The movie’s realism is only enhanced by its extras, many of whom brought their own kuspuks and fur lined parkas instead of waiting to be outfitted by the wardrobe department. One of the extras playing a whaling captain is even part of a real whaling crew way out on Little Diomede, just two miles from Russian soil. Sylvester Ayek, a well known Alaska Native artist who hunts walrus from his home in Nome, was scheduled to play another of the whaling captains but was “demoted,” as he laughingly put