this case. In one of the others, he was smiling big - as he was prone to do, just like Jobe is now. His mom and grandma look happier, too. But they had the ultimate say, not me, and I was just happy to be having my work featured in National Geographic. I thought my career was set, that the money would forever thereafter always be there to do any job that I wanted to do.

Lynxton's Aunt LeeAnn has made him his own white buckskin cradleboard, but she and Lavina did not manage to connect before Lynxton left Arizona back to Alaska on December 10. The new cradle has not yet arrived.

Come Monday, yesterday morning, Lavina was most anxious to get her boys back. She kept sending texts to Caleb telling him that she could hardly take the separation and was thinking about jumping in the car and coming out to get them immediately.

This made no practical sense, however, as I need to take Margie into Anchorage so she could spend the rest of the week babysitting. She could not ride back with the boys, because once they are buckled into the family car, the family present, there is no more room for Margie.

Having spent the night battling shingles and thus sleeping little (yes, the damn shingles still hangs on - not as bad, but bad enough to make good sleep hard to come by) I was slow to get going. Then, I had committed myself to starting the Loft Workshop series yesterday and it took me a little longer than normal to get that post put up.

So we got a late start to town, about 5:30. But here we are, in town, exhaust condensing in the chill air, ready to drop the boys off and then go to a movie.

Now we are in the driveway of their parents. The temperature is - 8, F (-22 C). On the colder stretches of highway coming in, it had been close to -20 (-29 C). Compared to Interior and Northern Alaska, this may be relatively warm, but it is still deadly. 

What a responsibility it is, to drive these little people around!

Even in warm weather, for the highway is always deadly.

What a responsibility!

God help me to always live up to this responsibility; God help me to shun road rage - even when the other driver is a total jerk who should be banned from the road.

The movie was "The Descendants" with George Clooney. I would highly recommend it but with this warning - however different your home situation might be, it will put you back in the hospital or hospice rooms, or perhaps your own bedroom, with any loved one or cherished friend that you have ever been at the time of their passing.

It will put you right there.

And if you are like me, come one or two scenes, the memories will be so strong, coupled with the knowledge that you are not yet done with this life and so more such scenes await and that they could involve absolutely anyone that you love, so strong, that tears will leave your eyes and roll down your cheeks. You will not be able to stop them.

Afterwards, I dropped Margie off to babysit, gave out hugs all around and drove home. Here I am, about to go under the Palmer overpass and enter greater Wasilla.

When I pulled into my driveway, the temperature was -18 and dropping. The house was empty of humans, but there were cats moseying about. The last logs in the woodstove had nearly depleted themselves and were little more than glowing goals. The air was very chilly.

It was after midnight and I did not wish to rebuild the fire, just to heat up a house that would be empty, except for me, sleeping. I spent two hours on my computer, acccomplishing nothing, then went to bed. I piled the blankets on.

When I first climbed into bed, the blankets were so cold as to chill my entire body, feet included, but in time my body-heat warmed them up. The cats came, and burrowed their way into the blankets with me. I was so tired I wanted to do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep - and for awhile I did. Then the shingles began to manifest themselves.

The air grew so cold as to penetrate even the thick pile of blankets I had covered myself with. Finally, somewhere between four and five AM, I got up and turned on an electric heater. I hate to do that, because the heaters really burn up the wattage, but I just could not go through the process of building a new fire at this time of morning.

I did not sleep good until it was time to get up. I did not get up. I stayed in bed until 11:30, then got up, threw a couple of logs into the fire that Caleb had built after he returned from his night shift, before going to bed himself.

Then I went to Abby's for breakfast. It was midafternoon when I returned home, the warmest part of the day. The temperature in the driveway stood at -16 (-27 C). I have not checked, but it some of the colder parts of Alaska, I would not be at all surprised to learn that temperature are 30, 40, or even 50 degrees colder than this.

So I am way behind. But still, I will post another Loft workshop entry.

This one will be easy. It will cover our first get-together, really just a short social gathering. So for this one, I do not have much to work with. It won't be that hard to get up.

So check back in about four hours. Maybe five. Possibly six.

Right now, I am going to go to Metro and get my afternoon coffee.