LOREN HOLMES photographer

  • · contact
  • · portraits
  • · india
  • · kaktovik
  • · 2014 iditarod
  • alaska
Charles Brower, Jr helps butcher Kaktovik's first whale of the 2012. Women cut muktuk, or whale skin and blubber, for a feast celebrating Kaktovik's first whale of the year. Family and community members gather at the house of Joe Kaleak for a feast celebrating Kaktovik's first whale of the year. Joe Kaleak, Sr fixes a harpoon at his house. His son George Kaleak, Sr. caught the first whale of the year the day before. Isabel Kanayurak serves whale meat at a feast celebrating the first whale of the year in Kaktovik. Children play with an iPad at the feast celebrating Kaktovik's first whale of the year. Eddie Rexford pauses while butchering a Bowhead whale head on the beach in Kaktovik. Polar bears approach Karl Brower as he butchers a whale on the beach in Kaktovik. Kaktovik residents butcher a whale head on the beach in Kaktovik. Polar bears play on the beach in Kaktovik. Eddie Rexford butchering a bowhead whale head on the beach in Kaktovik. From left, Eddie Rexford, Karl Brower, and Jonas Mackenzie butcher a bowhead whale head on the beach in Kaktovik. Kaktovik residents butcher and distribute meat from a 44' bowhead whale, the first harvest of the year. Polar bears congregate around a Bowhead whale carcass on the beach in Kaktovik, Alaska. Sims store is one of three small stores in Kaktovik, offering an array of canned and frozen foods, but hardly any fresh items, and what they do offer is very expensive. Rev. Mary Ann Warden, second from right, leads her congregation in worship at the Kaktovik Presbyterian Church. They sing in both English and Inupiaq. Issac Akootchook, 90 years old, walks home after church in Kaktovik. Polar bears chase off a dog that escaped from its owner in Kaktovik. The village has one of the largest concentrations of polar bears in the world. The village of Kaktovik, on Alaska's North Slope, is the only permanent settlement in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's special 1002 area, where there is great oil and gas potential. A new subdivision on the outskirts of Kaktovik looks into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 1002 coastal plain.