Word: nayokpuk
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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...October has moved to December because the ocean freezes later each year. Berry picking begins in July instead of August. Most distressing for the Inupiaq is that thin ice makes it harder to hunt oogruk--the bearded seal that is a staple of their diet and culture. At the Nayokpuk Trading Co., where infant formula sells for $21 a package and the only eggs for sale, sent by bush plane, sit broken in their shells, the talk is of the disruption of nature's rhythms. "When was the last time we went hunting on snow machines?" owner Percy Nayokpuk asks...
Still, like many of Alaska's native villages, Shishmaref clings to its subsistence culture. The town supports 10 dog teams, and a local musher, Herbie Nayokpuk, is known statewide as the Shishmaref Cannonball for his top-place finishes in the Iditarod race. Walrus-tusk carving is taught in school, along with the Inupiaq language. And if the town itself is ugly, it is balanced by the desolate beauty of the slate-colored sea, the ducks flying in formation over the lagoon and the musk ox roaming in emerald meadows dotted with wild cotton. Some two-thirds of the local diet...
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