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! |
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! :) |