Eskimos Culture

Another day at fish camp was winding down. But Nels Alexie wanted to check the net one last time. So he flipped on his cowboy hat, lit a cigar, said goodby to his wife, Katy, and zipped off across the river in his skiff to the place where the salmon are. Ten minutes later, he was leaning over the side of the boat, plucking a squirming 30-pound king salmon out of the water.

Here's one myth you can kiss goodby: Eskimos do kiss; they don't rub noses, says anthropologist Bill Jankowiak, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The rubbing-noses myth probably developed out of the method of kissing practiced by societies from the South Sea Islands, up through Alaska and the Siberian side of the former Soviet Union, he said.

Paul Tiulana was sitting at his kitchen table in the city, reaching into the past. "Back there on King Island," he said, recalling the tiny Bering Sea settlement on which he was born, "back there, you need some kind of entertainment. Long winters. We danced."

Finally, after a long arctic winter, the vast polar ice pack cracks and slowly opens up along Alaska's north coast, exposing a thin ribbon of ocean between two vast frozen plates. Spring is the season of wonder here: The temperature has risen to 5 degrees, the wind blusters out of the east with the distant tease of more warmth to come, and darkness has lifted--the sun bobs in the sky 23 hours a day.

Here's one myth you can kiss goodby: Eskimos do kiss; they don't rub noses, says anthropologist Bill Jankowiak, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The rubbing-noses myth probably developed out of the method of kissing practiced by societies from the South Sea Islands, up through Alaska and the Siberian side of the former Soviet Union, he said.

Finally, after a long arctic winter, the vast polar ice pack cracks and slowly opens up along Alaska's north coast, exposing a thin ribbon of ocean between two vast frozen plates. Spring is the season of wonder here: The temperature has risen to 5 degrees, the wind blusters out of the east with the distant tease of more warmth to come, and darkness has lifted--the sun bobs in the sky 23 hours a day.

Kim Speckman patrols an area roughly the size of California, trying to find the slippery balance between age-old traditions and modern realities. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent, Speckman heads the government's efforts to control illicit hunting by Inupiat and Yupik Eskimos of walrus, polar bears, migratory birds and other species in northwest Alaska. The Eskimos' lifestyle has changed rapidly in recent decades, but economic opportunities in the Alaska bush remain limited.

Kim Speckman patrols an area roughly the size of California, trying to find the slippery balance between age-old traditions and modern realities. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent, Speckman heads the government's efforts to control illicit hunting by Inupiat and Yupik Eskimos of walrus, polar bears, migratory birds and other species in northwest Alaska. The Eskimos' lifestyle has changed rapidly in recent decades, but economic opportunities in the Alaska bush remain limited.

Another day at fish camp was winding down. But Nels Alexie wanted to check the net one last time. So he flipped on his cowboy hat, lit a cigar, said goodby to his wife, Katy, and zipped off across the river in his skiff to the place where the salmon are. Ten minutes later, he was leaning over the side of the boat, plucking a squirming 30-pound king salmon out of the water.

Paul Tiulana was sitting at his kitchen table in the city, reaching into the past. "Back there on King Island," he said, recalling the tiny Bering Sea settlement on which he was born, "back there, you need some kind of entertainment. Long winters. We danced."