Dear Cha-Wel-Dor-Sue:

The idea of visiting Nome and Kotzabue appealed to me and the additional pleasure of visiting the Russian Far East settled my decision to make the trip on an old friend, the World Discoverer. Because of the logistics of the flight to Nome, an overnight in Seattle was necessary.

Two immediate disappointments occurred. First, in traveling from Anchorage to Nome on Alaska Airlines, we stopped at Kotzebue for 30 minutes, and all of this time was spent in the waiting room of the terminal. However, I fully expected to see Kotzebue as it was a scheduled stop on our itinerary as we explored the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Unfortunately, the itinerary was changed unbeknownst to us and our dream of seeing this remote Inuit village vanished. Secondly, we arrived in Nome just prior to sailing and had only 25 minutes, using a taxi and at our expense, to see Nome's Main Street. This city of course was famous at the turn of the century when there were gold rushes in 1899 and 1900. At that time, more than 20,000 people were there in search of their fortune and by 1911, more than 60 million dollars in gold had been mined from the Seward Peninsula beaches, streams, and hills. Nome is also well known today as a result of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race( a race from Anchorage to Nome). It was inspired by an episode that occurred in 1925 when a diphtheria epidemic threatened the town of Nome and some serum was urgently needed to treat the people. This needed serum was relayed by dog team from Nenana to Nome and some 20 dog teams raced the medicine 674 miles in 127 hours. Today, this historic event is commemorated with the well-known famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The competition starts in Anchorage in late February or early March and usually, the first musher arrives in Nome anywhere from 10 to 12 days later.

On our return to Nome for our departure flight, we were whisked to the airport and had very little opportunity to see much of this historically fascinating town.

We left Nome in a rough sea and almost immediately I found myself sorry that I had chosen to make this trip, as I was almost overcome with "Mal de Mer". It was my constant companion for the next 48 hours. During this time, we sailed by King Island and the passengers were given the opportunity for a Zodiac trip along the cliffs to see the bird life. It was reported the cliffs were spectacular. Needless to say, I preferred the supine position in my cabin!

Our next stop was Gambell, St. Lawrence Island (U.S.A.) and here, I did go ashore, wandered about the village of 550 souls, and watched some native dancing. We were told that this dancing is unique in that the dancer endeavors to act out the locomotion of the animals, ie. squirrel dance, whale dance, walrus dance, and especially the bird dance with one's arms playing the role of wings. The accompanying music is a drum made of stretched walrus stomach struck with a stick of bone. It is done in a rhythmic fashion and is usually quite loud. It would have been a long walk from our Zodiac landing over a pebble stone surface in order to reach the village so I elected to ride with a small Eskimo boy on his four-wheel All Terrain Vehicle (Honda, and at a charge of $5 one way). These people are Yupiks and are related to our Alaskan Eskimo or Alaskan Inuits. These people, who are Americans, own St. Lawrence Island and today maintain the highest level of cultural autonomy of all native Alaskans, including the preservation of their native language. Jacques Cousteau has created a beautiful film entitled "The Smile of the Walrus" which was filmed at Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, and which deals with walrus hunting and the raising of a walrus calf after its mother had been killed during a hunt. It was most moving to see and the walrus pup was no different than one of our infants in its need to be mothered.

The residents of St. Lawrence Island support themselves by hunting the walrus, whale and seals and raise foxes on "farms" for their fur. The walrus is highly sought after for its meat is used for food, the hide for skin boats, the stomachs for Eskimo drums, and the tusks for carving beautiful ivory pieces. As U.S. citizens they receive food stamps and Social Security. Their Russian counterparts across the international Date Line live in Eastern Siberia and these natives are also supported or subsidized to some extent by Russia. Both nations recognize the need to preserve the cultural and ethnological identity of their Eskimos and Reindeer people.

The next day, we sailed to Providenya, a town of 8,800 people, situated at the lower end of the Chukchi Peninsula. It was our only "dry landing" during our entire trip as the remainder of the places that we visited were remote areas and there were no wharfs. At Providenya, we saw Russian officials for the first time and from then on, a Russian representative was aboard our ship to make certain that none of us jumped ship into their country and that none of their countrymen got aboard as stowaways. The town is of recent construction, having been built in 1937, and it was dark, dirty, dingy and littered with all sorts of abandoned junk. This city was closed for over 3O years during the Cold War and was only reopened in June of 1988. We visited a bakery, a brewery, museum, school, and then witnessed at the Cultural Center some old and new dances as well as superb performers on the accordion by young, extremely talented children, two of whom had taken second and third honors in the Accordion Competition in Moscow! Graduates of the school system in Providenya may go on to University in Kabarosk, Vladivostok, Moscow and Leningrad, etc. The town itself was a depressing sight to view and made more so by the cloudy and misty day. Here, we saw more Russian faces than anywhere else on our trip.

Our stop at Arakam Chechen Island was our first opportunity to see a Walrus' Haulout, a place where walruses gather together on the shore in fabulous numbers, literally covering the beach and each other! We viewed the walruses from a cliff in groups of 10 people while keeping quiet and with minimal movement so as not to disturb them. Some were swimming in the water with their tusks showing. It is estimated that 40,000 walruses come to rest and feed during August and September under the protection of the Russian Wildlife Service. Walruses are not an endangered species. We also noted on the cliff a nuclear-powered lighthouse. In order to get to the viewing site entitled a long uphill trek over tundra and was slow going. The tundra is a very delicate ecology and consists of a subtle natural landscape of mosses, lichens, fungus and wildflowers. Apparently, once disturbed or destroyed, it takes a long time for its recovery.

Our next stop was on Yttigran Island and this was made in order to enable us to see "Whalebone Alley". It is a fascinating site and consists of a long row of skulls of Arctic Bowhead whales covering some 550 meters along the seashore, and are set in the ground in groups or rows of two and four. They most likely have been of ritual and religious significance. Long spike-like bones consisting of the lower jaws of whales are also set up and some look like arcades. I understand they have been used as tent supports. This site is considered as one of the most grandiose religious places ever built by the native people in the Arctic area.

In order to see one of the major objects of our expedition, it was necessary to sail North to the Bering Strait between Big Diamede (USSR) and Little Diamede (USA) Islands. At this point, the Strait is 100 miles long and approximately 50 miles wide and stretches from Cape Wales on the Alaskan Seward Peninsula to Cape Dreznev on the Chokohi Peninsula in Eastern Siberia or Russia. By sailing North, we would encounter ice floes and the prospect of seeing polar bears. The bears are mostly concentrated in the area of Harolds Island and especially in the vicinity of Wrangles Island. Ultimately, we reached a point of 72° 33 minutes North and we were in an ice concentration of 3 to 4. Zero (0) represents no ice and 10 represents solid ice and no free water or no "leads". Polar bears swim great distances but prefer to do their hunting of seals on ice floes. Their chief diet is that of seals and walruses. The Arctic Circle is 66° 33 minutes North so when we were in the vicinity of Wrangles Island, we were farther North than we had expected to be and it was indeed the farthest North than any of the past expeditions had been able to get to. The ice floes consisted of many broad, flat aggregations of ice which were very suitable for polar bear habitation. Several were sighted swimming alongside of our ship but it was only later in the evening that the real thrill occurred. It was foggy and misty at night and probably for want of something to do, the Cruise Director and Expedition Leader decided to provide us all with a Zodiac ride among the floating ice masses. While we were cruising along the small bergs, we were surprised to hear a message from the ship indicating that a giant polar bear was in our midst and on one of the ice floes. And then, lo and behold, he was there in all his magnificent glory, a huge beast cavorting on a flat ice mass! Despite the fog and mist, I tried to capture it with my video camera using the telephoto lens and most likely it will be too dim to be seen and probably too shaky to be viewed with comfort.

After our polar bear experience, we turned Southward and visited the village of Uelen, which is the largest native community on the Northeast coast of Chukchi Peninsula and it has a population of 830 people, all Eskimos. They subsist on fish, sea mammals, reindeer, and from raising foxes on their farms. On the day we visited Uelen, a real surprise lay in the offing and one entirely unanticipated. We were scheduled to go ashore and to walk about the village and plans were made to visit a museum noted for its fabulous ivory carvings and scrimshaw, the schoolhouse, and then to witness some dances at the Cultural Center. However, just prior to breakfast, a boatload of hunters was sighted off our starboard bow, apparently after a killer whale or Orca. Everyone rushed to the rail to witness the hunt. Shots were heard, apparently fired by the hunters, and the whale was killed. It was then harpooned and a colorful buoy attached to it for later recovery. At the same time, further shots were heard and in the next 30 minutes or so, four walruses were shot and each one identified with a tagged buoy. As the expedition leader said, if he'd had a million dollars to plan this sort of an event, it probably could not have been brought about, but we just came upon it spontaneously and were witness to the entire event. Subsequently, while we were at the village, the walruses were brought ashore and butchered. After having had our breakfast, we went ashore on our Zodiacs and trekked about the village with a local guide and one of the interpreters from our ship. The dances were interesting and were performed out of doors on a platform in front of the Cultural Center and accompanied by the usual music with the Eskimo skin drums. At the point where we boarded our Zodiacs for our return trip to the ship we watched the skillful carving of these huge sea mammals and it seemed that virtually every portion of the animal was preserved. It was the concluding drama of this unanticipated "hunt" and we were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time!

Not far South of Uelen is Cape Dreznev and this is the closest point to the North American Continent, or the most easterly point of the Eurasian Continent. I climbed up the Cape and had a beautiful view of the Strait and could see both continents at the same time. On the 250th Anniversary of the discovery of the Cape, Czar Nicholas II renamed it Cape Dreznev in honor of Captain Dreznev who first discovered it. Subsequently, Captain James Cook visited this site and referred to it as the East Cape. It is a striking rocky promontory projecting itself out into the Bering Sea,. birds were there by the zillions. There were kittiwakes, thick-billed and common murres, pelagic cormorants, horned and tufted puffins, and crested auklets. Never in my life have I seen so many, many birds! The kittiwakes are white and gray and are so called because of their call or the sounds they make. The murres are black and white and look like small penguins when on the roost and they, too, are called murres because they seem to make a sound like "murrrrrr". The puffins are the colorful glamor birds and have a large beautiful big and heavy beak. There were some seagulls that are much like those we have at home. The auklets were small dark birds that skimmed over the surface of the water or literally flew over the water and then dove below the surface. When I first saw them, I described them as small black ducks but they were not ducks, they were indeed birds.

There was a lighthouse on the North side of Cape Dreznev and there were signs of recent habitation with old abandoned houses of wood and metal construction. There were also many pits that were carefully built of stone and which may have been storage areas. The usual collection of whalebones were also present. It is interesting that archaeologists have found human artifacts here that date back some two to three and a half thousand years ago. Apparently, the settlement that was here was removed to other areas by the Russian government at some time in the past. As I stood fairly high up on the Cape, I noted a solitary walrus swimming below and also a large gray whale. The sea at that time was calm and perfect for viewing and,if one were an Eskimo, for hunting.

We also visited another small village called Inchoun and this was quite similar to the others that we had visited. Now, in order to clear Russian Customs, we had to literally retrace our entire trip back to Providenya and, in fact, were cleared at a small community called Novochaplino, which is a short distance from the larger city of Provadenya. Apparently, there are no other major government facilities North of this area. Our faces and our passports were matched and the ship was cleared for our return to America. All the officials wanted to know was how much money we had left in their homeland. We had been permitted to buy $3 worth of rubles, brand new ones, at the rate of one thousand per dollar. We were instructed to exchange the rubles on our departure but I kept mine as souvenirs. I spent only $20 and $15 of this was for a wooden model of a walrus and a small carving on a caribou antler. There is a law which prohibits the importation of ivory of any kind into this country from abroad and therefore, any ivory carvings that may have been purchased in Russia would not be permitted entrance into our country. There were many beautiful bits of ivory carvings that I would have loved to have brought home with me but this was out of the question. However, some of our friends who had some time in either Kotzbue or Nome were able to buy carved objects and brought them home with them. Apparently, the law was created to discourage people from shooting walruses for their ivory alone but it only makes sense to permit an Eskimo to sell his carvings as a means of support and some perfectly magnificent carvings today reside in museums and cannot be purchased by a tourist or traveling individual.

Our Faculty on this trip, as on previous trips, was a good one and the principal speakers were superb. There were some young people who were just getting started in this type of work and were simply feeling their way along. They didn't add greatly to our enjoyment of the expedition.

It is of interest that a Bering Sea International Park is in the process of development and the idea of establishing a Soviet-American park in the Bering Strait area was spearheaded by environmental groups interested in preserving the wildlife in this part of the world. In 1988, the Bering Strait International Park essentially became a reality when President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev expressed their support of political and scientific cooperation in the Arctic. Finally, a treaty was signed in 1990 by Bush and Gorbachev authorizing the new park. The United States contributed 9 million acres and the Russians generously donated the entire Chukchi Peninsula of some 15 million acres to the project. Native contacts and festivals, joint research, and Visa-free travel are planned. It is a step in the right direction to encourage American and Russian cooperation in the future. No doubt, ten years from now, this area will be far more familiar to American tourists than at present and I am glad that I saw it at the present time when a tourist in this area is a curiosity among the "Native Peoples" They find us as interesting as we find them! I had a bit of a feeling that I had when I was among the first tourists in China in 1979, when that country first opened its doors to tourists from abroad.

With love,

DAD