"I was born March 12, 1939, in Hudson Stuck Memorial Hospital in Fort Yukon, the oldest of 10 children. My father was born about 1910; my mother was the sole survivor of her family during the Spanish flu epidemic.

Gwich'in means "one who dwells here," and passers-by have been perceived as "drifters." My grandfather said there were once so many of us that our campfires resembled "a mountain with porcupine quills on it."

We did not "subsist," a borrowed term for Lower 48 farmers requiring government subsidies. We as a people recycled and sustained our natural resources. We had no jails. If people broke our strict laws, they were exiled permanently from the community, becoming "brush people" -- naa'in.

When I was young, territorial wars were still real. We were taught to rebound like a cat and to sleep lightly. Everyone practiced genealogy, never marrying within his same group. (I came from the cha'sa/"worker" group.)

My family's home is Alexander's Village (Shoo/"happy place"), by a lake on the Christian River north of Fort Yukon. Until I was 10, in 1949, most people lived in their traditional locations. Fort Yukon was a place for seasonal trading, becoming a community of many Gwich'in dialects and Yup'ik as well as Irish, German, Finnish and Danish descendants. We taught the newcomers survival, and they in turn brought their skills: a bakery, theater/dance hall and restaurants. A motor launch pushed a big barge supplying the villages. The Gwich'in came in for spring and summer and camped on the banks, enjoying the lucrative life. We cut firewood for the steamboats at $3 a cord."

Get the Story:
Alaskana: Gwich'in journey (The Anchorage Daily News 7/16)
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