by Ted Birkedal

The room exudes the strong pungent smell of wet, oily seal skins, what Inupiat Elder Kenneth Toovak calls “the smell of spring”. Though Barrow is still bathed in white; snow and frozen ocean for as far as one can see, it is nonetheless “Springtime in Barrow”. In two to three weeks leads will open in the hard-frozen ocean ice and the bowhead whales will pass by Barrow in their annual migration into the Beaufort Sea. For at least a thousand years the people of the Barrow area have focused both their subsistence and social lives on the harvest of the bowhead whale. It is no different today.

Five women wearing full-body, yellow hazardous waste suits surround the five slippery seal skins; they are busily sewing the skins together in careful unison. Beside the women are chunks of seal meat in bowls; these are used to rub the seams between the skins and thus tighten the completed seam. Seeing that a bevy of visiting college students and faculty have arrived, many of whom are Alaska Natives, the head seamstress leaps to her feet and rushes to a black plastic bag and pulls out the skinned hand-like flipper of a large seal (ugruk). With quick flicks of her ulu knife she cuts small pieces to share. Professor Theresa John, who is Yupik, roles her eyes in pleasure as she relishes her first bite of oily fermented flipper Many of the students similarly enjoy this chewy morsel of strange looking meat. Some do not, yet also role their eyes, but not in pleasure.

These busy women are sewing the outer skin cover of an umiak, a traditional whaling boat. Beside the women two men are putting the finishing touches on the wood frame of a new boat. Soon the completed skin cover will be tied over the frame and set out to dry in the cold and dry weather of Barrow. By the time the whales come the boat will be ready for its whaling crew and it will be towed to the ice edge. These light and highly maneuverable traditional boats are the tools of the trade in the spring whaling season in Barrow and they can seen all over town where they wait the start of the season—upside down and drying. The students and faculty are not here for whaling, but nonetheless they will still have a “whale of a time” in Barrow.

The students also very much enjoyed hearing from the younger leaders who also have played and continue playing an important role in shaping the economic and political fortunes of Barrow. These leaders invariably gave energized talks to the students about traditional lifeways, development, and the threat of climate change and patiently answered many questions. They included Jake Adams and Oliver Leavitt, both leaders in the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; George Ahmaogak, Shell Oil Corporation; Maggie Ahmaogak, Executive Director, Alaska Whaling Commission; Richard Glenn, President of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium; Mayor Edward Itta, North Slope Borough, and Mayor Nathaniel Olemaun Jr., City of Barrow, and many more of Barrow’s most important people. Interestingly, all these leaders were also respected whaling captains, or in the case of Maggie Ahmaogak married to one. No one with political ambition on the North Slope can hope for a high position without first building a reputation as a successful whaling captain. As mentioned earlier in this piece, whaling is still central to the lives of Barrow residents. Barrow is sort of the Chicago of the North, but here it is not ward politics that prevail, but whale politics. Like Chicago, Barrow does not shy away from opportunity nor the wise application of political muscle. Like Chicago, Barrow is a windy city and like Chicago it thrives on innovation: Barrow’s innovation is to have married the old with the new; but their way, on their own terms, and to their benefit.