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John spent the week hunting moose, while fishermen returned with whitefish and sheefish for the families.

On the first Monday of each month, a long buffet table stretched across the nursing home’s dining hall with bubbling caribou soup, raw whale blubber, baked salmon and sheefish, wild berry desserts, and a bowl of seal oil—the quintessential Inupiat condiment and all-purpose dip.

Commack said fish, especially sheefish and salmon, can compose up to 75 percent of the community’s diet when land harvests are poor.