This is an entirely new Lumen.  Lumens 21-1, 4.0 to 21-11 were slightly modified versions of what I had previously sent to family and friends, before this blog started.  Now no more repeats.  All new material from now on.

 

 

 

Lumen 21-12

How Gambell Kicked My Ass, or The Day I Became an Old Man.

 

Posted – October 25, 2021

 

Irrelevant tid bit –…it’s the sense that the journey into uncharted territory is permanently on the brink of collapse that makes it so eternally thrilling.                    

                                                                        Greil Marcus

 

 

In a pseudo-post pandemic (we are not done with it yet) fit of fernweh (look it up) I took a birding trip to northern Alaska, including the town of Gambell, in June 2021.  Gambell is a

Red Phalarope

gravel pit waiting to be excavated.  At the west end of St. Lawrence Island this ocean-formed gravel bar hosts a native-Alaskan, subsistence village of about 800 people in the Bering Sea – you can actually see Russia (Siberia) from there.  The Yupik residents are most closely related to the Yupiks living on that Siberian ground.  Surprisingly Bering Air provides daily commercial flights from Nome, but the only other source of heavy and bulk supplies is irregular summer barges that pull up on the rocky beach, because they do not have a pier.  This is a serious subsistence economy: this year they were happy because they harvested five bowhead whales, an unusually large number.  Walrus, ducks, Alcids (the north’s flying version of the south’s flightless penguins), caribou, seals, fish, and other wildlife are also important parts of their diet.   

 

In addition to subsistence “income”, the Gambellese earn cash by selling ivory carvings. 

Ivory Carver

They are justifiably well known for their ivory carvings from walrus tusks and teeth and were not bashful about coming into our rented house to peddle their wares, where they did make several sales.

 

Everything about Gambell is a little, or a lot, different; Gambell is a gamble.  The new part of town had modern-looking houses lined up like a mainland suburban subdivision with central heat and running water and in the old town the randomly scattered houses looked to be made of faded driftwood with makeshift everything   With no motels, our trip leader arranged to rent a house in the new town, but the day before we were to arrive, the new town house owner backed out of the deal, despite a $1,000 advance payment, because of unexpected family visitors.  Through special effort and

his work

experience with the Gambellese, our valiant trip leader was able to secure a different house, in old town, without running water or an outhouse, meaning that a honey bucket became the target of relief for the five* days the six of us were there.  We brought and cooked our own food in this three room house with dark curtains to keep out the midnight sun, and most of us had a sleeping bag on a cot at night.

 

The original schedule for this trip included three days on Gambell and at my request an additional day was added because I knew that of all the places we were going on this trip, Gambell provided the best chance for us to find rare birds visiting from Asia that normally do not visit any part of the U.S.

 

Our house

Our daily birding started – well what time is it anyway?  In June on Gambell the sun never completely sets and, in any case, it is too cloudy to see the sun.  When we got up it felt like early in the morning, and after a quick breakfast we dressed for a day of driving 4-wheelers and walking.  The first of the layered clothing to go on was thin, silk long johns, but under them long socks to the knee, then insulated pants and over that, rain pants (is that 3 or 4 layers?).  On the upper body: T-shirt, long sleeve T-shirt, flannel shirt, vest, electric coat, and rain coat.  The rechargeable-battery-powered electric coat

"Road" to house

proved to be the centerpiece for warmth while reliable and less bulky than a more traditional heavy coast.  HOT!  All these clothes!  Get me outside now, but before outside a stop at the mud room for insulated boots.  (Every building in Gambell has a mud room.)  Final touches outside - gloves with chemical hand warmers (open, shake, feel the heat), cover my head with a chin strapped, ear muffed hat and the rain coat hood.  Strap the scope and tripod to the front of the 4-wheeler and my wife and I climb on.  Ready to go, after only 15-20 minutes of dressing. 

 

Some of our favorite birding destinations were the several “bone yards” around the village.  The bone yards have been used for hundreds of years to process (cut up and distribute) whales and other animals, resulting in an accumulation of buried ancient debris such as cutting tools, ivory (teeth and tusks), and other refuse (artifacts).  The Yupik are constantly digging through the bone yards to mine this wealth, creating a

Bone Yard

very broken, uneven surface that was difficult to walk through without breaking a leg.  So, given that hazard, why would we walk through the bone yards?  The many years of whale butchering has enriched the soil more than anywhere else on the gravel bar that is Gambell, which supports a diverse plant community, which attracts insects, which attracts birds, which attracts birders. 

 

Another birding spot we visited almost daily were the bird-nesting cliffs, just outside town.  Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of seabirds including puffins, auklets, guillemots, Dovekies, and murres nested in the safety of these steep cliffs where it is difficult for predators to get near them.  We would be enjoying spectacular morning flights of seabirds leaving their nests for a feeding visit to the ocean, while Gambellese would be nearby on the cliffs shooting the seabirds for lunch - these native Alaskans have special hunting rights because of their subsistence way of life.

 

On the same cliffs we also found coffins, sometimes intact and in other cases broken open.  During the long winters it is not possible to bury the dead so a cliff face is the final resting spot for many natives.

 

Bird cliffs in fog

As you can surmise, birding on Gambell is difficult, uncomfortable, and tiring, especially for us spoiled lower 48’ers – long days in cold, windy weather; travel on 4-wheelers; difficult walking; long nights in a sleeping bag on a cot; uncomfortable bathroom facilities (a bucket); and, at best, infrequent showers.  Oh, I forgot, many native villages, like Gambell, are dry – no booze.  But birders still go to Gambell because it is one the best places to find those rare birds from Asia.

 

Irrational Behavior:  Then all this effort paid off when what I was hoping for happened, the rare Asian bird showed up, a Pallas's Bunting (Emberiza pallasi).  I was in our house at the end of a long day when another birding group called in the discovery over a shared walkie-talkie network.  I only had to jump on the 4-wheeler and make a drive, then join the birder crowd in a bone yard to see this Asian accidental.  BUT I was tired, very tired, too tired to get up and go.  I knew this was the rare bird I had set up the entire trip to see but I was just too far gone to do it.  I sat, knowing what I was doing – missing the bird of the trip, missing the reason I was on Gambell, but I did not care.  I was not upset despite this irrational behavior: maybe life birds are no longer so important to me, maybe I was just too old to put out as much effort as I had on Gambell, maybe …..  I was surprised with what I was doing and how I felt about it at the time, but I was conscious of what I was doing and I was OK with it (and I’m still OK with it), all the while knowing that this was contrary to my past behavior chasing life birds and was a big change.  I had asked for the extra day on the island and I was getting what I wanted, but when the time was ripe did not want it enough to put out the effort to cash in the chance I had for the payoff!

 

So, it’s pretty much the same as always, live and learn; it’s just that sometimes you don’t like everything you learn.

 

 

*Three days originally planned, an additional day added at my request, and a fifth unscheduled day added when on our scheduled get-away day the runway was too foggy for the Bering Air plane to land.  I am told that this is a typical Alaska travel schedule.