Kiliii Yuyan Photographer

ABOUT BLOG TEARSHEETS CONTACT ACQUIRE PRINTS FEATURED/People of the Whale MOTION/Prayer for the Whale MOTION/Teshekpuk Lake MOTION/Arctic Autumn EDITORIAL/Gates of the Arctic EDITORIAL/Arctic Flyway EDITORIAL/Women of the Iditarod EDITORIAL/Masks of Grief and Joy EDITORIAL/Rare Earth Greenland EDITORIAL/Living Wild EDITORIAL/Navajo Nation EDITORIAL/Rewilding Patagonia EDITORIAL/Lugu Lake EDITORIAL/Greenland Renewed EDITORIAL/The Arctic Refuge EDITORIAL/Standing Rock EDITORIAL/The Arctic Falcon FINE ART/Chukotka FINE ART/Islandia EDITORIAL/California Indigenous Fire FEATURED/Rumors of Arctic Belonging FINE ART/Tundra FINE ART/Cnidarians PUBLIC SPEAKING/NatGeo Season of the Whale PUBLIC SPEAKING/George Eastman Museum PUBLIC SPEAKING/NatGeo Kiliii & Jen Samuel

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Billy Okpeaha, a 15 year-old aspiring whaler, throws a hunk of ice out of the path of his crew's skinboat. For the young people of town, whaling is a sense of identity and purpose. It also keeps them out of trouble. The public defender for the Alaskan Iñupiaq villages notes, "During the whaling seasons, probably four months of the year, crime becomes nonexistent. All the young men are out whaling."

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