4 Wednesday, April 24, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Alaska natives show masterworks Sixty thousand filter- feeding baleen whales in the Pacific Ocean head north each spring, undertaking a great journey to reach the nutrient- rich waters of Alaska. They9ll migrate along the southeast- ern archipelago and southern coast of Alaska before passing through the Aleutian Island chain. There, they9ll turn north once more and swim up the Bering Sea to com- plete their 6,000-mile voyage before entering the richest phytoplankton waters of all, the Arctic Ocean. Along the way, the great behemoths swim by countless seals, sea otters, coastal brown bears, walrus, bald eagles, sea lions, and polar bears. Schools of herring and salmon swim underneath them; innumer- able flocks of waterfowl fly overhead. Along the shores of the Bering Sea, the first whale9s arrival arouses an innate longing within the tra- ditional peoples, one that has been occurring for millennia 4they9re irresistibly com- pelled to commence the hunt- ing seasons for all animals yet again. The Alaskan Native Peoples still closely follow the annual hunting cycle, although their equipment is mostly non-traditional now. Another change to their life- style is that certain parts of these animals get utilized as material for artwork that will be acquired by the outside world, artwork that respect- fully honors the world of, and their life in, the Far North. The 21 peoples compro- mising