, FORT YUKON VILLAGES TURN FROM WHITE MAN'S WAYS
! Croup Builds Own School
Parents and children in about a
■week will enroll together in a brand
new school in the small remote com
munity of Birch Creek.
Located about 50 miles south of
Ft. Yukon, the village, with the
aid of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
built a one room school there this
year.
For years, “Birch Creek Jimmy,”
the 75-year-old chief of the vil
lage. and other adults there want
ed their children in school. But
they did not want to send their
children hundreds of miles to Wran
gell Institute.
Last February the villagers asked
the Bureau of Indian Affairs if
they would construct a school and
deed it to the government, would
the BIA send them a teacher.
The BIA agreed and even set up
a summer school there this year in
two tents. One of the tents was
used as a classroom and one was
used as teacher’s quarters. Miss
Jarene Stephan, a graduate of the
University of Alaska, instructed
while the villagers constructed the
log school house. Born at Palmer,
Miss Stephan has previously been
a BIA teacher, filling in last year
at Arctic Village and teaching pre
vious to that in the Lower Yukon.
This summer, Miss Stephan, some
times taught her students outside,
in the Socrates manner, with only
the sky for a canopy.
As the school neared completion
this fall, the villagers asked Miss
Stephan if she would remain. Al
though she had planned to tour
Europe, she canceled her plans and
will remain at Birch Creek.
MODERN DAY SOCRATES—With only the sky for a canopy,
B1A teacher Miss Jarene Stephan holds a reading class of
Birch .Creek puplle alongside their tent school. Although Miss
Stephan, of Palmer, had other plans, the villagers persuaded
" her to stay and become their teacher this fall In their brand
new oqe-room log school. —BIA Photo
Chairman Cites Land Problems
By AL KETZLER
Contributing Editor
We Athabascans of Interior Alaska
believe, as do the Eskimos, that the
best way to make our problems
known is to get together to discuss
them, and then stand together until
they are solved. This is the reason
we followed the example set by the
Eskimos when the latter held the
Inupiat last November.
Plan Meeting
In March this year, four Chiefs
and delegates from seven other
villages met at Nenana to discuss
ways to settle the many problems
we are all facing.
Because of the urgency and be
cause these problems seemed so
widespread, the group decided to
held a meeting at Tanana in June
and invite representatives from as
many interior villages as could at
tend.
At Tanana, during our meeting
the Dena’ Nena’ Henash, our people
learned that almost every village
faces the same problems; mainly
land and hunting rights; jobs and
village economy.
Deeds Unnecessary
Your grandfathers and mine, left
this land to us in the only kind of
deed they knew ... by word of
mouth and our continued possession.
Among our people this “deed” was
honored just as much as if it was
written arid signed by the President
of the United States.
Until recent years, a man’s honor
was the only deed necessary. Now,
things have changed. We need a
legal title to our land if we are to
hold tt-—r- —-.7 - - -
> .
Our right to inherit land from our
fathers cannot be settled in court.
It is specifically stated in early laws
that Congress is to do this by de
fining the way by which we can
acquire title. We must ask Congress
to do this.
Join With Eskimos
At Dena’ Nena’ Henash the dele
gates voted to cooperate with the
Eskimos and help wherever possible.
We invite other Indians and Aleuts
to do the same.
Good Resalts
Already, good things have come
from these meetings. Much of the
confusion about the 25c hunting and
fishing license has been cleared, up
because the people at our meeting
pointed out the problem to the task
force.
Chalkyitsik is to have the radio
communication they have needed so
long.
when the Eskimos got together
and protested Project Chariot, they
showed that the livelihood of many
people would be endangered. As a
result this was a strong factor in
the Project being called off indef
inately.
New Means ef Communication
Since communication is one of our
biggest handicaps in knowing what
is happening around us, we are es
pecially happy that we are now to
have a newspaper,. THE TUNDRA
TIMES, to keep us informed.
(ln srinf Mr ill lag
Next June, the Athabascans will
hold another meeting. We will wel
come delegates, not only from the
interior but other parts of the state
as - well. - ■- ■
Antlers Save
Young Herders
Although the dog holds a rarely
disputed throne as “man’s best
friend,” a pair of young Eskimo rein
deer herders of a few years back,
might be inclined to argue the fact.
The following item appeared in
a 1924 edition of the Kusko Times,
printed at Takotna:
While herding reindeer near Cant
well, two boys were startled to see
a brown bear and yearling cub
charging in their direction.
The quick-thinking lads bolted
for the only refuge available . . .
in the midst of the herd. When the
bears arrived at the spot, they were
greeted with a menacing fence of
antlers.
The reindeer, when they spotted
the bears, had formed a circle to
protect their flank and unwitting
ly provided a spiny barricade be
tween the bears and the frightened
boys.
BIA Official Promoted
Lawrence Kosloski, head of the
regional BIA office at Fairbanks,
has been promoted and will be
transferred fram Alaska to Wis
consin in about a month.
Group Builds New Village
In an attempt to escape welfare
dependency, to be near where there
is ample fish and game, to live in
dependently in a community they
could be proud of, seven families
moved from Ft. Yukon this fall and
started a new community, Canyon
Village.
In cooperation with the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, 10 adults with 28
children, 18 of which are school age,
constructed a new school at the
village, formerly listed on the map
as Curtis Cabins.
Located 180 miles north of Ft.
Yukon on the Porcupine River, Can
yon Village has a nice sandbar
suitable for a landing strip.
Disgusted with conditions at Ft.
Yukon, the families moved to the
new area. The adult men went to
Old Rampart near the Canadian
border, dismantled buildings there
and floated them down to the vil
lage site.
Later women, children and be
longings were transported from Ft.
Yukon to the site.
In a short time 46 caribou were
taken.
"We could have taken 146,” one
of the villagers said. But he indi
cated they did not want to take
more for fear the meat would spoil
so early in the season.
A front street was carved out and
the villagers started building homes
and the two-room school. School
for children and adults will start
there in about two week's.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has
sent several barge loads of supplies
borrowed from other BIA schools
to Canyon Village.
The school has two rooms, one
16 by 20 feet to be used as a class
room, and another, 16 by 16 feet
to be used as teacher quarters. It
will have gasoline lights and even
tually radio facilities.
Wien Alaska Airlines has agreed
to land there twice a month.
Bureau of Indian Affairs officials
visited Canyon Village and said the
people there were picking loads of
berries but had to take along guns
with them because of a great num
ber of wolves and bears. Adults plan
to take turns walking their chil
dren to school.
Canyon village is now in the pro
cess of filing for a townsite and
making application for a village
cooperative store.
“We are confident our movement
will encourage many other families
that are now disgusted to come to
our settlement next year,” the vil
lage council recently wrote the BIA
here.
Arctic Survival
Hair Seal-The Big Little Animal
By HOWARD ROCK
Nachik, as it is called by Eskimos,
is the hair seal. It doesn’t mean
much to many people but to the
Eskimos this little animal has much
significance.
Nachik, in many ancient Eskimo
songs, take the star billing. The
stories of it in song are performed
by Eskimo dancers.
These tributes to the little animal,
no doubt, have sprung from a gen
uine wish to honor it in song and
dance. If it had not been for this
small mammal, man may not have
survived in the coastal regions of
the Arctic.
Seal Plentiful
Hair seal is plentiful along the
northern coasts of Alaska and Can
ada. Apparently it has long been a
main diet of the Eskimo because its
remains have been uncovered by
archaeologists who date the evi
dences to 5,000 years ago.
Nachik continues today to be an
important animal to the coastal
Eskimos as a food source. Its skin
also has many uses.
As food, it is simply boiled and
eaten. It also is cut into thin filets
and put on racks to dry. After the
dried meat is cut into helping-size
pieces and put into a poke made of
seal skin in which oil from seal
blubber has been cured, it is then
stored for winter or for an occas
ional snack.
Seal meat is also used as dog food.
Without this food, many Eskimo
dogs would have perished.
Many Uses
Through the ages the Eskimo
found ways of utilizing almost all
the meat of these animals. Perhaps
this great utilization has been due
to some lean years they encount
ered. As a classic example, one un
usual use of the seal is the prepara
tion of the intestines for food.
Women clean the intestines thor
oughly, braid or splice them in
hemp-rope fashion into lengths
about a foot or foot-and-a-half long.
She then cooks these in boiling
water. When done, they are cut into
4 or 5-inch sections and served.
The skin of the seal is a veritable
storehouse of necessary items for
-the*Bsktao~ •: — - - ~~****r
The skin with hair out is used
for parkas and for hunting pants.
It is used for waterproof mukluks,
knee-length or hip length. The prep
aration is to remove the hair by us
ing powdered pumice that is sprink
led in the hair. A piece of rock with
a sharp edge is then used by the
women who push this in short
strokes, pressingly firmly on the
skin and the roots of the hair.
Processing Skin , |
The combination of the pow&e re I
pumice, sharp edge of the rock, anil
the firm pressure shaves the hair
off the skin. After the hair is off,
the skin has the appearance of grey
brown color. The skin is then oiled
lightly about three times and the
oil is slowed to soak in. After the
last application, the skin is water
proof and ready to be cut into pat
terns for waterproof mukluks.
There is another method of re
moving the hair from the skin.
Fresh seal skin is put in a good sized
wooden bowl or small vat. along
with slices of seal blubber. The vat
is placed in a warm place, usually
by a stove. In five days to a week
the hair separates from the skin.
While the skin is wet, the man of
the household and another man, or
a young son, takes the skin and
slices it in a thin unbroken line that
may stretch up to 300 feet.
The man takes his short-bladed
curved knife as his assistant takes
a firm hold of the edge of the skin
in both his hands. He then takes his
knife and cuts on the skin in the
straddle of his assistant’s hands.
This first cut aroud is to straight
en out the skin into more or less an
oval shape by cutting off the ex
tremities, flippers and neck.
On he next round he begins the
process of slicing a heaving line,
of about a Quarter of an Inch, with
the help of his assistant, two feet
at. a time. Each time the assistant
takes a new hold, the process is re
peated around and around the skin
until the skin ig spiralled to the
center. The unbroken'line ie then
stretched to dry. When dry, H
shrinks into a strong, tough line of
about % inch in diameter.
To make a bleached seal skin the
removing the hair as he did for
the heaving line. The woman of the
house cuts small holes about six
Inches apart around th« skin after
which it is laced or stretched tight
on a frame.
Skin is usually bleached in winter.
The Eskimos believe the cold tem
peratures and wind makes the skin
whiter.
In about two or three weeks, after
it “has been hung high and away
from dogs, the skin takes on the
color of cream-white. It is then
ready for fancy trimmings and lac
ings for mukluks.
The bleached skin is sometimes
soaked in willow bark water and
dyed into a rust color and is also
used for trimmings.
Whale Floats
An important use of the seal skin
is for making floats to keep killed
whales from sinking. When a whale
is struck, the first thing an assist
ant to the harpooner does is to
throw inflated seal skin floats at
tached to the harpoon line, over
board. The floats slow down the
harpooned whale and its_ position
is tracked by the floats.
When the whale is killed, several
seal skin floats are attached to it
to keep the huge animal from sink
ing.
The hair seal population of the
Arctic has always been adequate.
This animal thrives mostly on tom
cod that abounds in millions in the
Arctic waters. Since the seal stays
around throughout the year, it is im
portant to the Eskimo in that it is
available when other food animals
are scarce. *.
The absence of open water leads
dees not present a problem to the
seal for lack of breathing space.
When there are no leads, it seeks out
thin ice and proceeds to scratch out
with its tough sharp nai{s a hole
in the lee-for a breathing hole.
Kachlk, the little hair seal, has,
earned his niche in the everyday
life of the ancient Eakimqgand the
present one. The Eskimo gyould
have been hard put in his tight fogr
survival if it hadn’t been for tMf,
hardy little animal. It is little waft
der hear seal is a favorite subject
m