What subsistence looks like at the Apassingok family table: Platter for all with walrus, whale and more from the Bering Sea

Fifth in a series about life on St. Lawrence Island. 

GAMBELL – A big, sturdy plastic tray like you might find in a cafeteria overflows with foods from the Bering Sea at Bunnie and Merle Apassingok's home.

It is at the center of a big wooden table and the center of busy lives built around the ocean and the land. Bunnie's mother gave it to her in 1987, when the couple was just starting a life together.

The tray doubles as serving platter and, as is tradition on St. Lawrence Island, a shared plate for all to reach into with eager fingers, says Bunnie, 49, whose English name is Rhona.

"We've been eating off of it almost every dinner," says Merle, 51. "It's older than all of our kids."

For this dinner, all five of their children are there, the ones grown and those still growing, and all four grandchildren too. There are 11 people in all, from 1-year-old Lena and her father, Herbert, 24, who hunted much of what the family will eat that night, on up to oldest daughter Uki, 27, who helped her mother cook much of the meal. Some days friends join, for an even bigger crowd.

Outside, the wind howls. Indoors, kids shoot baskets on a toy hoop. A granddaughter rides a tiny bike with training wheels.

Housing is in short supply here. Almost everyone still lives at home. Some sleep on mattresses in the living room, propped up during the day behind the sofa.

Walrus — meat, liver, heart and fat with skin — boils in one big pot. In another, a catch of small cod — nunaangiik in St. Lawrence Island Yupik — simmers gently. A scent that is meaty, fishy and rich fills the kitchen. Uki uses an ulaaq, as the curved knife is called on the island, to slice up bits of bowhead blubber and dark skin, the muktuk known here as mangtak.

"It's always good to have everyone home to eat," Bunnie says. She goes by a nickname for her Siberian Yupik name, Panisagaq, or Pani for short. In Yupik, a "p" sounds similar to the English letter "b."

A hunter for many

Herbert is taking steps toward the role of main provider. He captained the boat that caught the walrus, a job getting harder with disappearing sea ice. He jigged under ice for the tomcod. He was the second striker to harpoon the whale. He is a full-time subsistence hunter, and spring is his favorite time of year.

The shell of the harpoon bomb that killed the animal sits on top of a kitchen cabinet, just past the ceiling racks where the family hangs thin-sliced whale, seal and reindeer for quick-dried jerky. Sometimes walrus intestines are aged there too.

[Read more of the series: Stories from St. Lawrence Island]

People on remote St. Lawrence Island have always filled freezers, drying racks and barrels with what they collected and caught. Gambell is 200 air miles from Nome — the Bush hub on the mainland where prices still aren't cheap. Staples are marine mammals, and many nights, it's walrus for dinner.

At the village store, a quart of milk is $3.69. One day recently, the store had cucumbers and bell peppers, and no other fresh vegetables.

Once or twice a week, the Apassingoks have bought food: steak, spaghetti or maybe rice with ground beef. "Whatever the store has," Bunnie says.

With visitors in the home one night recently, she cooks a Bering Sea feast. It's an expanded version of typical island dinner fare.

Uki, who works as a teacher aide, peels the tough outer layer off clams. Give them a quick zap in the microwave and they'll be tender, Merle says. He's saving for another day a clam delicacy harvested from walrus stomachs, then rinsed clean.

"These are really, really good," he says of the stomach-tenderized clams. "They kind of microwave themselves inside the walrus stomach, but just enough."

He brings out more from the freezer, Ziploc bags stuffed with what locals call sea vegetables or seafoods. They are actually little animals called tunicates. Dozens of different small sea creatures wash ashore after fall storms. People walk along the shoreline, beachcombing their harvest.

"Broccoli and cauliflower," Merle jokes. The women slice up tukughnak, the Yupik name for this particular invertebrate. The pieces, sort of round and speckled brown, are sliced thin and eaten raw. They are best fresh. These were frozen. They taste salty and like the sea, a sort of fishy potato.

A son, Alejandro, pours soy sauce and ketchup into tiny dipping bowls. There's mayonnaise for the fish and seasoned salt for whatever needs it.

Ipi, a 5-year-old granddaughter, plucks a fish eye for a quick taste.

"Mom! I want to eat the eye!" another grandchild, Ryder, age 4, exclaims.

What do these pea-sized eyes taste like?

Merle pauses, thinking on that. "Like fish eyes!"

Hard-working family

For years, Merle was the Gambell high school basketball coach. He returned this school year as an assistant for the King Polar Bears, also known as the Qughsatkut. The team placed second among small schools in the state championship. Son Naay Naay, a junior, is a starter.

The Apassingoks are solidly situated as the longtime Bering Air agents for Gambell, meeting planes twice a day, unloading mail and cargo, booking flights. They also can fly free, space permitting. Yet as much as anyone, they turn to the sea and the land to sustain them.

Urban people sometimes fight the prospect of people eating whale, walrus and seal, but on the remote island, it is what people have always been able to get, with hard work, said Cheryl Koonooka, 44, who works as financial officer for the village corporation in Gambell, Sivuqaq Inc. It's also good for you, she said. She underwent four surgeries in three years, the most recent in 2014, and credits what she ate with quick healing.

"If we didn't have Native foods I think I wouldn't have survived or would still be recovering," Koonooka said.

The oil-rich food is like medicine for the heart and overall health, Merle says. Studies have borne that out.

"It's better than store-bought because we know how we process it," says another Apassingok daughter, Kristina, 21, who just arrived home from her job as a community health aide. She begins chopping clams with an ulaaq.

Bunnie's mother, Rhoda Boolowon, and Merle's late mom, Luceen, taught Bunnie how to prepare Native foods, just as she and Merle are doing now for their children.

On an island so far away, people must rely on themselves and what they catch, Merle said. He remembers when planes were grounded for days after 9/11. On the island, they can't rely on orders from Costco or mailbox groceries,  he said.

"We're out here on our own," he said.

Stashed flipper

For weeks now Merle has been fermenting walrus flipper. He covers it with its own blubber to keep out the air as it ages, first in the warm house, then, when it began to smell, in a cool place. In late April it was in a big glass jar in a Conex storage trailer. Herbert teases that it is stashed away so he can't get it.

Merle tells by taste when it has fermented long enough, and likes it strong. He jokes that 86 proof is just right.

"We can't go too long without something fermented," Merle says. "Otherwise we stay hungry for a while."

But: "The reason we eat it, it is good."

This night, the walrus is ready, boiled in plain water for maybe 30 minutes, then sliced thin. Some people like it more well done, but others say that makes it too tough. Meat and fat pop into the mouth in one distinct bite.

Whole fish with the delicate white flesh flaking off the bones go into a metal serving pan. Everything else — clams and walrus, whale and washed-ashore seafood — has been cut and laid out on the big tray.

A pretty little tray is mounded with tiny bites just for the youngest children. Bunnie wonders if they want whale.

"Mangtak too?" she asks.

"Beebee does," answers Herbert, the hunter and young father. Lena, his 1-year-old, gobbles it up and wants more.

Even dessert comes from the land, a wild green called roseroot, or in Yupik, nunivak, that is grated and mixed with Crisco, Wesson oil and sugar. It's a green treat, kaapelqaq, sweet, tangy and lush. Bunnie and Uki gathered greens in summertime to store in a wooden barrel for eating all winter long. Only later do the children dig into ice pops, oranges and packaged Danish rolls.

It's almost time to feast. Everyone pauses. The small children give the blessing. Arms cross the tray that feeds them all, as it always has.

Alaska Dispatch News reporter Lisa Demer and visual journalist Marc Lester recently spent a week on St. Lawrence Island. This is the fifth in a series of articles about life in Savoonga and Gambell. Next: Drumming and dancing: A village ritual, for the fun of it.