The Black Vault

sandra wrote:your avatar is awesome!!!!!

Thanks Sandra !!

The boys in the band might sing a song or two fer yew !!

When you work out here in sub zero temps. you sweat. when you remove your hat, your hair freezes quickly !



All cracks are filled in with little pieces of ice that are easily crushed when a snowmachine travels back and forth. Many trips have to be made out there. this trail is under constant care being smoothed out for fast safe travel in case we have to evacuate the ice.



an empty barren land of ice. We are near land. You can easily see one of the markers just in front of that snowmachine. A wooden stake that is lined up with another one only visible by using binoculars. These stakes are set up in a line - to monitor which way the ice is shifting. Winds - currents all affect what happens out on the ice pack. Once you get far out, then the size of the pressure ridges are gigantic. We have no other choice but to go - straight through them. Our Captain - Euguene Brower is the president of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. He grabbed three of my sons and said. you are on my crew this year. He had heard about these boys, they are very famous for the ivory carviings in 3 villages all through out the northern arctic.
Out here.. 14 hour days, nothing but work, no place to go to warm up. The one question people ask me the most is.. .. where? do you go to the bathroom ?? Well the answer is obvious !!



You hide behind any large piece of ice, and do what you do as quick as possible !!

LOVE the pictures, seems more like a place I would like to live....right now I am in the middle of down town a large city, connected to a skyway system and using underground garage parking, when I was used to traveling an hour to get to a grocery store just a year ago. Love living up north and close to my reservation rather than busy city life. You must love it there. I bet.

That picture of someones hair, whao! lol Now that is COLD weather!!!! Never seen anything like that and I'm in Minnesota.

You'd freeze ur buns off.

THIS is cold weather !!

with wind chill we are down past minus 70 below zero !!

This image of Mark is @ 30 below with hardly no winds.



This image is 40 below or colder with 30 mph winds !! Notice the difference.



Open water - 7 miles out. Notice the steam coming off the warm water !!

That is one hell of a coat he is wearing.

-70below? Well the most we see in Minnesota is around -40 or something around there. My 2 alaskan Malamutes love the cold weather. They are both a bit over weight, and when it is about -35 below or a bit colder, they lay out on their backs. Its cute.

Inupiaq clothing is very warm- extremely warm and very light. All parky's are home made here in the village. Every woman is an expert in making parky's. Many different types of skins can be used to make different types of parkys. Dress Parky or Festival parky or work parky. They all have different purposes. For a hunting parky there are no zippers.

Two Inupiaq teen age girl friends pose for me @ 40 below zero. Do they look cold ? Nope. We have many tricks to keep warm in sub zero temps.



Donald & Lilly Oktollik. My four inupiaq sons - Great Grand parents. Lilly made each of these parky's Her parky is worth at least 5k in the real world. The fancy trim at the bottom of Donald's Parky are called Kupaks (coo pucks). These are made using glass beads !!

WOW, those are unbelievably beautiful, and trust me when I say I have seen alot of glass beadwork. But I haven't seen anything like your grandparents coats, the fur on your grandmothers coat is stunning. There must be alot of time put into those and when you say 5k, I bet they are worth atleast that.

There are all types of different colorful parky's made by these women. Especially at whaling festival (June). Everyone is decked out to the max.

No kidding I see that!! Decked out.....but now I need to figure out how to get a fur hood like your grandmothers. Do they sell or trade them, I'm guessing there is no way they do?