Food, glorious food! Don't care what it looks like: Burned, underdone, crude -- Don't care what the cook's like. Just thinking of growing fat -- Our senses go reeling. One moment of knowing that Full-up feeling!
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--------------------------------Thanks Oliver!
This journal entry should be a Dear Phil Stone letter… it just has to be. Phil is a friend who lives in Lantana, Florida. He is a North Dakota kid who loves anything to do with hunting. He is also the guy that I volunteer to turtle monitor for at the Lake Worth Beach. Phil spends his time monitoring turtles on a 4 wheeler- fun, huh? and spare time hunting or fishing, snorkeling and shooting… but this really isn’t about Phil or is it???
Dear Philbert,
Do you know what two main modes of transportation are in Barrow? One for the wintertime is the "snow machine” known to us in the lower 49 as a snow mobile and the other is your favorite toy, a four-wheeler.
Last night I met your kindred spirit, your soul brother. Lewis Brower is an employee here at Barrow Arctic Research Consortium BASC. He is Inupiat. Lewis loves to hunt and fully believes in maintaining traditions. He lives to support and love his children. His kids with their traditions set in stone are the best gift he can give back to Alaska. He has 8 kids.
He sent a messenger over to our lab who said "Lewis wants to know if you want to try Whale?” We were ready to go within 3 minutes.
Lewis Brower works for BASC - he sent a verba invitation asking if we wanted to eat whale meat. We rushed over and he we were greated by him from his porch.
When we got to his house we were greeted by a barking dog named Blue, kids jumping on a trampoline and Lewis from his second floor balcony tossing us cold beverages.
He took us inside and told us story after story about the whale meat. All along letting us know that we were not only eating whale, but eating deep, rich tradition. He showed us a 5-gallon bucket of fermented meat. When asked what the dark colored muck was that fermented the meat, Lewis said "lots of love and hard work from my wife and I”. A family secret – a family tradition.
The Brower family will eat and share this during the year
He was happy to show us his freezer with the meat of the same whale that he harpooned only 5 weeks earlier. He explained how the man and the woman each had an important role to play in the hunt. The women built and sewed the sealskin boat. And the men go out perpetually making a trail in the ice so that they could haul the whales back. This could take months! Then of course when the opened ice trail meets the water and they see whales they seal skin boats are taken out. The story goes on and on, with photos on the wall to go with it. – You would love the stories.
He showed his garage that featured his drawings of Arctic life on the garage door, on another wall hung the Polar Bear skin that he and had wife shot. If that wasn’t enough he had walrus tusks from a walrus he had killed and musk ox fur, but that is another story – well they all have their stories and they all have their season.
Of course I had to ask him for instructions on how to use an ulu knife, so I wouldn’t cut my fingers off anymore… and as you guessed it, more stories and many ulu knives. Many of the knives have their own stories and seasons as well.
Lewis' fancy Muskox hat
I loved meeting his family! Ah the kids! Yeah middle school kids. Now I need to get some Boynton Beach pen pals together with Frances!
Frances is great! How you would you like to be her penpal?
Back to whale meat. A little chewy, but in a good way. I like chewy! Very good and hmmm a little chewy. In fact I possibly could’ve eaten the same piece of tongue meat for an hour or so. Again I like chewy! I tried the skin with blubber too. It tasted a bit like sushi. I guess that makes sense it is raw and comes from the ocean!
Whale tastes great, it just takes a little extra chewing, especially the blubber part! Photo taken by Jose Luciani
Happy hunting, self reliance, fishing and traditions,
Eliabeth
PS Phil – you really need to meet Lewis and I know how badly you want to taste whale meat. Let me see what I can do to get you a piece of the Inupiat culture to sink your teeth into.
Bird of the Day
Pectoral Sandpiper
I have enjoyed watching these males fly with a puffed chest and make sweet beautiful love music - how romantic!
Thanks for reading from the Top of the World