You GOTTA read this thread. It is astonishing

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Jan 30, 2002
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Done by a Massachusetts guy who went up to work in Alaska for three weeks, and has stayed for 27 years. Incredible images, plain-spoken realities, and so comprehensive you will be book-marking it before you get 1/4 of the way on the first page !

Truly.

My thanks to Orion for giving me the link.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18236




Kis
enjoy every sandwich
 
I just got thru reading it & enjoying the pictures...man that was awesome.....Thanks For Sharing it with us.....
 
Yup. That's why my wife won't let me go to Alaska. Go for three weeks, gone for 27 years....
 
Well,I think I'm movin' I have always wanted to live in Alaska I wonder how you join their tribe?


Tyrantblade
 
Wow, thanks for posting this.

Very auspicious.

My grandmother, aaka, used to travel up to Tikigaq every winter for the whale hunt, up until a few years ago when she couldn’t take the cold anymore.
She passed away this last May, and I have been going through her things.
We just sent her personal ivory handled ulu, mukluks and parka back to her “family” there.
She wrote a dissertation on the old stories of that region.
It is one of my hopes to “publish” it online and make it all available for public reading.

I will try and contact this gentleman, as I am trying to learn more about aaka’s time there; there is a slim chance he met her. After she passed away, I realized how little I knew.

When my son is older, I hope to take him there to spread her ashes near a specific location she requested.

Just last night my son was asking about the empty eggs I have on a shelf in my office, the very Murre eggs he talks about.


Thanks again.
 
Harsh... yet fascinating how life works up there. Lack of sleep and shelter for the hunters, eating frozen raw meat to warm up, blowing your nose in your hands to keep them from freezing (?!), the danger of poisoning from polar bear liver.... wow.

Also just read this bit which I quite enjoyed:

but for all practical purposes I am here alone. Six weeks out here, I am getting very used to it. I am somewhat cold but comfurtable. I gaze down at that water that is just like black glass. so calm like a mirror, not the slightest movement at all. I am starring at that one area, it is black glass.. so black, so calm, not even the slighest ripple of movement of water at all

Will have to finish the rest of it tomorrow... thanks for the link! :thumbup:
 
Amazing. My daughter is about to turn three; the same age as the boyer for the camp.
 
Wow... amazing. Although I must admit I am a bit shocked that Polar bears are not cute and cuddly... next thing ya know they will be telling us that they don't even drink Coke.

Seriously though... those people are tough as nails. It is truly a shame that politics over whale hunting is affecting their culture and their ability to eat what they choose.
 
Wow... amazing. Although I must admit I am a bit shocked that Polar bears are not cute and cuddly... next thing ya know they will be telling us that they don't even drink Coke.

No, that's true, I saw that on TV a while ago. They showed them drinking coke and having a party with penguins.

I assume the penguins had flown north for the summer or something. I don't remember the context but I saw it on TV so it must be real.
 
polar bears surpass kodiak grizzlies in violence. I'm still not sure why their livers are so bloody toxic though?
 
Are you cold ??? grab that hacksaw and cut some thin slices of raw frozen caribou meat, or fish if available. Swallow those small thin strips and do not chew them. Just eat and fill your stomach FULL.

Your body has to work very hard to digest all that raw frozen meat, and you begin to generate body heat the likes of which you have never ever encountered in your life! This is a "hunters" breakfast, "quaq" (raw frozen meat or fish) When you eat in this manner, you can go all day, and not get thirsty! @ 30 below we are taking clothes off because we are just too hot. WARNING: don't ever attempt this and try and stay inside, your going to burn up bad and suffer. IN damp enviorments this has the opposite effect(s), Our methods just do not work in places with high humidity such as east coast .


i find this VERY interesting, as i live in here in BC on the WET (damp) coast. This explains to me why my body reacts like it does when i eat hi fat content foods. It also intrigues me....could one in a survival situation eat frozen meat without chewing (just swallowing whole ) and get the same heat results as the author?

Each month, certain women must get off the ice. go home. come back later in a week or so. get off the ice. you present too much of a danger out here for everyone.
That bear can smell blood for many miles, these bears are extremly clever and will stop at nothing to eat, anything.


i wonder if this is true for us southern (south of the North Pole) woods people (women) too?
 
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polar bears surpass kodiak grizzlies in violence. I'm still not sure why their livers are so bloody toxic though?

It's vitamin A toxicity...it's a bioaccumulation issue derived from, I believe, seals eating Arctic cod which have a lot of vitamin A themselves, then the bears eat the seals, and the bears' livers screen out the excess vitamin A.

After a lifetime of eating the seals with extremely high levels of V. A, the bears have developed such a high concentration of V. A in their livers, the livers are lethal overdoses of vitamin A.

So there you have it...a mundane and probably useless piece of info but at least you won't ever be tricked into bargain polar bear liver meat at the butcher!
 
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