The Daily School Bus: they blow their horns

Whenever they pull up to a stop to pick up students, school buses in Barrow blow their horns. The sound reminds me a bit of the complaint of an unhappy cow, but louder and with a bit of hoarseness in the throat. On school mornings, these honks are heard repeatedly throughout Barrow.

A pretty decent little wind blows this morning. A fine, light, snow flies and swirls its way down the roads. Excluding wind chill, it is warm. Generally speaking, it does not snow when it is cold. It has to get warm before it can snow.

Text added at 9:16 AM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 55 and counting.

The story Dustinn must tell

Anyone who watched the one hour documentary "Geronimo" on the PBS American Experience series has seen the work of Apache/Navajo filmmaker Dustinn Craig. Dustinn has also done a fair amount of work with the Iñupiat here on the Arctic Slope and came up one day ahead of me to do some shooting for Iñupiaq filmmaker Rachel Edwardson. Last night, at about 8 PM, I went to visit him at the home of Rachel's parents George and Debby Edwardson. We stayed up talking until nearly 1 AM.

Do you recognize the Apache in the photo on Dustinn's computer?

Few Americans would recognize Alchesay, although just about everyone who knows even a tiny bit of the history and lore of this nation would recognize Geronimo, Chiricahua Apache. Dustinn would like people to know about his fellow White Mountain Apache, Alchesay, who, to preserve his nation, organized and led the Apache Scouts, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery and valor and became Chief of the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Whatever preconceptions or stereotypes anyone might hold about who the Apache Scouts were and why they fought, based on the western movies or the superficial telling of Native, drop them. Wait for Dustinn's movie about the Apache Scouts. He's been working on it for quite awhile now and he has a long way to go and could use a lot more financial resource, but it will be worth the wait.

It is a story he wants people to know - most importantly his own White Mountain Apache, who can go into their own cultural center at Fort Apache and find a variety of books about the Chiricahua Geronimo, but of Alchesay only a postcard.

When Dustinn was a baby, a toddler and then a very little boy, Margie and I would babysit him. He often played with Jacob. His father, the late, great, famous-throughout-Indian-Country Navajo artist, cartoonist, poet, songwriter and performer Vincent Craig, was my best friend in Arizona - as good a friend, in fact, as I ever expect to have in this life. When I brought my White Mountain Apache wife to Alaska, we came to stay for good, but we always imagined that one day about this time in our lives we would reestablish a part-time, winter, presence back on her White Mountain reservation - not a place to which her people were driven and penned in, but their true homeland since long before the coming of the Americans.

We would pick up our friendship with Vincent and his White Mountain Apache wife Mariddie right where we left off almost 33 years ago. Just as we had before, Vincent and I would wander about having fun in the great country of the White Mountain Apache, with an occasional jaunt north into the Navajo Nation or south towards San Carlos and Globe. That dream came to an end in May of 2010 when cancer took Vincent away from us. On the night of his father's death, Dustinn and I stayed up talking into the wee hours - just like we did last night.

There are tears trickling down my cheeks right now. I did not expect this. It was over three years ago. I thought my tears had all dried. 

Text added at 10:11 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 53 and counting.

The Daily School Bus: I see only one today -A storm might be coming but that's not why

A little bit of snow was flying around and I heard there was a storm coming. It looked and felt like it could happen, but so far it hasn't got here yet. This was the only school bus I saw on the road – about 3 PM. It turned out today was teacher in-service day and so the students had all gone home early. I'm not sure why this one was out when the others weren't, but it was.

Text added at 5:37 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 53 and counting.

When he heard the medical people say they were about to pull the plug on him, Joe stuck out his tongue

He told me the story over a late lunch at Sam and Lee's yesterday, where I did not even recognize him when I first stepped into the restaurant. Joe has always been slender, but the man I saw sitting at the table was more slender and a bit gaunt. Joe's hair had almost always been long but this man had short hair. I was puzzled when he waved and smiled at me, but I looked close and then recognized him. I returned his wave and smile, accepted his invitation and joined him at his table.

At this time last year I did not expect to ever see Joe again. I heard he had been medevaced to Anchorage after suffering a bad stroke, that his heart had stopped beating, he had been paralyzed on one side and was not expected to live. Joe now told me how, on his 11th "comatose" day in the hospital, he heard those attending him discussing the steps they were about to take to unplug him – something they planned to do very shortly. To their understanding, he was brain dead, but Joe heard them. He understood them. He coughed, or did something a brain dead man was not expected to do, something that surprised those about to pull the plug on him. One told Joe that if he could hear them to try to stick out his tongue. He stuck out his tongue. They did not pull the plug.

Nearly a year later, Joe came home to Barrow, where many people had been praying for him. He saw that Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant, the world-famous establishment founded and run by his mother, the legendary Fran Tate, where he had been employed at the time of his stroke, stood waiting for him. He was tired and soon went to bed in his house, where a window looked out onto Pepe's.

When he awoke in the morning, Joe looked out that window and was surprised to see the Wells Fargo Bank building. He had never been able to see this building from his house before. Then he realized Pepe's was not there to block the view. Five hours after Joe had returned home, the famous restaurant had caught fire and burned to the ground. Joe had been given doctor's orders not to go to work for awhile after he returned home, but he thought he would go help his mother with the less physically demanding tasks of running Pepe's. "I didn't go to work." Joe told me. Joe told me he suffered at least 45 strokes but I could see they did nothing to take away his sense of humor or his clarity of thought. He told me many stories about his ordeal and he told them well.

Sitting in the booth behind Joe is Glenda Lord and her daughter Thea of Kaktovik. They had planned to fly home yesterday but the big storm had flooded the Barter Island runway. "Flooding! In November!" Glenda mused.

Text added at 9:43 AM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 53 and counting.

A different kind of radio station

KBRW serves the people of Arctic Alaska in a way that few radio stations anywhere serve their communities. Messages are sent to and from people out in camps and on the ocean in its frozen or liquid state, there is a daily birthday program, where people call in from all across the Slope and beyond to give their best wishes to the different people who have birthdays that day. When a whaling crew is ready to leave, the word goes out over the radio and children come dashing to the house to receive candy from the crew as they leave. Many of the late elders have left stories behind as recordings which are often rebroadcast.

KBRW is very big in Barrow and the villages.

As part of the Mayors Office effort to help raise funds, Aqaq and Ora Elavgak join in and sing, "Farther along... Cheer up, my brother live in the sunshine, We'll understand it all by and by." As they sing, I am reminded why it is I love this place, so harsh in climate. It is the spirit that is here and that spirit comes out when the people sing these songs. I was not here 100 years ago, 200, 1000, 2000... But this same spirit was here then, too, held in the heart of the Iñupiat. I feel certain of it.

Text added at 5:08 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continunues - day 52 and counting.