Our jobs as schoolteachers took us there in 1990. At the time, fewer than 100 residents lived in this remote Inupiat village, where remnants of sod houses built with whale ribs for beams still stood.

Yugu Alfred Ningeok is the son of a whaling captain and a member of an Inupiat whaling crew. An umiak, or skin boat, carries a small team in pursuit of a whale. Hear more about camping on sea ice ...