Whaling in Alaska

IT IS whaling season in Utqiagvik, the newly official—as well as ancient indigenous—name for Barrow, Alaska’s, and therefore America’s, most northerly settlement. This village of about 4,500 residents, the majority of whom are Inupiaq, sits at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Whaling season is a time of year when the community comes together around thousand-year-old cultural traditions.

The community’s name means “the place where we hunt snowy owls”. But out on the jumbled sea ice that stretches from town to the horizon, local residents are focused on bowhead whales. Culturally and nutritionally, bowheads are the most important subsistence food species for native residents in this isolated settlement, accessible only by air or by sea during the short summer months when the water is open. Food that is not harvested locally is flown in. A gallon of milk at the AC, the largest grocery store in town, costs $10.

A short walk away from the AC, Isabel Kanayurak, a local elder, sits at a desk on the second floor of the blue-painted Barrow Volunteer Search and Rescue building. This is the community’s shore-based hub for whaling. Ms Kanayurak’s father was a whaling captain. Now her son is. She has been involved with whaling all her life. A wide window in front of the desk gave her a long view north across the sea ice. Volunteers like Ms Kanayurak monitor the VHF radio 24 hours a day during whaling season. Over channel 72, these volunteers communicate with whaling camps far out on the ice. They share landing reports, give safety warnings and co-ordinate supply deliveries. Villagers across town tune in as well. Everyone is waiting for the joyous yells that signal a successful hunt.

Bowhead are beamy black whales, the size of a school bus and a half at most, with a characteristic downturned jaw. These animals live exclusively in the cold waters of the far north, filtering minute krill out of the water for food and using their massive skulls to blast through sea ice up to two feet thick in order to create breathing holes.

In the season so far, the crews have landed eight whales and struck and lost ten. International Whaling Commission regulations grant the community a combined quota of 25. “It’s going pretty good,” Ms Kanayurak said of the season. “But you have to watch how the weather is and how the ice is going,” she said.

As they have done for thousands of years, hunters paddle umiaks, whale boats made from the skin of bearded seals stretched over wooden frames. Wearing white parkas and remaining quiet in the boats, hunters hope to blend in with the ice. Once a crew has struck a whale, other crews pitch in to help land the animal, using motorised aluminium skiffs and block and tackle.

Whale meat is eaten boiled, fermented, fried and frozen. Ms Kanayurak has no preference. “Everybody likes the spring ones,” she says of the whales. After a long winter when the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon for more than two months, villagers cherish fresh meat.

For time immemorial, successful crews have earned respect from their community. And as has been done for centuries, hunters share out whale meat, with careful attention to elders, like Ms Kanayurak, who cannot harvest their own. In the summer, villagers celebrate a successful hunt with a communal feast.

Recent surveys show that bowhead populations are doing well, probably because warming temperatures in the Arctic are increasing the availability of food. But with continued rapid changes to the climate and oceans, the future for these whales—and the Inupiaq traditions surrounding them—is uncertain.

A pair of bowhead rib bones form an arch at the edge of the beach three blocks away from the Search and Rescue building. By 9pm, as the sun is finally dropping towards the horizon, the arch casts a long shadow across the snow. Far out on the ice and in the indigo waters of the Arctic Ocean, the whaling crews of Utqiagvik are still working.