Tokimata's Travels

Just to let you know we're here, all have had a good sleep after a passage of 48 hours,that had its moments of strong wind and vigorous seas.

We didn't see one boat since False Pass, where for the second time we had the odd experience of being photographed by a passing fishing boat - the last two boats who cam near us had a crewman come out on deck and take photos, strange to turn into the odd wildlife-sighting!

Nunivak is large, 30 by 40 miles, and here at the southern end a long low tundra spit leading into a huge lagoon, mountains visible beyond - no detail in chart or pilot book so all crew were on deck staring ahead, skipper concentrating on the depth sounder - none of us noticed till they were nearly upon us a low aluminium skiff with two very friendly locals, David and Peter with lots of interesting old walrus and whale bones in their boat. They came aboard (having thoroughly bumped and scratched Tokimata's hull with their big boat while we were struggling to get fenders) but such nice guys and so interesting - helped us pick our way a little closer to where they were camped on the edge of the lagoon. Two fishing boats and a cabin became visible in the distance there, they're all halibut fishing (next it will be picking blackberry and salmonberry, then some dock plant that they "cook up with crisko, sugar and raisins"). David said he had lived on the mainland (20 miles away, where Peter comes from), but he didn't like it so much "you can't see the land properly because of the trees". Once he said that one looked differently at the landscape - so sparse, completely bare, but very beautiful pure lines in the evening light, beautiful russet-green, birds wheeling in this immense sky, sun lighting up the small headlands around the lagoon - it was now about 11.00 pm and we had had 24 hours of fog, so very lovely indeed... if they do have trees on the mainland I think they must be just the scrubby alders, though strangely there are logs in the water and they say there is enough driftwood for their fires and for building fish drying racks etc, I guess they c ome down the rivers from that mighty hinterland. Apparently 200 people live on the island, all related and all in one village (which has a school). They say it was once much more populated and that the land near us still has evidence of old village sites "the people all died during the epidemic" which he thought was of TB, in the 1930's, "so many died they could not be properly buried" and he warned us to touch nothing. All the villages became empty. David is a carver in winter, said lots of them are, setting up a proper workshop with his brother and selling through an agent, the whale verterbrae he said was "worth thousands". They were very interested in the Solomon Island carving we have on board, and our wonderful Tlingit paddle from Hoonah and our Tlingit print...

The winds are now not favourable for getting us to Nome so we may be in Nunivak some time. The Danes are behind us but we hope to meet in Nome.