The fall whaling season is officially over in Barrow and community members and whaling crews alike are now preparing for the months to come before the spring season starts again.
Herman Ahsoak is the captain of the Quvan boat and crew which harpooned the final bowhead on Oct. 4, about 12 miles offshore from Point Barrow.
"I'm just thankful that this fall season ended good and everybody came home safely and now we'll have food for the long winter that's coming," said Ahsoak.
Unpredictable hunting weather has been characteristic over the last several years, with thinner sea ice in the spring, which can be dangerous for crews maneuvering on it, and little to no ice in the fall, which means not much protection from the powerful waves.
The last day of whaling this year was marked by relatively calm seas and small waves, though, unlike stormier weather the crews had seen a few days earlier. Crews landed two bowheads on the last day, said Ahsoak, recovered a sunken whale, and were able to salvage some muktuk off of another that looked like it may have been killed by a killer whale.
Overall, it's been a successful season. Crews from Barrow landed 15 whales total and lost one when it sank during a storm, said Whaling Captains Association president Eugene Brower in an email.
But it ended on a note of thankfulness, he said. When Barrow only had one strike left for the season, Point Hope whalers transferred four of their unused strikes to them. That gave the crews the boost they needed to land the last two bowheads on the final day.
"We'll have to send them some muktuk and some meat to Point Hope. We've got to share some of it with them, too, because they gave us the chance for the strikes, because they don't go fall whaling," Ahsoak said.
Of the 11 communities registered with the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, some participate in both the spring and fall, like Barrow, while others only have a single season, like Point Hope. That often leads to cooperation among the villages.
It's one of the values that whaling represents to Ahsoak, who had been involved in the subsistence hunt for decades before he decided to become a captain.
"Because I learned it from my father and my uncles and my brothers when I saw the happiness it brings when you feed people traditional foods," Ahsoak said.
And at the end of another plentiful season, it's about working together, sharing, and being thankful for what the ocean provides.
"We're just doing what we've been doing since time immemorial, passing down whaling knowledge to the younger generations. Living in the coldest, harshest environment known to man, we have to know that God gave the Iñupiaq people the bowhead whale."
This story first appeared in The Arctic Sounder and is republished here with permission.