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Benjie “Seghlili” Iknokinok
Brian Adams
“I am from Gambell and am in Teller for the Culture Festival. We just finished drumming at 9:40 a.m. The Festival started at 7 p.m. yesterday. It was so much fun. This is my second year — there is a lot more people this year. It is wonderful. Met some new old friends, got to hang out with Point Hope and my sisters were with the Nome St. Lawrence Island group — it was like a reunion. I haven’t been drumming for too long, but I have been dancing since I could walk. I started performing in front of crowds when I was seven. I lived in Savoonga for a little bit, and when I was there, we tried to remake what used to be the Savoonga Comedy Group. We made our own rendition, it was nothing like the original though — the original was 'unique.' The original comedy group was elder ladies, and when we tried to do it, it was a a mixed generation of ladies and some guys. We tried, we made some people laugh — tough crowd.” {Laughs}
— Benjie “Seghlili” Iknokinok, Teller
Hillary Sinnok
Brian Adams
“We started working on the project on July 8. We are preparing the roads to be paved. I am working with Drake Construction out of Kotzebue and Knik Construction will be coming in to do the paving. This is my first time working with them. I think it’s pretty cool the roads will be paved here. I just graduated from high school this year and I will be going to UAA (University of Alaska-Anchorage) this fall. I will be studying nursing.”
— Hillary Sinnok is Iñupiaq and lives in Shishmaref, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Jonas Mackenzie
Brian Adams
"I started getting into music eight years ago. I started playing guitar six years ago — a few chords and learning from my uncles and cousins. And then I started singing four or five years ago. I used to watch my uncles playing and wanted to start playing. My cousins were listening to all kinds of rock and roll and I would watch all kinds of music videos and see Slash playing. My favorite right now is AC/DC and I am really into old ‘50s rock and roll, and old country like hank Williams and Johnny Cash. I want to try and go to Florida for music, there is a school there called Full Sail. I want to go check it out."
— Jonas Mackenzie is Iñupiaq from Kaktovik, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Marie Rexford
Brian Adams
"We are getting the muktuk ready to serve during Thanksgiving. We caught this whale on September 23. It is a bowhead whale. We are allowed three—our quota. We had lost one, so we had asked one of the villages if it was okay to have one of their whales, and we are thankful to Kivalina for giving up one of their whales. In the past we did that with them. We knew we would be short on muktuk if we had only two, so we asked one of the captains to ask them. Ours was 44.6 feet long.
I am the captain’s wife, second in authority—actually, first from what I was told. When I found out, I said, you all know what to do, do your thing. My first crew I went on was my dad’s crew. I was 16. Then I married Eddie. I used to go out with his uncle’s crew, then he passed the crew down to Eddie, and that’s when we found out how it really works... Eddie’s uncle showed us how the authority works, how to do this and that. How to talk to new crew members, what not to do out there and what to expect from them. Sometimes you don’t know about first timers—one of our first timers went out and he hollered out there, and that’s not a good thing. We went right over the whale and he was like “AAH!” You’re not supposed to holler when you’re hunting! You keep quiet; you keep your eyes out for the blows. All eyes are always looking out because there is a whale out there somewhere. You will find it, and sometimes there is a bunch of them, all at once, one strike—we go for that one strike. We never caught two whales at a time before. I never want to see that happen because it will drain out everybody, trying to cut them up and get them put away before the polar bears get to them. There is 24-hour Nanuk patrol during whaling, because we've got polar bears waiting. You can see one of our pictures over there, one of our guys is bringing blubber to a polar bear that didn’t want to go away, so they brought him some blubber to keep him away from the cutting."
— Marie Rexford is Iñupiaq from Kaktovik, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Naomi Oxereok
Brian Adams
“My mom made my ruff (fur around the hood of her coat) for me.” — Naomi Oxereok is Iñupiaq and lives in White Mountain, Alaska. In 2011, Naomi’s mom, Danitra Oxereok, made the ruff out of wolf and black beaver in a sewing class offered by the village of White Mountain, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Cora Ablowaluk
Brian Adams
“I am the tribal coordinator; I have been doing that for eight and a half years.
I am a volunteer for the Teller Culture Festival. We have been working on the Festival for 12 years; it took a whole year just to get it started, and it’s just been myself and Shareleen getting it together. We organize, we shop, we cook, everything! It’s one of the biggest events we have here in Teller—it is “the” big event I should say. We have seven villages here, eight including Teller. The first year we had two festivals. One at the end of September because the Russian group couldn’t make it—they got weathered in—but we had paid so much money for them to come that we had to reschedule for a week or two later. So the first year we had two festivals within two weeks, and everyone that came the first time, came back the second time to see the Russian group. Our goal is to just keep it going—I don’t know how long Sharleen and I can do this {Laughs}.
—Cora Ablowaluk, Teller I Am Inuit Gallery
Brian Adams
Fred Vestal, Edwin Vestal and Lester Vestal
Brian Adams
“We are all brothers; they call us “the lumberjacks.” We are cutting this wood for our uncle. He lives in there, in one of the oldest homes in Noatak [Alaska]. We call this an odd job. We charge $120-150 per load, and $20 to chop, and it’s daily, too—people are always asking for wood to burn. We have to go 2-3 miles out of town to get the wood, you have to find it.”
–Fred Vestal, Edwin Vestal and Lester Vestal are Iñupiaq and live in Noatak, Alaska.
While photographing “the lumberjacks” a passerby said, “These are the go-to guys. They are good guys—if anybody ever needs something, or help, they know they can go to these guys.”
Noatak is one of the many Alaskan Inuit villages suffering from some of the highest costs of living anywhere in the United States. Today, they are paying $9.99 per gallon for both heating oil and gas. In 2014, one in five rural households in Alaska was spending almost half their annual income on home energy. This is three times what they were spending ten years earlier and has been driven by the enormous increase in the world price of petroleum. Despite world oil prices having fallen, costs in rural Alaska have not shown much improvement.
Brian Adams
Nick Topkok
Brian Adams
“Hardly anyone does this anymore. In the fall time they run thick—right now they are really healthy. We eat them half dried and frozen. I grew up eating this food.”
— Nick Topkok preparing his day's catch of tomcod fish for dying, on the beach in Teller, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Josephine Aloralrea (left) and Agnes McIntyre (right)
Brian Adams
AM: “We are part of the Nunamta Yup’ik Singers and Dancers group. I have been a part of the group since 1991, 25 years.” Josephine Aloralrea (left) and Agnes McIntyre (right), are both Yup’ik and live in Bethel, Alaska. When IAI asked how long they have been a part of the dance group, Chuna McIntyre (not pictured) added, “You know what? When it comes down to it, it is really truly timeless. That’s how we feel, we are carrying on something that we have been doing for 30 centuries, right here. Imagine that. Thirty centuries!” Chuna also performs with Nunamta Yup’ik Singers and Dancers and is originally from Eek, Alaska. Nunamta is Yup’ik for “Our land”.
Brian Adams
Paul Walton Sr
Brian Adams
“My parents were pastors. We moved all around the region and settled here [Noatak, Alaska]. I have three boys ages 25, 16, and 10. We spread them apart. I work here at the water plant. I oversee all the chemicals and pump work, I do everything in here. I have four systems continuously circulating so they don’t freeze up. I am getting water from the well next to the river, then it goes through my green sand filter, and then it goes through the chemical feeds. The state allows .3 turbidity and I make my water at .025, way below the state minimum. The water is so pure. I have been doing this for 20 some years. Ever since we built this place in 1992 or 1994, I have stayed here. The water comes from the river. It’s ground water under the influence of surface water. I have wells 45 feet deep. The village uses about 25 to 30 thousand gallons a day. I make that much water.”
— Paul Walton Sr. is Iñupiaq and lives in Noatak, Alaska. I Am Inuit Gallery
Brian Adams
Enoch L. Mitchell
Brian Adams
“We are getting ready to go check out the proposed Red Dog haul road for our village’s fuel (a winter road route between the Red Dog haul road and Noatak, Alaska). It’s about a three-to-four-hour trip (on snow machine) to get to the haul road from here [Noatak, Alaska]. I am taking out the National Park Service; I am their local expert. I have hunted in this area all my life. It’s pretty rough out there.”
—Enoch L. Mitchell is Iñupiaq and lives in Noatak, Alaska. The Red Dog mine is a zinc and lead mine located in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska. The 52-mile Red Dog Mine road connects the mine to its port 17 miles south of Kivalina, Alaska, which is a nearby village from Noatak, Alaska.
Brian Adams
Andrew Hadley (right) and Trayton Ballot (left)
Brian Adams
Andrew Hadley (right) and Trayton Ballot (left) photographed during the Buckland [Alaska] High Schools X-country ski race. Terri Chapdelaine, a teacher at the school said, “In 2005, Rural Cap [The Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc.] helped revitalize x-country skiing in school, when they donated skis to the school and helped with funding for two years. Since then NANA [NANA Regional Corporation Inc.] has stepped in and has purchased new skis for the school, funding the program”.
The village of Buckland, Alaska is 75 air miles southeast of Kotzebue, Alaska and is located within the Northwest Arctic Borough. Ninety-seven percent of Buckland’s population of 416, are Iñupiaq.
