People of the Whale

• Prize
• Photographer
  Kiliii Yuyan, United States
• Website
  http://www.kiliii.com
• Instagram
  @kiliiiyuyan

Bowhead whaling is a cultural cornerstone of
Iñupiaq identity and a primary source of food
on the Arctic Slope, where the cost of living is
nearly three times that of mainland US. For the
past three springs, I have stood on the sea ice
as a guest of a whaling crew. As an indigenous
person, I wanted to understand subsistence
life in the Arctic, where the danger of cultural
death is just as imminent as an attack from a
polar bear.

I’m beginning to understand this Native
culture, and by extension, my own. The
traditions, the whaling, they bring everyone
together. From the moment a whaling crew
begins to prepare, half the village finds a way
to participate. This is what it means to be the
People of the Whale. I leave this project with an
invisible Iñupiaq sensibility deeply embedded,
and a new community to call my home.

Kiliii Yuyan is a National Geographic photographer, Explorer and speaker working in the polar regions and cold seas, among wildlife and the Indigenous communities at the edges of the inhabitable world. He has been stalked by a polar bear and dived with ancient Greenland sharks. Fifteen of his stories have run in National Geographic, three of them covers, and in 2023 the Society gave him the Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling. The argument at the center of his work: the world's most beautiful places are beautiful because of the people who live in them.

Awards 2026
Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris– Guardians fo Life, Gold, Book/Monograph
ASMP Best Of— Guardians of Life, Best in Show
NPPA Best of Photojournalism— Great Bear Sea, Honorable Mention, Science Story
2025
Pictures of the Year International — Guardians of Life, 1st Place, Environmental Vision Award
Siena International Photo Awards — Kayak and the Dogsled, 2nd Place, Storyboard
Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris — Ceremonies are Conservation, Silver, Feature Story
Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris — Kayak and the Dogsled, Bronze, Feature Story
International Photography Awards — Guardians of Life, Honorable Mention, Feature Story
International Photography Awards — Thin Places, Honorable Mention, Fine Art Landscape
Mangrove Photography Awards — Blacktip Reef Shark, Honorable Mention, Underwater
2024
Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris — Light of a Warming World, Bronze, Nature
Indigenous Media Awards — Best Podcast (w/ Mongabay)
2023
National Geographic Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling — Winner
Siena International Photo Awards — Quannah Chasinghorse, Highly Commended, Portraits
Siena International Photo Awards — We Are Here: Native Sovereignty, Commended, Storyboard
Px3 Prix de la Photographie Paris — Quannah Chasinghorse, Bronze, Portraits
Pictures of the Year International — Quannah Chasinghorse, Finalist, Portraits
2022
Zeke Award for Systemic Change — 1st Place
Grist 50 Climate & Sustainability Fixer
2021
Leica Oskar Barnack Award — Finalist
2020
Society of Publication Designers — Indigenous Fire, 1st Place
Nia Tero Storytelling Fellow
U.S. Embassy Headline Artist (UAE: RAK Fine Arts)
International Photography Awards — Waiting for Ice, Honorable Mention, Nature
International Photography Awards — Rural Pandemic, Honorable Mention, Feature Story
International Photography Awards — Arctic Flyway, Honorable Mention, Environment