Bruce Inglangasak scans the gleaming white coastal plain with expert eyes. He’s searching for caribou. Spring has finally come to the Arctic and the animals are starting to make their way down from the mountains. The villagers of Kaktovik greet the change in season with understandable enthusiasm. It’s been a long winter for this 300-strong Inupiaq village, perched at the edge of the Arctic Ocean where the sun doesn’t rise at all for three months and temperatures regularly reach -50°C.
Last week, Bruce made his first successful hunting trip of the year with two other men from the village. They returned with 12 caribou, 90 fish and a moose – a welcome feast of freshness after so many months living off food stored from last year’s harvest. Now the sun is beating down and as we travel towards the dramatic Brooks Range of mountains spiky tundra grass is starting to poke through the snow.
