Kiliii Yuyan : People of the Whale
Sigvaun Kaleak and his father Raleigh, wearing traditional ice camouflauge parkas, are lifelong whalers. Although European whaling decimated the global whale population by the 1900, the Iñupiat maintained a sustainable harvest of bowheads (via).
The Iñupiat have hunted whales here {high above the Arctic Circle} for millennia, often waiting for fickle sea ice conditions in an era of changing climate. The unpredictability of this coastal Arctic environment means that the Iñupiaq are the carriers of a vast ecological knowledge.
“Kiliii Yuyan is a Nanai (Siberian Native) and Chinese-American photographer whose award-winning work chronicles indigenous and conservation issues.” His “mission is to present collaborative new narratives of indigenous culture. He is fascinated by the essential relationship between humans and the natural world. Kiliii’s photography presents an alternative vision of humanity’s greatest wealth—community, culture and the earth” (via).
And he does a pretty damn good job.
Looks cold, simple, and beautiful.
A rare windless day results in glassy waters at the edge of the sea ice on the Chukchi Sea. Days like this are cherished good weather windows and are the time when the volatile sea ice environment is the safest (via).
You can see all of Kiliii Yuyan’s images from People of the Whale here. His other works are worth checking out too, especially his Living Wild collection which “documents a group of 21st century hunter-gatherers as they rediscover the traditional living skills of the Paleolithic.” It and they are pretty wild.
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