Maria made arrangements for us to take a tour with Jim Tidwell. It turns out that we are the last tour this guy will ever give because the Tribal Council is buying him out and the deal closes tomorrow. Bunna is the fellow who will manage the business tomorrow and will conduct our tour today. 

The best information I can give you about Bunna may all be wrong. Unless he reads this page and sends me an email to correct the misinformation, this is my best guess. 

He is 27 and knows a heck of a lot of history and native culture. He gives great tour.  As you will see, it is quite an adventure.

Bunna (right) and Diana  (left) and the  vehicle we are riding in. The van is specially built for these tours. It  has big tires with only  10 pounds pressure. He can drive it almost anywhere.

We went from tundra to sand and gravel and he never got stuck. He never even made us nervous, which, as you will see from the rest of the day, was quite a feat. 

Our intrepid group. We sure look adventurous, don't we?

All things considered,  this was the most, perhaps only,  normal  moment of the tour.

One of the good things about having a guide who lives here is that he knows really weird stuff.

He told us a lot about the indigenous plant life and let us eat the roots of a little flower. 

I'm not sure if people really do this or if they just say they do to have something to tell the family at Sunday dinner. 

I hope we're not a joke around the Bunna dinner table this week. 

Give Perry a macro lens and he'll get up close and personal with just about anything. 

I'll stand around taking pictures of him taking pictures and write disrespectful captions later. I am not getting down on my knees in the Alaskan tundra.

I'm not sure what he is showing us. It could be the plant we ate or some weird sea creature. 

I sure hope we don't wind up as a topic of laughter around the Bunna Family Table.

Perry, Bunna and the new kid, Aaron, all inspect something on the tundra. Aaron is a Bunna In Training. 

He will start giving tours tomorrow.

Whatever they have found, I sure hope we don't have to eat it.

The jawbone of a whale. I'm sure glad my ancestors smote enemies with the jawbone of an ox. It would take ten guys to  lift this thing and we'd get hernia's before we could smite even one enemy. 

The little sign says we are at the top of the world. The only thing north of here is ice. 

A flock of King Eiders flying north for the summer. 

(I call them "Ray Eiders" for reasons only clear to Marie, Leslie, Ursula and a few others.)

Perry being pensive at the Point. There's a song title in there somewhere. 

I tried to get a pensive pose out of Maria but she don't need no stinkin' pensive.

I don't do pensive worth a diddly do.

Diana does good pensive, but Pensive Perry is still the Champeen.

Lots and lots of gulls live here. There are no "sea" gulls. These have some species name that I can't remember. Bunna has a list of the local flying things and has seen, and can identify,  most of them.

All I know is that birds have wings, seals have flippers and caribou have legs.

Jelly fish are cooler in Alaska than they are in San Diego. They are colorful and they swim where you can see them. 

Plus, the water is cool, too.

I know that Perry has nothing to worry about and doesn't need a big lens to compensate for other inadequacies. Marie seems impressed with him without the big lens. 

He is watching a Snowy Owl and waiting for the right moment. 

That is the biggest difference between Perry and me... I don't wait. I shoot everything and let God sort the pictures out.

Diana at the Top Of The World. She is being NanNookie of the North. She isn't cold. 

Neither is the sign.

My advertising shot of the van. If the tribal elders, council or whatever administrative body wants me to, I'll use this to make them some magnets.  

(An email request will suffice.) 

I get to hold the little sign to prove I came on the trip. 

I'm cold.

 So is the sign.