I get regular questions via many of my online points of contact about my business (es). The fact that I run it from a tiny little room from a tiny rural village is what most people find fascinating about it. Most want to know how they can also get into the internet business from the villages...so I thought I would do a post about what I am learning about the experience.
How did I start?
I actually started selling drawings, paintings and handcrafted items when I moved to California to go to college. To avoid eating potatoes for weeks on end I had to find a way to generate some extra income. This is probably where I learned the most about selling handcrafted items, especially when it came to quality and durability. I found a local Native American shop that sold many different types of Native art, they would buy at wholesale prices. The buyer was a very formidable woman who knew her stuff, and who probably taught me the most about selling my craft in the very short meetings we had together. She would pick the item up, examine it closely for a few minutes, ask me very specific questions about the construction and then tell me what she would give me for it or tell me what I needed to change to sell it to her. It was the 'telling me what to change' that really taught me something. I learned about using the correct materials, glues, and techniques and everything else from her. The first time she suggested the changes I got incredibly mad at her. I stomped out of the office in a huff of insulted pride. I was, after all, 19 ...the age where you pretty much know everything. A few weeks later I swallowed all that and made the changes, and she bought the item. I began building the blocks of knowledge that would help me sell my items. True craftsmen and craftswomen never stop learning their crafts. I found that over the years those who stopped learning, also stopped selling.
How do I successfully sell online?
In my head I am not quite successful yet, but I do use my generated funds to supplement our lives and since my husband has never told me to get a 'real' job I figure it has to be somewhat successful. The secret is this: Spend way too much time online, and get a very comfortable chair to prevent back problems. I spend on average a minimum of 4 hours a day just promoting and running my online business. It's usually not fun stuff either, just repetitive and uninteresting stuff, like uploading photos, responding to emails and queries and doing a massive amount of research and reading. I have tailored my online presence specific to what I am selling. I tend to my contact spots like a gardener will tend to their plants. I visit them a couple of times a day to ensure that my customers and future customers are aware and comfortable with me. Being an online presence can become impersonal and distant which can be detrimental to your business. People always ask me how I promote online and can I tell them where to promote. And my answer is always the same: Go to where your customers are. My customers will almost always be completely different than yours. I cater to a wide age group, mostly women, almost always educated, and almost always they already have an interest in fine art and cultural art and health alternatives. There is literally a huge list of attributes that I keep to target specific people, but this list is gleaned from years of research...mostly via google and Alaska state research. I have a point of contact where they can ALWAYS get ahold of me quickly and can safely purchase my items. I used to run my own site but found it to be quite expensive. So now I use Etsy as my main access point. The other places I have a presence are:
1. Deviant Art - attracts many ages, mostly on the young side, worldwide presence but literally MILLIONS of people on there. I update my art regulary (or I try to anyways.) Great place for inspiration and learning also! My deviant art account: Eskimoscrybe
2. Facebook - I made my own page and I hold giveaways and regularly post neat stuff, I also use it to promote other artists that I find amazing. There are also some awesome groups on facebook to promote selling your items. For local Native crafts I love a new group called ALASKA BARTER AND SELLER'S PAGE , but there are many many out there. My facebook account: CLICK HERE
3. This section changes all the time: Online groups. I have been a member of many many groups to promote my work over the years, everything from yahoo groups to ebay . They often change but google is your best friend here. Just google your types of items and look for online groups and get comfy with using the different types of chat rooms and boards. I often use keywords like 'Inuit Art' and 'Alaska Native' products and art. I never make myself a nuisance to these groups, just let them know you exist, you can also find good opportunities to promote if you see where alot of them are going to purchase items.
4. A blog. Need I say more? Here not only can I expose people to my random art and products but I can also let them see where I live and enjoy my experiences in this world. And my equally random thoughts. I become a person. Albeit a person made of a series of words and paragraphs. Showing up on other blogs is also super awesome!
5. Other businesses. I do sell to other businesses, mostly business that are in the Alaska tourist industry. Sometimes they contact me, sometimes I contact them. I have sold artwork and health products both, though it is sometimes time consuming and sometimes stressful I found that this is a great opportunity to reach customers in other locations. I regularly send free samples or artwork samples out and work to build a continuous relationship with that business.
Other advice
~Be ready to embarrass yourself. 80% of the people I approach say no, I never see this as an insult just that they are not looking for my type of art or product. Rejection is education.
~Don't just build customers...build repeat customers. They will in turn promote your product and service. There are many many ways to do this the main ones being awesome service and awesome products.
~Be realistic about what you can and cannot do. I probably could spend 8 hours a day on the computer if I wanted but I know after a certain amount of time my focus drifts off. I also am aware of my I can produce in various amounts of time, I am still human.
~Educate yourself. Find things that inspire you to learn different things. Expand your horizons and knowledge base. This also keeps you from getting bored. I am an avid buyer of 'how to' books and I will eat up magazines. I also find other artists and business people and stalk them and mimic what I like so much about their business and art.
~Educate your customer. 80% of my customers are not from my culture, so they will need to know basic things that you might think everyone would know (in Alaska). It also promotes the uniqueness and amazing of your item. I have made it a goal to use my business to bring money into the villages, rather than selling to my village alone. This means that I will use less Inupiaq words and terminology when I write the descriptions of my product. Keep your customer in mind always. Imagine if you went to a different country...what would you want to know?
~Take good pictures. There are many many sources online for taking good pictures of your product and art. Use it.....your photos will be the ONLY connection to what you have to offer which can be a barrier.
~ Expect the ups and downs. For me I expect to take a hit in the tourist off season and get a surplus in the tourist season. As a consequence I tend to stash money and supplies like a ground squirrel.
~ Be a real business. Keep real records and learn what that means for you. I absolutely throw a fit every time the tax season rolls around. I stomp around the house and moan and complain. But I always do what I supposed to do to run a business, you don't want to get in trouble later. This also includes knowing the rules about buying and selling Native crafts. For way too much information you can visit the Alaska state site, and look up CITES.
Well that's the quick and dirty Business post! I hope it helped some and I would be happy to answer any questions I can. You can also post your info and contributions in the comments as I know all input is always valuable!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
The Q ......in Q & A ..... #2
I am l a very
small percentage of this blog. The rest is made up of incredibly kind
people that are willing to sometimes read my rambles. So I thought I
would start doing a 'Q and A' thing. Post your Question as comments to
this post and I will do my best to answer them in the next post! It can
be about anything!
And just to make this post less plain I'll add some photos of recent work!
And just to make this post less plain I'll add some photos of recent work!
 |
| polar bear fur and felt brooch |
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| a new skin balm for people with skin issues. made with stinkweed |
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| a scrimshaw baleen and stone necklace |
Friday, March 2, 2012
Meat Eating Enviromentalist ....
I am a rabid user of a service called 'Stumble Upon.' If you don't know what it is then it is worth seeing if you might enjoy it. It can steal several hours of your day though if you are not careful. Basically you sign up for it, check on the subjects you find interesting, and then it works to find the best websites/articles/news/etc. on the internet that you might like to view. One afternoon I found myself reading two separate articles on vegetarianism/vegan-ism. I find it as fascinating as I imagine people find my diet fascinating so I tend to always read these articles. One of the articles began by saying; "You cannot be a meat eating environmentalist."
Really?
It then went on to state that changing a people or culture to vegan-ism would create a more 'compassionate culture', and that vegan-ism is the 'natural order of human evolution.' I wish I had had the forethought to actually bookmark the article but I'm sure if you wanted to you can find many articles that say the same things online. I wrote a few notes to ponder over and moved on to other articles. but I found myself mulling over these sentiments in the last few days, and since a blog is perfect for public mulling......
The arguments for encouraging vegan-ism are valid. Living in California I often found myself driving by the 'Happy Cows' section of the state. Thousands (millions?) of animals are stuffed into small spaces and fed re-processed dead animal parts and pumped with hormones to make them mega milk producing and to make their fat marble. (As you can tell some of my best friends are vegans or vegetarians). I timed my trip once and it took me 30 minutes of driving 65 mph to escape the stench that these animals endured and created. The methane could be literally explosive. Forests all around the world are demolished to raise cattle. An ex-boyfriends mom used to work at a modern slaughter plant, and she said she still had horrible nightmares of the place. So yeah.
But then I think of those tiny stickers I find on my vegetables and fruit at the grocery store. You know the ones that say another countries name? How else would I be able to buy 3/4 of my veggies in the winter, if they did not come from warmer countries across the globe? And I have to wonder exactly under what humane conditions these farms have. Do they pay their workers well? Did they destroy acres of forest to plant these plants? What impact did this one banana I bought at Fred Meyers have on the natural world? Unfortunately none of that information is on that tiny round sticker.
The argument that vegans are more compassionate as a whole is probably just a selling line, like something that would be dreamed up on the show Mad Men. But it really bothers me that people automatically assume that if you kill animals then you must be less compassionate. To me it is the complete opposite. Compassion is almost always defined as being able to identify with another beings pain, and the need to alleviate or lessen it. To be a good Inupiaq hunter you must always be in the mind of compassion, you must always work towards creating a situation that maxes out on the compassion level. You must be aware of what pain you cause. Your guns must be cleaned and sighted in. You must have the ingrained physical memory to adjust your aim for wind, weather, distance, and circumstances, which demands hours and days of practice and training. You must know every single behavior, trend, and instinct of the animal you are hunting. Your gear and vehicle must be in shape, as well as your body to go where the animals are. Every single thing we do all year long is to ensure that the animals we harvest are taken quickly and efficiently, without waste of our resources, without allowing an animal to be in unneeded suffering. I once watched my husband run after a caribou for 5 hours straight to put done a bull that was wounded, but we thought nothing of it, besides making sure that it would never happen again. To me that is compassion, knowing what impact you are having and ensuring that it involves as little pain as possible, and feeling that bit of guilt and changing your behavior accordingly. Compassion is an act.
Of course this doesn't mean that I encourage everyone to grab a gun and go out hunting. But if you have the opportunity to use meat from a hunter or small local farm, or eggs from that neighbor down the street, or even just ask around and see if you have options for a once a week fish dinner, it can lead you to a more compassionate life. In my opinion.
I consider myself to be an environmentalist type (not Lucy Lawless environmentalist though). Simply because my own health and well being depend on what is going on in the environment. Most of my family, including my mother, died of cancer. And it is generally believed it is because of what exists in our environment today, the chemicals and imbalances. The arctic tundra does not forget or process toxins the same way most places do, it tends to become more concentrated as it goes up the food chain...into our stomachs. A lake here has always been a source of winter ice for drinking for generations, but a couple years ago it was declared as 'toxic' and hazardous. Apparently the military stored some not very well protected liquids like gasoline near the lake and it leached into the ground. The military had a weird thing about dumping massive amounts of gas in barrels all across the tundra, like a toxic pepper. Me and my husband joke around and say we should start a line of camo clothing that makes you look like a rusted out metal barrel, because they are so incredibly numerous. A good book to read if you are a history buff is The Firecracker Boys by Dan O'neill, which talks about the beginnings of the Inupiaq Environmentalist movement here in Alaska....
What I always advocate to people is this: Know where your food came from and how, and reduce your burden on the food type exchange as much as possible. Living in the rural village makes it possible for me to get meat and food that is almost as pure as you can get it, but it also makes us dependent on other foods that we don't really know where they come from and that even contribute to the unhealthy environment here. Like a can of ravioli. A gallon of milk. Or a microwave pizza. Alaska imports most of it's food, and so it's almost impossible to purchase anything at the store in the winter that has come through knowledgeable means.
I think this is why I am moving towards growing a garden, to maybe ease some of that imaginary guilt. We are also discussing getting some chickens, both for meat and eggs. We hopefully can produce enough for us and a little for family here in AKP. But I figure that anything we do will help.
So can you be a Meat Eating Environmentalist? Absolutely..... After all we are all on a diet of souls, whether they be fauna or flora.
For those that would like to try some gardening (even just a container or two in your kitchen) you can find Alaska approved seeds here at Denali Seed Company.
Really?
It then went on to state that changing a people or culture to vegan-ism would create a more 'compassionate culture', and that vegan-ism is the 'natural order of human evolution.' I wish I had had the forethought to actually bookmark the article but I'm sure if you wanted to you can find many articles that say the same things online. I wrote a few notes to ponder over and moved on to other articles. but I found myself mulling over these sentiments in the last few days, and since a blog is perfect for public mulling......
The arguments for encouraging vegan-ism are valid. Living in California I often found myself driving by the 'Happy Cows' section of the state. Thousands (millions?) of animals are stuffed into small spaces and fed re-processed dead animal parts and pumped with hormones to make them mega milk producing and to make their fat marble. (As you can tell some of my best friends are vegans or vegetarians). I timed my trip once and it took me 30 minutes of driving 65 mph to escape the stench that these animals endured and created. The methane could be literally explosive. Forests all around the world are demolished to raise cattle. An ex-boyfriends mom used to work at a modern slaughter plant, and she said she still had horrible nightmares of the place. So yeah.
But then I think of those tiny stickers I find on my vegetables and fruit at the grocery store. You know the ones that say another countries name? How else would I be able to buy 3/4 of my veggies in the winter, if they did not come from warmer countries across the globe? And I have to wonder exactly under what humane conditions these farms have. Do they pay their workers well? Did they destroy acres of forest to plant these plants? What impact did this one banana I bought at Fred Meyers have on the natural world? Unfortunately none of that information is on that tiny round sticker.
The argument that vegans are more compassionate as a whole is probably just a selling line, like something that would be dreamed up on the show Mad Men. But it really bothers me that people automatically assume that if you kill animals then you must be less compassionate. To me it is the complete opposite. Compassion is almost always defined as being able to identify with another beings pain, and the need to alleviate or lessen it. To be a good Inupiaq hunter you must always be in the mind of compassion, you must always work towards creating a situation that maxes out on the compassion level. You must be aware of what pain you cause. Your guns must be cleaned and sighted in. You must have the ingrained physical memory to adjust your aim for wind, weather, distance, and circumstances, which demands hours and days of practice and training. You must know every single behavior, trend, and instinct of the animal you are hunting. Your gear and vehicle must be in shape, as well as your body to go where the animals are. Every single thing we do all year long is to ensure that the animals we harvest are taken quickly and efficiently, without waste of our resources, without allowing an animal to be in unneeded suffering. I once watched my husband run after a caribou for 5 hours straight to put done a bull that was wounded, but we thought nothing of it, besides making sure that it would never happen again. To me that is compassion, knowing what impact you are having and ensuring that it involves as little pain as possible, and feeling that bit of guilt and changing your behavior accordingly. Compassion is an act.
Of course this doesn't mean that I encourage everyone to grab a gun and go out hunting. But if you have the opportunity to use meat from a hunter or small local farm, or eggs from that neighbor down the street, or even just ask around and see if you have options for a once a week fish dinner, it can lead you to a more compassionate life. In my opinion.
I consider myself to be an environmentalist type (not Lucy Lawless environmentalist though). Simply because my own health and well being depend on what is going on in the environment. Most of my family, including my mother, died of cancer. And it is generally believed it is because of what exists in our environment today, the chemicals and imbalances. The arctic tundra does not forget or process toxins the same way most places do, it tends to become more concentrated as it goes up the food chain...into our stomachs. A lake here has always been a source of winter ice for drinking for generations, but a couple years ago it was declared as 'toxic' and hazardous. Apparently the military stored some not very well protected liquids like gasoline near the lake and it leached into the ground. The military had a weird thing about dumping massive amounts of gas in barrels all across the tundra, like a toxic pepper. Me and my husband joke around and say we should start a line of camo clothing that makes you look like a rusted out metal barrel, because they are so incredibly numerous. A good book to read if you are a history buff is The Firecracker Boys by Dan O'neill, which talks about the beginnings of the Inupiaq Environmentalist movement here in Alaska....
What I always advocate to people is this: Know where your food came from and how, and reduce your burden on the food type exchange as much as possible. Living in the rural village makes it possible for me to get meat and food that is almost as pure as you can get it, but it also makes us dependent on other foods that we don't really know where they come from and that even contribute to the unhealthy environment here. Like a can of ravioli. A gallon of milk. Or a microwave pizza. Alaska imports most of it's food, and so it's almost impossible to purchase anything at the store in the winter that has come through knowledgeable means.
I think this is why I am moving towards growing a garden, to maybe ease some of that imaginary guilt. We are also discussing getting some chickens, both for meat and eggs. We hopefully can produce enough for us and a little for family here in AKP. But I figure that anything we do will help.
So can you be a Meat Eating Environmentalist? Absolutely..... After all we are all on a diet of souls, whether they be fauna or flora.
For those that would like to try some gardening (even just a container or two in your kitchen) you can find Alaska approved seeds here at Denali Seed Company.
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| a picture of my mother and my uncle as teenagers |
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| my husband and me took a ride into the valley |
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Lemming....
This short story is based on a ancient oral story past down for many generations. It describes the origin of the little brown song birds that migrate up to the arctic for the warmer months. They are quite plain these birds, though their origins are not.
The Lemming
by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
Lemmings don't really have names. Instead, as you can imagine, we have a set of complex scents we carry with us to identify ourselves to each other. Pockets of aromatic air that if translated would be paragraphs and paragraphs of information and history-and maybe even tiny lemming thoughts.
I am such a lemming. A northern arctic cousin of the mouse. And my name. Well my name is...Want.
It's not a normal lemming name, not a normal lemming scent. It's a mixture of so many smells and so many places and so many experiences that it speaks of only one thing-want. The need to explore, to be something different. To search, to reveal, to examine.
Today I was close to starving. Spring had finally arrived, bringing with it that span of days when the food is scarce. The winter food stores I had carefully hidden were drained, and the sun, still heavy from sleep, hadn't gotten around to melting the snow fully and coaxing the plants to waken. So I decided to check the food burrows that I keep for emergencies, far from my usual haunts.
It was a long journey. And it took me some time to remember the paths. Some paths were blocked by melting slabs of snow and I had to scramble round them, marking my trail with tiny bites and teeth nicks in plants and sticks, leaving faint marks of my saliva so I could retrace my steps if I needed to. Even these marks smelled of Want. And maybe a tad bit of Wish, too.
I did not like where I was going. Most times these underground holes that I laboriously filled with sweet bulbs and roots of the bistort plant were raided. They always looked like they’d exploded from the earth, leaving a wide opening which would fill with ice, and then water as the ice slowly melted. They almost always smelled of Human. Humans all smell pretty much alike-like seal oil and predator fur, smoke, and the moisture they leak almost constantly.
These food stashes were near the Human dwellings, which is why they survived. No lemming likes being around Humans, and their Human things. Unlike Fox and Wolf and Owl, Humans are unpredictable. You never know if they are going to kill you-or make you a pet for their young.
I veered from my path to climb a small mound that rose above the tall grass by a foot or two. Only those who are destined to be arctic fox scat fail to sniff the winds. The wind hit my dense fur and made me shiver. Sunlight warmed my back and made my scent stronger. I quickly inhaled the smells and cupped my ears to catch the drifting noise. My hair stood on end as I risked being spotted by a predator. The winds told me I was close to the Human dwelling. I could see it nearby, a dark tall mound in the distance. Close to my stores. I heard the quick snap of wings above me and froze, but is was only a bouncing Snowbird as he joyously tossed himself into the winds. Snowbirds are the heralds of Spring, strikingly marked in contrasting black and white. They call to each other with warm voices that seem to pry the ice from the ground.
I tucked myself low on top of the mound, hiding my feet and ears as I tried to look as small and as unobtrusive as possible. I wanted a moment to watch the birds. They fascinate me. With deft and fragile movements they hop from place to place, wings sharp and precise, molding the air to their purpose. I blinked as my eyes watered a bit. Deep in my triple soul I felt something melt, I felt it melt and warm and recognize something in these birds.
My name rang on the winds. Want. Part of me smelled like the birds, it smelled liked the wind under their wings. It smelled like the sun warmed drafts rising to carry a tiny body. I blinked again as my eyes watered more. My tiny brain was working hard to understand what was happening.
Then I realized: I wanted to fly!
I closed my eyes against the pain of the thought, as it made my already racing heart beat faster. It was such a foolish thought. A thought that went against every thread that was my tiny being, yet it still ripped through me as if it were put there by something other than myself. I recognized it as a dangerous thing.
I pulled my warm front paws from under my plain brown fur and looked at them. They were not wings. They were nimble paws made for nimble things, but they were never wings. I took some time to clean the thought of flying from my fur with careful licks, certain that if I ran into my kin they would smell it and be afraid of it, foreign as it was. Things that were different did not survive long in my world; conformity meant safety and predictability. If I could have sighed, I would have sighed. I would have released that breath of air that contained my name.
Sure that there was little of The Thought left on my fur, I dashed back to the path that wove its way through the dry, winter drained grass. A few more moments and I would be at my store of sweet bistort bulbs. The grass above me snapped as a Snowbird dove at an insect trying to find shelter in the grass. I looked up and saw the bird perch on the Human Dwelling. The bright blue sky glowed behind it. The bird cocked its head at me, regarding me first with one eye, then the other. It chirped a brief greeting. Then slowly and deliberately it hopped to the edge of the dwelling, cast itself into the air, and fell a full breathtaking span before spreading its wings wide to catch its fall.
It was like the bird was trying to tell me something. A secret maybe? Like why my name was so different? I paused in the grass, hunching my body as small as it would get, trying to hide while the message soaked into my being. The smell of that painful thought bloomed again.
Jump.
If I could have shrugged, I would have shrugged. With a blurring speed that is only gifted to arctic prey, I scuttled towards the human dwelling, and, sooner than I thought possible, I was at its base. It rose high above me, but I was not afraid. I knew the fall would not kill me, as we lemmings are tiny and tough beings. No, the height did not bother me at all. It was the risk I would be taking by exposing myself to predators that frightened me. The fear curled itself around my middle and made my heart race. I did not want to get eaten by Snowy Owl. Or Raven. Or even clever Fox. Every cell in my body screamed for me to hide. Thousands of years of evolution fought with the tiny new electrical sparks in my tiny tiny brain.
I looked at my paws again, flexed the almost Human like fingers, and then began climbing the towering mound. In no time at all I was at the top, sitting hunched in the same spot where I’d seen the bird earlier. I shivered at the exposure. I scooted to the edge and looked down. I saw, far below me, a bowl made of wood. A human tool. It was filled with a gleaming thick amber fluid; the heavy smell of seal rose from it like a cloud. I had seen the Humans eat this substance, use it to create fire. They treated it with reverence, this oil, and you almost never saw them without it nearby. It glistened and waited for me. At least I thought of it as waiting for me.
I hunched down into myself at the edge of the dwelling, letting the sun warm my fur as it gathered the scent of seal oil in its strands. I needed to know what my name was. With a panicked jerky movement I flung myself over the edge of the mound. My body stiffened as the world fell away and the wind forced my eyes and ears to close. My heart stopped. I held my breath. And I dropped. It did not take long, as I wasn't extremely high off the ground, and I was but a tiny bit of being. When I hit the surface of the seal oil it felt hard as rock. Then it suddenly softened. I took a quick breath before it took me under. I panicked for a split second till I felt the bottom of the bowl beneath my feet. It was shallow enough that I could just reach my nose above the oil to take quick, rapid, painful breaths. Legs skidding on the slick bowl, I made my way slowly to the edge. As I reached the rim a small amount of the strong smelling oil seeped into my lungs and burnt its way into my body making my lungs work hard to try and cough it back up. The world spun and sparkled a bit, and I tasted blood and green shoots on my tongue. The air warmed and made the oil clinging to me loosen its grip.
Once I stopped coughing I leaned against the rim of the bowl and reached a paw out to grab its thick edge. But what came out of the oil wasn't my paw. Instead it was an oil-sodden wing. A brown wing. A brown speckled wing. I flexed my feet under me and launched myself out of the murky golden fluid. My feet clamped tight to the rim of the bowl. They felt odd to me. Gone were my familiar five fingered, weak paws. Instead, very long, clawed and incredibly muscular claws clung to the wood. I flapped my wings-wings!-shaking the last of the seal oil from their sleek surfaces. I pumped them up and down till I felt my body rise, and then I loosened my clawed grip from the edge of the bowl. Though my mind tried to hold me back my body knew what to do. With a shiver I shed all of me that was a Lemming. I felt the hold that name had on me slip from my soul like the oil slipped from my beautiful wings. And I took to the sky in an explosion of glorious golden song that burst from my brown throat. In an instant I had forgotten that I was ever a lemming. And truly, only my color reminded the world of what I once was.
Birds don't really have names, but if we did then my name would be ......
The Lemming
by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
Lemmings don't really have names. Instead, as you can imagine, we have a set of complex scents we carry with us to identify ourselves to each other. Pockets of aromatic air that if translated would be paragraphs and paragraphs of information and history-and maybe even tiny lemming thoughts.
I am such a lemming. A northern arctic cousin of the mouse. And my name. Well my name is...Want.
It's not a normal lemming name, not a normal lemming scent. It's a mixture of so many smells and so many places and so many experiences that it speaks of only one thing-want. The need to explore, to be something different. To search, to reveal, to examine.
Today I was close to starving. Spring had finally arrived, bringing with it that span of days when the food is scarce. The winter food stores I had carefully hidden were drained, and the sun, still heavy from sleep, hadn't gotten around to melting the snow fully and coaxing the plants to waken. So I decided to check the food burrows that I keep for emergencies, far from my usual haunts.
It was a long journey. And it took me some time to remember the paths. Some paths were blocked by melting slabs of snow and I had to scramble round them, marking my trail with tiny bites and teeth nicks in plants and sticks, leaving faint marks of my saliva so I could retrace my steps if I needed to. Even these marks smelled of Want. And maybe a tad bit of Wish, too.
I did not like where I was going. Most times these underground holes that I laboriously filled with sweet bulbs and roots of the bistort plant were raided. They always looked like they’d exploded from the earth, leaving a wide opening which would fill with ice, and then water as the ice slowly melted. They almost always smelled of Human. Humans all smell pretty much alike-like seal oil and predator fur, smoke, and the moisture they leak almost constantly.
These food stashes were near the Human dwellings, which is why they survived. No lemming likes being around Humans, and their Human things. Unlike Fox and Wolf and Owl, Humans are unpredictable. You never know if they are going to kill you-or make you a pet for their young.
I veered from my path to climb a small mound that rose above the tall grass by a foot or two. Only those who are destined to be arctic fox scat fail to sniff the winds. The wind hit my dense fur and made me shiver. Sunlight warmed my back and made my scent stronger. I quickly inhaled the smells and cupped my ears to catch the drifting noise. My hair stood on end as I risked being spotted by a predator. The winds told me I was close to the Human dwelling. I could see it nearby, a dark tall mound in the distance. Close to my stores. I heard the quick snap of wings above me and froze, but is was only a bouncing Snowbird as he joyously tossed himself into the winds. Snowbirds are the heralds of Spring, strikingly marked in contrasting black and white. They call to each other with warm voices that seem to pry the ice from the ground.
I tucked myself low on top of the mound, hiding my feet and ears as I tried to look as small and as unobtrusive as possible. I wanted a moment to watch the birds. They fascinate me. With deft and fragile movements they hop from place to place, wings sharp and precise, molding the air to their purpose. I blinked as my eyes watered a bit. Deep in my triple soul I felt something melt, I felt it melt and warm and recognize something in these birds.
My name rang on the winds. Want. Part of me smelled like the birds, it smelled liked the wind under their wings. It smelled like the sun warmed drafts rising to carry a tiny body. I blinked again as my eyes watered more. My tiny brain was working hard to understand what was happening.
Then I realized: I wanted to fly!
I closed my eyes against the pain of the thought, as it made my already racing heart beat faster. It was such a foolish thought. A thought that went against every thread that was my tiny being, yet it still ripped through me as if it were put there by something other than myself. I recognized it as a dangerous thing.
I pulled my warm front paws from under my plain brown fur and looked at them. They were not wings. They were nimble paws made for nimble things, but they were never wings. I took some time to clean the thought of flying from my fur with careful licks, certain that if I ran into my kin they would smell it and be afraid of it, foreign as it was. Things that were different did not survive long in my world; conformity meant safety and predictability. If I could have sighed, I would have sighed. I would have released that breath of air that contained my name.
Sure that there was little of The Thought left on my fur, I dashed back to the path that wove its way through the dry, winter drained grass. A few more moments and I would be at my store of sweet bistort bulbs. The grass above me snapped as a Snowbird dove at an insect trying to find shelter in the grass. I looked up and saw the bird perch on the Human Dwelling. The bright blue sky glowed behind it. The bird cocked its head at me, regarding me first with one eye, then the other. It chirped a brief greeting. Then slowly and deliberately it hopped to the edge of the dwelling, cast itself into the air, and fell a full breathtaking span before spreading its wings wide to catch its fall.
It was like the bird was trying to tell me something. A secret maybe? Like why my name was so different? I paused in the grass, hunching my body as small as it would get, trying to hide while the message soaked into my being. The smell of that painful thought bloomed again.
Jump.
If I could have shrugged, I would have shrugged. With a blurring speed that is only gifted to arctic prey, I scuttled towards the human dwelling, and, sooner than I thought possible, I was at its base. It rose high above me, but I was not afraid. I knew the fall would not kill me, as we lemmings are tiny and tough beings. No, the height did not bother me at all. It was the risk I would be taking by exposing myself to predators that frightened me. The fear curled itself around my middle and made my heart race. I did not want to get eaten by Snowy Owl. Or Raven. Or even clever Fox. Every cell in my body screamed for me to hide. Thousands of years of evolution fought with the tiny new electrical sparks in my tiny tiny brain.
I looked at my paws again, flexed the almost Human like fingers, and then began climbing the towering mound. In no time at all I was at the top, sitting hunched in the same spot where I’d seen the bird earlier. I shivered at the exposure. I scooted to the edge and looked down. I saw, far below me, a bowl made of wood. A human tool. It was filled with a gleaming thick amber fluid; the heavy smell of seal rose from it like a cloud. I had seen the Humans eat this substance, use it to create fire. They treated it with reverence, this oil, and you almost never saw them without it nearby. It glistened and waited for me. At least I thought of it as waiting for me.
I hunched down into myself at the edge of the dwelling, letting the sun warm my fur as it gathered the scent of seal oil in its strands. I needed to know what my name was. With a panicked jerky movement I flung myself over the edge of the mound. My body stiffened as the world fell away and the wind forced my eyes and ears to close. My heart stopped. I held my breath. And I dropped. It did not take long, as I wasn't extremely high off the ground, and I was but a tiny bit of being. When I hit the surface of the seal oil it felt hard as rock. Then it suddenly softened. I took a quick breath before it took me under. I panicked for a split second till I felt the bottom of the bowl beneath my feet. It was shallow enough that I could just reach my nose above the oil to take quick, rapid, painful breaths. Legs skidding on the slick bowl, I made my way slowly to the edge. As I reached the rim a small amount of the strong smelling oil seeped into my lungs and burnt its way into my body making my lungs work hard to try and cough it back up. The world spun and sparkled a bit, and I tasted blood and green shoots on my tongue. The air warmed and made the oil clinging to me loosen its grip.
Once I stopped coughing I leaned against the rim of the bowl and reached a paw out to grab its thick edge. But what came out of the oil wasn't my paw. Instead it was an oil-sodden wing. A brown wing. A brown speckled wing. I flexed my feet under me and launched myself out of the murky golden fluid. My feet clamped tight to the rim of the bowl. They felt odd to me. Gone were my familiar five fingered, weak paws. Instead, very long, clawed and incredibly muscular claws clung to the wood. I flapped my wings-wings!-shaking the last of the seal oil from their sleek surfaces. I pumped them up and down till I felt my body rise, and then I loosened my clawed grip from the edge of the bowl. Though my mind tried to hold me back my body knew what to do. With a shiver I shed all of me that was a Lemming. I felt the hold that name had on me slip from my soul like the oil slipped from my beautiful wings. And I took to the sky in an explosion of glorious golden song that burst from my brown throat. In an instant I had forgotten that I was ever a lemming. And truly, only my color reminded the world of what I once was.
Birds don't really have names, but if we did then my name would be ......
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Fireweed....
One
of my projects this winter will be compiling and organizing information
and photos for a 'Anaktuvuk guide to plants' thing I am putting
together, which is going to take me years and years but you have to
start some where right? I do it only for my own sanity! I thought it
would be neat to post some info and a couple photos of various plants I
am learning about. This is not going to be gospel people, I am not a
scientist or expert on herbal anything and I m not diagnosing a darn
thing. Insert your expected disclaimer here.
This post is about Fireweed. Also known as Epilobium Angustifolium and in Inupiaq, quppiqutaq. this is one of those plants that I am really enjoying getting to know. It grows all across Alaska, but for some reason I do not remember seeing it growing up on the coast (it's not really found in the northern parts of AK either). When I first moved here I was blown away by how showy and large and vibrant the flowers were, and for some reason it struck me as just being 'pretty.' But I was wrong!
This plant got it's name because it usually the first thing to grow in a place that has just been burned by fire. The young shoots that grow are usually a purplish color and are eaten in salads, fried, steamed, or traditionally here dipped in seal oil. Traditionally these shoots were not stored for winter but were eaten as soon as they showed up. I haven't actually tried a shoot yet because for some reason I always miss that stage of growth. By the time I remember it they are already too old to eat, it happens pretty fast here!
Pretty much all of this plant is edible before it flowers. The young leaves are good in salads or in mixed greens, and can also be used as a medicinal tea. The leaves make a very tasty pale green tea that has soothing and physically calming effects good for sleeping problems and even coughing, and can also be used as a mild laxative. In Russia they call this tea 'Kapor' tea. The leaves also can be used to treat skin issues, like acne and infected insect bites and such. The flowers themselves you can make into amazing jelly or 'honey' that has a surprising citrus taste and a really pretty color to it.
You can also eat the pith of the stem and it is said to have a sweet taste. The one thing I did notice is that the taste of fireweed changes according to location. I have tasted some that were very sweet and others that were pretty bitter.
You can used the dried stringy bits of fireweed stem to weave twine for nets and such, though I haven't tried it yet. When fireweed goes to seed the fluffy stuff is really great tinder, and can even be used as a insulator for blankets and boots. They say that when fireweed goes to seed then it '6 weeks till winter.' I don't know if it's true but it always seems like it is!
Fireweed comes in a dwarf version also that is short and close to the ground and seems to like the river beds the most. It is used in pretty much the same way as it's larger cousin. Both plants are adored by bees and other flying flower lovers...which makes it interesting to pick!
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| fireweed growing near a bolder in the vallye here. |
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| close up of the bloom |
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| fireweed gone to seed |
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| vibrant fireweed jelly |
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