A Poetry of Place: Nome, Alaska / Part 3 of 3.

 

A musk ox greeting me one morning outside teacher housing in Nome, Alaska. 

⚓ 

One afternoon, after that day’s Summer Art Camp class for teachers ended, four of us jumped into a car driven by one of the Camp’s organizers. She offered to drive us around town, be a local guide and take us grocery shopping. 

We had just pulled out from the district’s parking lot and onto Nome-Teller Highway when she slowed down and pulled over to the right side of the road. Musk ox were walking into the road from the left. They were headed towards their herd grazing in the field on our right.

We were glued to the windows watching the musk ox on the left get closer until the driver decided it wasn’t safe and pulled back onto the road heading into town. I had heard about musk ox but had never seen them. They are huge!

Their Inupiaq name is omingmak meaning the bearded one, or skin like a beard. In Nome, the downy under hair of musk ox, called qiviut, is highly prized. It is gathered during their shedding season. It is then knitted or woven into scarves, headbands and more that sell for hundreds of dollars as qiviut is one of the warmest spun animal hair in the world.

Too, I noted that wearing a knitted qiviut scarf in Nome is like wearing a spotted-seal fur bowtie in Utqiagvik, formerly know as Barrow; a sign of prestige or of a generous, loving family. I remember seeing a well known elder arrive to a community Christmas dinner, that I was also attending, in Utqiagvik wearing such a bowtie and a matching spotted-seal fur vest, both hand-sewn for him.  He looked majestic in his attire.

I have bought much while living and teaching in various Alaska villages, but, as my father once asked me, “Can you wear qiviut in New Jersey?” Obviously, my Dad lives in Jersey. No qiviut purchases for me. I do acknowledge the great skill put into harvesting musk ox hair, spinning it into thread and knitting a stunning scarf from it; truly an art.

From August to November, I spied herds of musk ox very close to downtown stores and my apartment, once right outside the door. There were so many musk ox grazing in Nome that year that there were very few berries for harvesting by locals for the jams and syrups that they had made year after year; food significant to family pantries. Yet, I was captivated by their size, their fur color and how they galloped, rather than ran, when they quickly moved. 

Too, like the cows grazing across the Upstate, New York landscape of my childhood, musk ox lower themselves to the ground when it’s hot and easier to graze nestled in the field grass, or before it rains. 

The day before a major storm was predicted to hit Nome and the coastal sweep of Alaska, my roommate offered to let me use her car as I volunteered twice a week after school at the only thrift store in town and it was my shift that day. I needed to finish all that I could before the weather dramatically changed. 

Just before heading out the door, I decided to bring my sketchbook and pencils with me in case I saw musk ox out in the field. I did. I pulled over and did a ten-minute sketch. There are lines and circles on it as I made side notes so I could return to the sketch later and make a larger one in the future. I also noted a severe storm was about to hit with waves expected to be 15 feet high. 

My sketch is a time capsule of the landscape, weather and more for the noted date of 9/16/22. Typhoon Merbock hit the State of Alaska the next day. The musk ox must have known it was coming as most were low to the ground. The sketch is below:

A month later, when much of the storm debris had been cleared away, I looked out the passenger window of my roommate’s car as we headed home and saw a herd of musk grazing. I turned to her and said, “Have you noticed there’s often a rainbow when we see musk ox now?” She just nodded. I responded with four words, “Musk ox and rainbows.”

When we arrived home, I went to my room and started writing a new poem. Those four words became mental magnets pulling the dust of memory towards them. I sorted through all my recollections of rainbows: the rainbows that arched over the musk ox and rusty conex containers Nome locals used for storage, those my students drew in the classroom, and the ice bow I had first seen in the Arctic.

                                               •••

An ice bow, also called a white rainbow, I saw one day out walking the coastal Arctic beach in the village of Wainwright. I was so stunned when I saw it that I fell back against the beach wall and stared up at this strikingly beautiful weather phenomenon. 

•••

If you are lucky, what do you find at the end of a rainbow? Gold. Nome is known for being a gold mining town. What else did I know that was gold? In my mind I saw both the gold teeth in elders’ mouths and the gold rick rack edging a kuspuk, a traditional Alaska Indigenous garment that inspired what most call a hoodie. I own a few flowered fabric ones.

Lastly, I asked myself what would be lucky for a local person in Nome, in sort of a casual way. The food at the small cafe in town called Pingo’s is simply delicious: fresh-caught crab stuffed waffles, fresh-caught halibut pizza, and more. The owner, Erica, will take your order and then start making it all from scratch a few minutes later. 

You can wait up to two hours for your food to be made, cooked and then served. The cafe seats about ten people, maybe twelve. Knowing the time requirement to enjoy a meal there, most bring books or their knitting. Some just bring family and talk. She also sells baked goods in a glass case near the register. Some nibble on those while they wait. The bigger challenge is getting a table on a Sunday afternoon; that is luck!

All of this came into my mind’s eye and ran like one of the reels of film my grandfather played on the movie projector at his and my grandmother’s farm when my siblings and I spent part of our summers there. When the film was finished, the lights were flicked back on and homemade strawberry shortcake was served. When I finished the poem, I kissed the page as I was so happy with it. A bowl of vanilla pecan ice cream was my reward.  

The poem’s title is those four words I spoke out loud to my roommate that October afternoon as we drove home. Erica, as noted above, is the owner of Pingo’s.

Musk Ox and Rainbows

                        for Erica 

 

Children 

have an affinity 

towards drawing            

rainbows,

and in random places:   

paper, exposed skin,           

bedroom walls.           

Some add buckets 

filled with 

gold coins           

to both ends,

as isn’t that 

the promise.

Luck is given, too.

In the Coastal-

Arctic village 

of Wainwright,

where I 

once kept 

a Post Office box,

milky-white rainbows 

warn of winter storms.

Gold is found

in elders’ teeth 

and the rick rack 

on a kuspuk.

Luck is saved

for whaling crews.

Before the day 

is dark as night

here where 

buckets of gold 

have been found,

rainbows arc over 

mountains, rusty 

conex containers

and musk ox grazing

along Nome-

Teller highway.

Luck is getting a 

table for two at Pingo’s

on a Sunday afternoon.

Susan Slocum Dyer 10/16/2022 / © SSD