Two Whales on April 16, 2012

Beautiful Sunset- this was at 11:30 at night!
Our days are getting longer and longer again.  

Congrats to John Apassingok and his son Chris for getting the first whale!

This is the first whale in the water upside down. 

Whale still in the water.

The whaling crew tying the whale in order to pull it onto the land.  

This is Chris the boy that speared and killed to whale.
He is in Ty's fifth grade class!

As you can see they have already cut the tail fins off.. not sure why.

When I asked Chris why the belly was already cut open he replied matter of fact-ly, "We got hungry!" 

Hole in the fins to put rope through

People were slowly showing up to see the whale and help bring it in.
The CAT in the background is what they used to pull in the whale.

Here they are getting all the rope attached from the whale to the machines. 

This was me taking a nap while we were waiting...  

Finally we got the rope untangled and hooked it up! Ty is the big guy in Carhartts! 

Working as a community! 

This is one of my students jumping off ice chucks saying "picture me!"

Chris Apassingok- he killed the 42ft whale and brought his community literally a ton of food! 

The whale wasn't out of the water until 10pm so when we got back they finally were cutting sections of the whale apart for families to put in bags and bring home. This is the Apassingok family haling away a section of Mungtuk or Muktuk.

Here is the WHALE!

You can see just how big it is!

The man on top helps to cut the blubber when they are cutting different sections for the community members.

The kids climbed all over the poor whale's head

This is the whale's mouth and nose

That is Baleen which is the filter feeder system the whales use to eat.
Natives collect and then carve the baleen. 

This is the second whale another crew brought in. It is significantly smaller but just as cool!

This is where community members waited to get their Mungtuk.
I was told it depends on your family as to how much whale you get. 

Up close look at Mungtuk and extra blubber!

I LOVE this picture. This picture shows the culture of Gambell and the community coming together in celebration! 

This was my piece of Mungtuk to enjoy at home... It's still in the Freezer! :)