A few pictures from the past year.

That's awesome! A good life is right.

Forgot to add that I bought the walrus heads. They came from the nome area. We get them once I a while but we do get floaters around almost every year.

I really love those first two pictures.
Anytime you feel like heading down to Pilot Point to do a seal slaughter let me know and I'll gladly put you up for free, heck, I'll even provide the ammo.

Great pics.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing! I am curious about your sleigh box. It appears to be mesh. Is there is purpose for it being mesh?

Nice! A lot of good looking eats right there! Love the ulu's as well! What do you do with the claws?

The ulu’s..... my brother in law went through the ice 2 springs ago and they were made for the ladies that helped with his potluck, and casket.

The claws..... everyone always threw away the bearded seal claws so I cleaned them up to see if they’d be sellable as a craft. They turned out nice. The other claw is polar bear that was given to me. I have about 20 polar bear and 40 bearded claws. I’ll make some kind of necklaces one of these days.

Sled was made of plastic mesh so I could carry more decoys. I am a hoarder and don’t go anywhere in the spring without too many decoys. I also made a smaller version to use for trapping. I’m going to start next week. It’s about 190 miles one way to the village I’m heading. Easier to throw stuff in a box and cover with a tarp than to stop and untie tarps when I set traps.

Good pictures I also like the looks of those ulu's even if I'm not very handy with one I still am fascinated by them .
Nice muskox too if I ever win the lottery I'd like to go hunting for one .

Is the huge piece of jade still there in Kotzebue or am I confused and it's in Nome ?
It's been a very long time since I was up there ha ha

There are a bunch of piece of jade here in kotzebue. Some near the nullagvik hotel and some closer to the airport. After the native corporation shut down the jade shop there hasn’t been interest in doing anything with it.

I didn’t hunt the musk ox. The bear on the bottom of the picture is the hunter. We were skirting the mountains and found him eating the musk ox. That’s the picture with the ox all torn up. I got the bear and went back and salvaged what I could off the ox. Front shoulders and the head were what I took. That was the second of three musk ox I’ve found dead in the past 3 years. 1 wolf kill and 2 bear kills.

Sorry for your loss, that is pretty kind of you to gift those to the ladies. I thought they were seal claws but didn't want to assume, they turned out really nice! That is a pretty nice find with the bear and musk ox! The skull looks awesome! Thank you for sharing!

The question might be asked on why so many seals...... I cut up most of them to render the oil for the people in the 3 villages that helped in the search for my brother in law. Seal oil is very sought after the further upriver you go. So I sent 52 quart size jars and 60 pint size jars as thank you gifts. I also sent meat and a couple whole seals to a couple villages. My son was on his second fall seal hunt and shot 22/26 seals that we harvested that day. What we didn’t cut up I’ll use for trapping bait upriver.

Awesome pictures. Can’t beat Year round hunting

What a nice gift to those who helped out after the tragedy of loosing your brother in law .

Darn nice sled box I can see where that would be very handy to have along .
Those claws are something else too it's a good thing to utilize everything you can .

Just the other day I seen a flock of Canadian geese fly over the house that's a rare thing for this time of year in this part of Montana , I like seeing other people out hunting them in other places .
Allan

Nice pictures and interesting life.

Few more.

Well looked who showed up! Cool pics. You know what the tusks are worth..............but did you know the ox horns are worth a few hundred? Just the bulls.
Miss those fat bou!
How about a pic of you, Jen, and the kids, Andrew?

Jen wasn’t with us.

So how much is a few hundred?

Find Roger Thompsens number in Nome. Your still at the Airport? Call Darren at Nome airport and see if he can get Rogers number. Tell Roger what you have and ask what he pays. PM me if you get that info.
Well get a pick of Jen and tell her hello. Would love to hangout and gossip with a bunch of Amblermuit! And you!

That sure is a great life and a busy life. Tons of hard work but very rewarding at the same time. Those claws are neat and nice work on the ulu's. That is one fat caribou!

3rd picture down reminds me of a National Geographic center fold during the early days of the pipeline. I worked with that person at Happy Valley.Camp 1978 or 79.

Caribou are a big part of our diet.

Nice bunch of caribou , there's a lot of fine eating there now ! As the tag line says life is good !

Nice pictures. Caribou is a big part of our diet too. Couple guys even started growing antlers from eating so much. Jk

Araqaa! Arigaa natchisiuq! Nice looking tuugaq

Great pictures, I hope the future brings more here.

Osky

Way to go.Love caribou meat.

Awesome !

Thank you , Bless you and yours

Pushing this thread to the top because frankly to me its beyond great!

Very cool!

Would love to bag a musk ox

I try to take my kids out when I can. Second picture is a perfect seal hunting day. Seal claws can be longer than bear claws. Stainless steel ulus with ivory and caribou antler handles.

The hares are worth money to taxidermists. The skull is worth 20 or more to skull collectors.

Where do you get the steel blades for the ulus ?

I got the stainless ones from north coast knives. The others on the table were cut from handsaw blades. Locals here don’t mind the staining or rusting of these blades because nobody makes the stainless in the style that we make out of handsaw blades. We don’t have any blade smiths anywhere near us.

I bought this batch of tusks on Monday. With the banned sales of ivory in the lower 48 in places, its harder for people out on st lawerance island have a harder time making a living selling ivory carvings. It is legal for me to purchase these tusks because I’m inupiaq. All tusks are tagged by the US Fish & Wildlife service. A family on the island contacted my cousin who is a gifted carver and asked if he wanted to purchase more ivory. He, in turn let me know what was for sale. So I purchased what they had to offer. Times are tough all over so I’m sure this was like a withdrawal from their savings.

How does the fish and wildlife service mark the tusks now ? I seen one once that had a metal tag attached to it. What kind of craft does your cousin do ?What is the process for getting a license for a whale hunt? Is that something you could do or do you have to be from a certain area ? What will you do with the tusks? Looks like maybe you just are collecting them which is cool. I still see tourist carvings for sale thru Alaska stores so there must still be some of that allowed?

Guessing you paid per pound. Any chance you can share that price? Gonna need some tourists to come through Kotz to help sell any number of carvings. Ivory sales likely gonna be tougher with Dems controlling things.
Did they come tagged or you had them tagged inKotz? Who tags in Kotz? Agent in Nome retired so no tagging there that I'm aware of. Maybe the wind will blow the ice into Kotz sound this spring and Kotz can harvest their own Ivory, like they did some years ago. I made some money off that hunt flying the north side of the Sew. Pen. that summer.
Are you airport manager now? Still waiting for the picture of Jen.

Yes, the tusks are tagged with a metal wire with a number. I did pay per pound. As a native I’m allowed to carve ivory and sell what I make with it. Not a lot of tourists come through our small town but locals still buy ivory handle ulus, knives, and jewelry. It’s not often we can buy it at the prices it’s going for. Usual price is $40-50 a pound but I’m not paying that. As for whale hunting I’m an Alaskan native so I can participate in whaling and harvesting sea mammals.
I guess the tusks are tagged on the island after the hunts. I’ve bought quite a few with tags. Walrus came close to sealing point last spring and a few people were able to get a few. I wasn’t lucky enough to get out there. I’m not the airport manager it doesn’t pay enough for the headache it is. I commercial fish during summer and it more than makes up for any raise I’d get being the manager. 16 years so far. Jen said good luck putting her picture in my post. Lol

I'll find someone else to see a pic of her!, Haha

A couple pictures from this spring bear hunt.

Found another musk ox skull.

My two sons on a brant hunt this spring.

Spring ugruk hunt. Younger boy got his first ugruk.

Got 2 beluga in the beluga net a week apart.

Very cool!!

Started making ivory rings out of walrus and I laying them with gemstones, and pigment.

Great pics, love the rings

Gut after the catch. The ugruk needs to be gutted and cooled off before loading. The insides will start to rot quick if they aren’t.

The three is us ended up with covid so we went seal hunting. 2 different days.

Older boy and I went out one more time. Got twice the amount of seals shown in the picture. Days of work ahead and plenty of good meals.

Nice work. I remember watching them pull out a beluga from the nets when I worked up there for Crowley.

Good looking bear! Looks like you got a few birds And ALOT of meat there You tan the seals? What are you selling the rings for? They look pretty cool! Raising those youngsters right and creating memories! Thank you for sharing!

I got seals tanned for years but the best tannery shut down. Frontier tanning was the best place to send seals. I tried Sitka tribal and another outfit in wasilla but nobody comes close to frontier. I wanted to try my hand at tanning but I never have enough time. So now I just throw the skins when I drive out of town. The foxes get the left over blubber and maybe they eat the skin I don’t know. As for the rings I get $125 per. I’ll post a few more pictures of them.

I had a buddy from St Paul Island gift one to me. He sent about a hundred to Alpha Tannery in Anchorage they did a pretty good job. Would love to see more pic's of those rings!

You posted as I was writing

Here’s another picture. I can’t get the light right to show how good they look.

Had a couple nets under the ice and got herring, smelt, Tom cods, whitefish, small sheefish, small pike, blue cod, bullheads and flounder.

I miss smelt.

What is a bullhead? Do you have a picture of one? I have caught bullheads, but I doubt it is what you are referring to.

Sculpin is the scientific name. I grew up calling them bullheads so that what we know them by. We were catching up to 75 a day in the net. Cleaning up the bottom feeders I guess.

The picture wouldn’t download but this lynx had just gotten a swan next to a lake before I scared him off of his kill. The Swan was still warm to the touch when I drove next to a lake he was hiding in the willows next to. I figured he jumped the swan on take off and brought it to the shrub willows out of sight. Wasn’t scared of me at all.

That is pretty cool with the lynx!

maybe Nolluk can point out a couple in the picture above, the small muscle by the tail is one way

Remember lifting a net in the Beaufort Seas and the first 3 sculpins were all separate species, sure was glad I only dealt with bugs at that time, until the stomach contents were opened, then I was glad I was not a marine bio. at that time

I hope you ate both the swan and the lynx !

Neither. Lynx ate the breasts off of the swan and it was too late to be shooting lynx so it got a free pass. A few days later my boys and I were hunting in that exact spot I’d here came the lynx to check out the area. He didn’t come close this time. I blew on the goose calls but he watched decoys for a bit and knew something was wrong. Didn’t get any good pictures as he was trying to stay low.

You have quite the life out there, sure enjoy your post and pictures! Beautiful work on the ivory rings.

Made it through another year. Some of my journeys with family.

Certificate for a Russian snow goose. Even the geese are leaving. Lol

That is pretty cool on the band!

I love me some Tom Cods one of my favorite fish.

The snow geese that come through here fly across the Berring straight to Russia, I watched them fly out over the ocean heading to Russia before at Stebbins. I believe they are the snow geese that nest on the cliffs there too.

Cool pictures. Keep em coming.

"Naulak in dialect here means detachable harpoon head like for hunts seals at blow holes or in the open water if crippled up and might sink. "Nolluk" looks similar to naulak; same meaning?

Ugruk similar to udjuk for the same seal. Good eating ones; eat a lot of bottom stuff like walrus/ivik.

Great pic's. Similar here.

Anaullaqtaq was my great grandfathers inupiaq name. The missionaries came and gave him the English name of Andrew Joseph Greene. My father spent most of his childhood with his grandmother and grandfather living a semi nomadic lifestyle. So when I dad and mom had me I was given the name Andrew Joseph greene ll, Anaullaqtaq. My great grandfather died 7 months before I was born. Growing up my relatives called me by my inupiaq name and it was long so my dad gave me the nickname Nolluk. I didn’t care about the spelling cause everyone I grew up with called me nolluk. To this day very few people call me by my English name.

Family treats

Brant hunting

Interesting. One of our boys is named Anautak - "hitting stick". But all the young people call him "Tuck".

Nolluk you have had some great harvest this season. Neat seeing where the snowgoose came from. Birds sure travel all over the place.

The snow geese passing over stebbins is amazing. Only birds i know of that nest in stebbins are gulls, cranes and swans. Lots of eiders nest on stuart island right across from stebbins, they were my favorite eggs.

I just moved to Kotzebue and this makes me excited, didnt get to do as much as we wanted in the fall with the new jobs.

A great ride ! wonderful scenery ! That fish looks good. Thanks nolluk

[img]https://trapperman.com/forum/attach...4cc0946_6c2a_4014_a573_37b6780d4909.jpeg[ [img]https://trapperman.com/forum/attach...5f953dc_5bd7_44ec_8485_ce86ddecba42.jpeg[/img]
Commercial fishing for chum salmon. 1600 salmon day.

Highboat!

I assume you've been selling your Chum to E&E? How have they been treating you? I hear they are putting the processing vessel Cape Greig out of service permanently.

That's a load of chums, what is average weight per fish?

Hello Andrew, good to see your still going strong. You still at the airport? Will Kotz have a comm. salmon season this year? Doesn't look good I think. Hi to Jen!

This picture is partner boat bringing in my nets and 500+ salmon. The salmon hit so fast and hard we couldn’t keep up so we called him in to help us.
E&E and copper river bought salmon this summer here. The forecast was for a very poor season but we ended up with the 8th best season on record.
Martetrapper, still with the state at the airport. 18 years now. Going to go 2 more years and I’m done. Kinda hard to work for the state and have all the responsibilities and know that cargo and csa agents make more money than we do. I’m almost 100% sure that one of the Bering air cargo/fuelers makes more than the airport manager.

Another 1600 salmon day. Someone in town posted the bottom picture on Facebook.

Picking thousands of pounds of sockeye is a walk in the park compared to picking all those toothy chums; I don't envy that job, but it sure is fun catching fish in numbers like that.
Interesting how some of these salmon runs are doing so well; with no definite scientific explanation.

This little guy took his brother spot as the shooter. His brother is attending UAA. I warned him when we were leaving town that if he started missing I’d pull my rifle out and start shooting. He used a .22 mag and shot 9 seals and 2 young bearded seals that we landed. He sank many more as we weren’t able to get to them before they sank. He wanted to hunt longer but we had enough to work on so we called it a day. Good memories to cherish.

I see a LOT of work!

Great !

Looks like you are getting harp seals too. That right? In first pic. the one closest to the little guy's foot. Has the black spots. Looks like what we call a bedlamer harp. That would be a 1 - 3 year old one. We get ringed/nutsik and bearded/udjuk too like you guys. And we get harbour seals too/kasigiak.

Looked at the range maps and harps do not show for your area. Interesting if they are harps. That type of seal new there if they are harps? Something to do with ice melt maybe if so or maybe you always had them?

A few things that were North Pacific or North Atlantic are now showing up in the other ocean because of shorter lasting annual sea ice.

No harp seals in our area. Our local and transient seals are just ring “natchiq” and spotted “qassiaq.” I’ve seen 2 sea lions out in the ocean and during a few fall hunts I’ve seen 4 ribbon seals and a harbor seal. The harbor seals that my buddy used to hunt in the southeast are black with white rings. I’ve only seen on of those up this way. Here is a picture of a ribbon seal I got 7-8 years ago. I’ve gotten 3 in my lifetime.

Thanks nolluk. Simple question then might be what is that seal next to the boys boot in the boot - the one w the black spots. Dead ringer for a 1 - 3 year old harp but not the case then. Book name if u can as may not be able to put together Inutitut name from your dialect.

Ribbon seal sure different. Saw pictures of them before only as they not here.

The two closest are young bearded seals. There are 4 of them in the picture. Some of them have small spots while others don’t. Some also have black heads or black backs. Can always tell them by the whiskers.
In between giant storms that we had this fall I went to our camp to check on everything. The camp is 15 miles northwest of kotzebue on a gravel spit. On the way home I saw some seals and decided to go check them out. This fellow came within 10 feet of the boat. He kept throwing his paws up on the ice like he was playing. I figured it would make a good picture if I could catch him doing it. He hung around for 10 minutes and went on his way.

Ok found it on line. Book name for it is "spotted seal". Never heard of it before but then we don't have them. Good name for it. Tks nolluk. Good pic. above of waving seal.

The closest to my sons feet I mean. Both those are young bearded. The young ones have spots. There are a couple spotted seals in that picture they have the real dark spots.

Found these tracks after freeze up. I knew the critter wouldn’t be too far away.
Found him. Wasn’t happy I tried to get a couple pictures. When the inlet freezes over too quickly the seals get caught miles from the open water. I saw 4-5 sets of tracks that day heading over the ice for the ocean. I’ve seen their tracks go overland heading for the ocean. It’s got to be very hard to travel miles just hopping along. No wonder that seal was so mad.

Better shot of a spotted seal without blood.

Yes got it. Know the bearded ones close to his feet on the beach. Was looking at closest to son's feet in the boat is a spotted which is just like a 1 - 3 year "bedlamer" harp if you google it. Tks.

My bad. Thought you meant the beach. That’s just the belly of one of the spotted seals. Different patterns or darkness on different seals.

Great pic's nolluk. If I could ever figure out posting pic's (no patience) would post pic's of hunting ringed seals/nutsik at the breathing holes (patience) with the noulak and unak (detachable head harpoon).

We have 6 kinds of seals and walrus. Walrus almost got wiped out back in the day and never really recovered. We have ringed, bearded, and harbour same as you guys and hood, harp and gray which I believe you guys do not have.

Seal hunting really reduced here where so many have money and are into store food, no price for seal skins anymore and almost no dogs to feed. Most seal hunting is family and friends out on the spring ice on skidoos harpooning ringed seals at the breathing holes. A few to eat is all most people bother with. In summer a bit more hunting from boat. Have to use the harpoon then because less fat on them and they easily sink. Imagine you have same problem in summer.

Nice to see how you guys operate.

The same has happened here. When my dad was in his prime we hunted a lot more than I do now. We’d start when The ice formed and was think enough we could hunt from the edges with a small boat. We’d get as any as we could then quit hunting for the winter. Later in April when open water season was upon us we’d travel out to the edge and hunt. My taata “grandfather” was taken from us during the spring hunt in 1999. He was very knowledgeable and very careful when he hunted so something quick and unforeseeable had to have happened . Him and his partner went out and we never found a trace of them. It was foggy and bad weather the day after they did not return but there were planes looking for them anyway. After that, my father quit hunting along ice edges and mostly did with a big boat.

I used to hunt a lot more spotted seals and send the skins out to be tanned but the quality of tanning has gone down dramatically. Also the dog mushers that were taking the carcasses don’t have the big teams anymore to feed so it’s hard to get rid of them. I’d like to start tanning myself if I could figure it out and make the skins nice. There still is a good market for them here. I would like to quit my job and just make a living off of subsistence but that might be a bit hard. Steady money is hard to beat.

Here’s a picture in front of kotzebue when the spotted seals come in with the herring. One shot and they scatter like bugs.
This is young bearded seal below the dock on shore fast ice. I was working that morning otherwise he might have ended up in my yard.

Yes the ice edge/sinak can be a dangerous place.