iOS app Android app More  Riki Ott  Riki Ott  Posted: February
11, 2009 04:56 PM  Protecting a Whaling Culture  What's Your
Reaction:   Wainwright, Alaska. "Let's have dessert!" said
Kenneth "Kenny" Tagarook. Earlier his wife, Ann, had cooked a
substantial meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and canned green
beans. "White man's food only holds me for a couple hours," he
teased.  The Tagarooks are Inupiat ("In-OU-pe-at" or "Eskimo").
They are hosting me and Kenny's cousin Rosemary Ahtuangaruak
during our visit in Wainwright. The village of 720 mostly
Inupiat people lies along the Arctic Ocean over 200 miles above
the Arctic Circle.  Kenny placed a tray of "muktuk" - raw,
frozen bowhead whale meat - on the kitchen table. He sliced
little finger-size pieces for me with his ulu - a traditional
knife for cutting meat. Rosemary and Ann handled their ulus like
extensions of their hands.  I examined the muktuk. The skin was
almost an inch thick and black. The other half of the strip, the
blubber, was a pale rosy white