The land and its people exist between the edges of charted perception, in the most extreme of environments. Early spring may be a time of renewal for most of the Northern Hemisphere, but it's dying time in Chukotka. Winter cyclones still prowl the tundra, the wind-chill factor still hits 100 below, and doctors still travel from village to village, amputating frostbitten fingers and toes. Though not the coldest or darkest period of winter in Chukotka, the crossover weeks from March to April are among the most harrowing for the Yupik Eskimo and Chukchi tribes who populate the peninsula. Their winter stores of heating oil and food are nearly exhausted.
Famine is their shadow beneath the ashen Arctic sun.
They have only to ready their weapons and wait for the whales to return. Every summer, more than 20,000 Eastern Pacific gray whales pass Chukotka to and from their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas. The grays gorge on bottom-dwelling crustaceans, then depart for the lagoons of Mexico's Baja Peninsula in the fall, when the northern seas begin to freeze. For most of their 12,000-mile migration up and down the Pacific Coast, gray whales are a tourist attraction, protected by international law. Once they reach Chukotka, they're food.