NHA hosts Gallery Talk with Bill Hess,
photographer of the NHA exhibition
Gift of the Whale: The Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt—
A Sacred Tradition, on March 27
NANTUCKET MA: The Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) is pleased to present author and photographer, Bill Hess,at a lectureon Saturday, March 27, in the Peter Foulger Gallery of the Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street, 2 P.M. Free for NHA members, or with museum admission.
Hess, who documented the Alaska bowhead hunt in his book Gift of the Whale: The Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt— A Sacred Tradition, earned the trust of the Iñupiat community, and was invited to document the hunt. He will share his observations on photographing, and living among, the very private Iñupiat Eskimos, who have lived and hunted in the Arctic region of Alaska for 5,000 years.
Hess originally moved to Alaska in 1981 and participated in his first whale hunt in 1985. “I found the hunt to be a wonderful experience,” said Hess. “The whale brings much good to the people who hunt it, both physically and spiritually. From the beginning, the whale allowed the first people to thrive in Arctic Alaska; even today, the best of Arctic Alaskan traditions and activities are based on the hunting and sharing of the whale.”
The Iñupiat Eskimos lifestyle and survival is based on the bowhead whale hunt, which is not only their primary source of food, building materials, and barter goods, but of art, legends, and cultural identity.
His gallery talk will provide visitors with a glimpse into a contemporary society that owes its survival to the hunting of whales, not unlike the island of Nantucket at the height of the Golden Age of whaling.
Saturday, March 27, in the Peter Foulger Gallery of the Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street, 2 P.M. Free for NHA members, or with museum admission.
