Customer Reviews

Gift of the Whale: The Inupiat Bowhead Hunt, a Sacred Tradition

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This book is a milestone among recent publications on Alaska because it portrays Alaska's Native people in an unvarnished and realistic way. This is NOT a commercial "coffee table book" or a series of pretty pictures suitable for note cards. A short story, hopefully, will illustrate my point.

When I was living in Barrow in the late 1980s, the mayor asked me to meet with a visiting photographer who had requested information on traditional whale hunting (I was a staff anthropologist at the time). The Anchorage photographer [NOT Bill Hess] wanted to "reconstruct" a whale hunt. This commercial photographer pleaded to have me call him in Anchorage next time a whale was harpooned so he could catch the next plane to Barrow (he had already talked the airline into sponsoring him). He promised that he would stage the photograph to show the local people in the best possible light and make them appreciated by all the tourists who come to Alaska.

After nearly throwing up, I politely told him that the Inupiat whale hunters were quite capable of taking care of themselves and did not need to be "airbrushed" and marketed for popular consumption.

Then I met Bill Hess. I immediately connected with his visceral understanding of Inupiat culture which he communicates so elegantly in words and photos in this book "Gift of the Whale." This book communicates a vision of contemporary Inupiat life that is unvarnished and somewhat raw; but - from my firsthand experience - authentic.

Bill Hess knows what it's like to sweat while breaking a sled trail through jumbled ice floes at 20 below. He earned his unique chance to communicate the symbiotic relationship between Inupiat hunters and the bowhead whale. This book takes the reader out onto the Arctic Ocean (in both its frozen and liquid state) and into the skin boats, skiffs, snowmachines and tents of crews who provide their families with life-giving food. The real stories (illustrated with stunning duotone photos of the people and the animals that are simultaneously revered and killed for survival) are more interesting and insightful than any pseudo-reality a market-driven journalist could create.

Bill Hess, through his photos and stories in this book, communicates how Inupiat culture continues to focus on the communal hunting and sharing of food for survival. This book communicates in vivid detail how impractical contemporary Western values of individual ego-driven materialism are when it's 20 below zero with the snow blowing sideways, and a fellow hunter is lost on the tundra. Bill illustrates how Inupiat society is built on respect and reverence for the resources and each other, keys to long-term survival in the Arctic. This book provides a visual banquet allowing the reader to enjoy and appreciate contemporary Inupiat whaling, life, and culture.

I have done a great deal of reading in my life, yet never have I been more absorbed in a book than I have in 'Gift of the Whale'. I highly recommend this elegant, enjoyable and informative piece of work.

This is a stunning visual presentation combined with a moving, unpretentious text. The drama of the three grey whales, the search for footprints . . . it is all powerful stuff. I have only been living in Barrow for nine months but so far there isn't a word that doesn't ring true.

Bill Hess is a very gifted photographer, who works almost exclusively in black and white. He has spent a great deal of time with the people the people of the North Slope whose lives are shared in this book. For a number of years he was under contract to the North Slope Borough to produce a magazine about life on the North Slope (Uinniq-The Open Lead, which makes it clear that the people of the North Slope felt that he represents them clearly and fairly.

One could enjoy this book for the photography alone, but it is so much more than that. Whaling is a central focus of North Slope Inupiat culture; it is an inextricable part. People here know that; and the whalers carry it out as a sacred trust on behalf of the whole community.

Bill Hess as created a masterpiece. His grainy and moody black and white capture the bowhead hunt, Point Lay beluga hunts and Inupiat life in respectfully frank perfection. The book contains several stories that are threaded in and out of the Inupiat Bowhead hunts and gives a good look into the subsistence lifestyle of the Eskimos who live on the edge of the Arctic ocean.

Hess' journalistic writing style is easy to read and appreciate. He was able to get a close-up view on many things most will never have a chance to see from subsistence hunts, search and rescue missions and the 1990's attempt to free three ice-trapped gray whales which had captured the medias attention. It was interesting how different the story that reached us was compared to the situation and conclusion was on the ice.

If you have interest in whale hunting or Eskimo lifestyles, get this book. It is a great visual and prose look into this arctic world.

The book Gift of the Whale is an eye opening view into the life of the Inupiat and the importance of the whale hunt to their life and traditions. The photos are awesome, and realistically show people involved in the struggle to survive in the harsh environment of northern Alaska. The narrative is interesting and informative.

My daughter was working in Alaska on a movie about whales and she recommended this book. The author was one of their local experts. Great book for the coffee table