Wales Alaska

Ed Gold

This book is of a selection of photographs which showcases my work documenting the Alaskan Inuit village ‘Wales’

If you would like to view all of the 511 photographs and captions from this project please go to my website www.edgold.co.uk and click on the Picasa Web Album logo (above). Then click on ‘Wales, Alaska - 2013’

The purpose of this photography art book is to cap-ture the imagination of sponsors and a publisher who will then help to make the book commercial. The purpose of documentary photography is to record truthful, objective and candid photographs of a particular subject, most often of people. In this case the subject is of the native Inuits from the village of Wales, Alaska which is the closest mainland point of the United States to Russia and the most westerly. Documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects while photojournalism concerns more breaking news stories. The two approaches often overlap. This study, using photographs from 2 visits and atotal of 7 weeks stay in Wales, is not a finished work but a suggestion of what is possible if people invest in its legacy to society. The historical interest and contemporary view of an eskimo whal-ing village which is experiencing significant change at the turn of the 21st century is worth preserving

Wales Alaska

Ed Gold

DELIVERING A BETTER WORLD

“Connecting Communities”

Parsons build runways and navigational systems for the remote Inuit villages of Alaska

Thank you to my sponsors and publisher for helping to create this book and ensuring that the contemporary culture of the Inuit village Wales is recorded for future generations to understand and learn from

Our mission

To improve the quality of life of our people through economic development while protecting our land, and preserving our culture and heritage

University of Alaska Press is a nonprofit scholarly publisher and distributor of books about Alaska and the circumpolar regions

Copyright Ed GoldWales Alaska© 2013www.edgold.co.ukinfo@edgold.co.uk

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under international and federal copyright laws and treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited

Flying to Alaska bush communities

This is a photo of Frank ‘Sonny’ Oxereok’s grandfather, his Dad's Dad, who passed away in the 1950's. Charles 'Kiomeau' Oxereok. He stands with all that is necessary for hunting: a rifle and skin cover for it, harpoon, rope, spear and bag (with strap running over both shoulders) containing seal hook, knives and tools. Charles was out hunting on ice when it seperated from the shore and he floated to Point Hope, about 300 miles north as the raven flies. It took him a whole summer to walk back home again (at least 500 miles). He intentionally did the same thing 2 more times but the 3rd time almost starved to death. Sonny tells me he did this because on the 1st adventure he made a lady friend on his return back to Wales and was missing her so repeated the journeys again. This is why Sonny has other family in the north

“If your rifle doesn’t work, the bear will

eat you!”ANDREW SEETOOK - WALES, 15 FEBRUARY 1980

[SOURCE: THE BERING STRAIGHTS NEWSPAPER]

Turbulence makes it’s hard to take a level photo and we’re travelling so fast there aren’t many

opportunities to get a better shot! At centre right of the image, between frozen sea and cloud, there is a small dark area where it will soon be

free enough of ice enough to launch boats from for hunting. This view shows the whole of Wales

Two views of Cape Prince of Wales. This page shows Wales and its airstrip in the summer of 2009 and the right page a similar view from Spring 2013. Shore ice still stretches out to sea

I have tried to record all aspects of life in the village and am especially interested in making comparisons over time and season. Many of the following images in this book have been paired together from 2009 and 2013

This Page: Faye collecting driftwood on Wales beach in 2009

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Faye (84) taught her teachers how to write and speak in Inupiaq and attended up until 4th grade when her Father died from flu on 02 or 03 December 1943. Faye tells me to wrap up warm, keep all exposed parts covered up, not to get frost-bite and eat well - I mustn’t get ill. “I like Wales, it’s a good place - they don’t drink”

Pastor Gilbert Oxereok dressed in his hunting clothing outside his house in 2009

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Gilbert Oxereok (56) sits next to his new dog Darby - a Husky/Malamut cross who is 3 months old. Gilbert became Pastor in 1996 when Pastor Matt Littau was leaving and who asked Gilbert to take over “because of the questions he was asking”. The church is Lutherian but Gilbert wished religion had no demonination because it’s the same God - “church is all about the money” [2013]

Gene Angnaboogok in 2009

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Gene holds out a hand chisel for etching scrimshaw in one hand and a bead holder in the other. At his feet is a vice mounted to portable bench and under the window all of his tools [2013]

Dan Richard with Scrimshaw in 2009. The Walrus tusk shows a Whaling ship and reads “Beauty from the sea”

Dan Richard with .44 Magnums. When Dan hunts he leaves his rifle at home and gets up close to Polar Bear, Brown Bear, Moose and Walrus. “If you want to be a hunter, give the animal the same chance as you have - it makes hunting a little more eventful. I like to keep them loaded - keeps people on their toes...keeps all animals in line, including humans”. Dan’s cap ‘Vietnam Veteran’ and flag on ceiling ‘POW-MIA’ speak for his experiences in the early 1970’s. Notice how the window is completely covered with snow [2013]

Above: Ellen says that this duty keeps her young and she enjoys it. The air is freezing but dry [2013]At left: Ellen Oxereok holding Labrador Tea in 2009 dressed in traditional Inuit clothing

Clifford Seetook (56) in 2009 in same chair, identical room, even same jacket on same chair.

Above: Clifford Seetook (60) in 2013. He has spent 45 years in this house and was born in Wales. “There was 11 of us in this one room, 10 kids and 1 adopted kid [Daniel (Seetook) Omedelena] and our 2 parents. Our Dad did what he had to do, to raise the family. He was mainly a plant tender at a tin mine in Buck Creek. In 1980 he bought a ‘shoulder gun’ and we started whaling and formed a crew only from family. We were blessed on that year with a 25 foot Bowhead whale. Since then we’ve only had 8 whales and I struck 3 or 4 myself”.

At left: This is the south view from the house in Wales where I stayed in 2009 and am staying at again in 2013, facing the village. A snow machine and sled whizzes by whilst the sun thaws out ice which hangs down from the roof.Above: The same view from inside the house I stay at later on. This is after a 2 day winter storm (in Spring).

At left: Larry with Moose and Musk Ox heads which he shot in 2009. Above: There is Uranium in the ground water used to feed the village and it is above the limit. No-one quite knows if it occurs naturally or is from dumped nuclear waste but soon Wales will go back to using surface water [2013]

Above:Sonny, Ronni and their grand daughter leave the school after watching this years graduation.Right: Gene uses a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun from the middle of the boat which kicks like a mule. After firing many rounds and wounding 2 Oogruks he is feeling tired and I suspect unhappy that 2 seals will have died without reason.

Left: Stacey Tokeinna with her boyfriend Herbert Barr (22 then) in 2009. They had a daughter, Sarah, almost 2 years old now. They have since split up. Herbert moved back to Brevig and Stacey now goes out with Paul Weyann (22) who is from Teller and in jail for drinkingAbove: Stacey Tokeinna (21) on the same bed as I photographed her on in 2009 with her then boyfriend Herbert

Left: 2009 Wales annual dancers in front of the school US flag where each morning pupils pledge their allegianceTop Left: These dancers are staging a section of ‘The Medicine Man’ which is a dance that traditionally lasts for 3 days non-stop. It hasn’t been danced in its entirety since the 1950’s as a death would always ‘coincidentally’ occur after it finished. Superstition means that the dance is only enacted in part these daysTop Right: Met and daughter Molly Mazonna (with a baby - Coleen) at the Wales Dance Festival in 2009. Met’s Auntie Irene made the squirrel parkie for her Mum Martha who handed it down to Met. Albert’s Mum made the Mukluk boots.

I would like to return by late August 2013 to Wales with a large format film camera to take studio photographs with at this years Wales dance festival - specifically of dancers wearing their traditional clothing. Then I would continue for a whole year to make sure I have documented eveything for the commercially published book. I have taken the images, used in this art book from 500 edited photographs which I have put together from 2009 and 2013 (my 2 visits to Wales so far). Each has a caption, which I would like translated into Inupiaq

“Self-portrait in back of twin prop to Nome. Happy, tired and ernestly need to get book commission and artists visa so I can return to Wales for a year. I need to get back in time for the Wales dance festival at the end of August with large format film camera. Soon the BBC will use my work from Wales on their news website”

Ed Gold - 07 June 2013

Ed Gold took his first photograph at the age of eight, and has carried a camera with him ever since. Born in London and raised in Essex and Istan-bul, he moved to north Wales in 1999, fell in love with the landscape and became a full-time photographer 10 years ago. Ed obtained a degree in design and an MA from Central St Martins College of Art and Design. A fiercely motivated self-starter, he has travelled the world taking pho-tographs, driven not by commercial gain, but by the desire to preserve in pictures the culture, tribes, communi-ties, customs, traditions and minorities that fuel his passion and his creative intuition.