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Sunday, Sep 07, 2008
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Blood and guts under the midnight sun |
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| Blood and guts under the midnight sun | |
| by Rev. Barbara Allen, CMP -
SGN Contributing Writer It had been a warm, hot, humid evening during which they'd waited patiently for the time to come. Old Grandmother tended the Olympic flame in what looked like a hollowed out slab of black rock, adding seal oil as needed, bits of lichen for an ongoing wick, pushing the lichen around with a spruce splinter. Now, someone else was needed to tend the flame, as her grandmother's before her had tended it. Her place was at the seal skinning competition at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics (WEIO). She joined ten other people, knelt on the floor, and with them, each to their own carcass, proceeded to skin an entire seal as quickly as possible. She did not win the contest, but finished in an impressive few minutes. Then, she gifted me with the carcass, and I in turn, gifted another woman who wished to have it, the seal skin. A young father and athlete, Jose Sanchez, good naturedly helped get the heavy carcass into the car for me in its own plastic bag. I went back into the arena to get Dusty, my traveling companion, who'd lost track of where I was but later said she'd suspected what might be happening with foreboding (note: a seals diet is mostly fish, and a seal carcass has a strong fishy smell). She did not wish to share the car, certainly not the front seat, with a seal carcass, but as she'd packed the rear of the Saturn deck to ceiling liner, with "necessities" even before we'd left Washington, I expressed it might be her karma&(which didn't make me any brownie points). However, I couldn't drive sitting on a seal or with one under my feet, so, I drove us home in the dusk-like 2 a.m. light, with windows open to dissipate the stench. Somehow Dusty lifted the body out of the car and onto the picnic table outside our motor home before I could change clothes, apron up, and help carry it. We put an additional plastic bag and newspaper underneath the carcass. I assisted, holding a flashlight, sharpening and re-sharpening knives. Reminding her that it was after 3 a.m. local time, and everyone was asleep, I did not want to awaken them and possibly deal with what someone might mistake for a gory homicide. Swarms of mosquitoes, presented with a rich source of blood, perversely attacked us, not the dead mammal. Dusty, a retired physician spoke quietly while she worked, as though instructing unseen interns and residents in an outdoor hospital operating theater as she went about what was being done moment to moment: "First a clean cut from the breast bone to the pubis, than split the chest on one side of the breast bone. Opening the chest cavity by fracturing the vertebral attachment of the ribs. The esophagus and trachea was isolated and transected high in the neck. The chest cavity evacuated &abdominal cavity emptied of stomach and intestines and excised perirectally so&" And so it went in great scientific anatomical detail, as, in short, she gutted, quartered and dissected the seal with surgical precision under challenging conditions. I had a general idea of what she was talking about and thought about videotaping it using Night Shot on my Sony camcorder, but the mosquitoes were getting the better of me outside in the dark and my assistance amidst the bloody task was needed. We then brought the four pieces into the RV overfilling the tiny kitchen with them. While I began boning procedures, she carefully wrapped up the mess from the outside table, put it into a plastic sack, sealed it, and walked it far away to another part of the RV park for dumpster deposit. We both then proceeded to bone the meat off the carcass, and refrigerate what didn't need to fit into the few cooking pots and wok which had been fired up regardless of the heat. The air conditioners labored on, the stove top exhaust fan spun as fast as it could. I put into our largest pot the rib and other bones letting them simmer overnight with some red wine vinegar and a bay leaf, the small exhaust fan spun on as the night was warm, and the odor intense. Dusty, at age 76, remained a good surgeon to have around for serendipitous opportunities. She'd gone from trepidation to fascination and being a good sport. I wondered if the neighbors would be awakened by the smell, but by 5 a.m., I didn't care. I collapsed into my bunk and slept, exhausted. I thought, drifting off, about women tending the northern peoples' Olympic flame from one generation to the next and the easy-going good nature and sharing of the arctic people. Dusty thought about how to process the bones into specimens for her exotic bone collection back home, a task that went on for many days. I thought about the best way to preserve and get the meat product home. The WEIO concluded for us with the seal skinning event. We missed an important Fairbanks parade the next morning, sleeping in, but managed to attend much of the multi-tribal afternoon Pow Wow behind Carlson Center the next afternoon, Sunday. Later that evening, I worked uploading photographs from our digital memory cards. We moved the refrigerated freezer packs of meat into the tiny freezer somehow. Dusty was expert about fully loading any available space, car, freezer, frig, RV, you name it. (It took several days to almost get rid of the fish stench using lots of fresh circulating air and Febreeze on all porous surfaces, until we got to Ninilchik and began catching/cooking halibut.) The next morning, Monday, we were ready to experience the greater Fairbanks area, intending to remain only a few days, but lingering on for more than a week because of local marvels and attractions. |
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