Shadows on the Koyukuk

Sidney Huntington, Jim Rearden

Description

“I owe Alaska. It gave me everything I have.” Says Sidney Huntington, son of an Athapaskan mother and white trader/trapper father. Growing up on the Koyukuk River in Alaska’s harsh Interior, that “everything” spans 78 years of tragedies and adventures. 

When his mother died suddenly, 5-year-old Huntington protected and cared for his younger brother and sister during two weeks of isolation. Later, as a teenager, he plied the wilderness traplines with his father, nearly freezing to death several times. One spring, he watched an ice-filled breakup flood sweep his family’s cabin and belongings away. These and many other episodes are the compelling background for the story of a man who learned the lessons of a land and culture, lessons that enabled him to prosper as trapper, boat builder, and fisherman. 

 This is more than one man's incredible tale of hardship and success in Alaska. It is also a tribute to the Athapaskan traditions and spiritual beliefs that enabled him and his ancestors to survive. His story, simply told, is a testament to the durability of Alaska's wild lands and to the strength of the people who inhabit them.

Before our astonished eyes the water rose swiftly to the level of the roof. Hastily, we piled everything we could, including the whining dogs, a .22 rifle, some clothes, and a little food, into my new boat, the fishnet skiff, and into a canoe. We could scarcely believe that the river could rise so rapidly; it had come up the last four feet in less than two hours. As we paddled towards the hills, we knew that our cabin would soon float. We didn’t worry about our cache, for that big tree had survived many a flood.
Upon reaching the hill, we unloaded the supplies we had hastily gathered and waited for a few hours. Then we tried to paddle back to the cabin, but the current, even in the lake, was too swift for us. Muskrats rode swirling ice chunks along the shoreline. They too had been washed out of their houses.

Sujets

• Biography
• Koyukuk River
• Alaska Natives
• Memoir
• Native Americans in the United States
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780882409306
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SHADOWS ON THE
K OYUKUK
ALSO BY JIM REARDEN
Alaska s First Bush Pilots, 1923-30
A ND THE W INTER S EARCH IN S IBERIA FOR E IELSON AND B ORLAND
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F ROM B ARNSTORMER TO A LASKA B USH P ILOT, A F LYER S S TORY
Alaska s Wolf Man
T HE 1915-55 W ILDERNESS A DVENTURES OF F RANK G LASER
Sam O. White, Alaskan
T ALES OF A L EGENDARY W ILDLIFE A GENT AND B USH P ILOT
Castner s Cutthroats
S AGA OF THE A LASKA S COUTS
The Wolves of Alaska
A FACT-BASED SAGA
Forgotten Warriors of the Aleutian Campaign
Koga s Zero
T HE F IGHTER T HAT C HANGED W ORLD W AR II
Slim Moore: Alaska Master Guide
A S OURDOUGH S H UNTING A DVENTURES AND W ISDOM
Jim Rearden s Alaska
F IFTY Y EARS OF F RONTIER A DVENTURE
Travel Air NC9084
T HE H ISTORY OF A 75-Y EAR -O LD W ORKING A IRPLANE
Hunting Alaska s Far Places
Fifty Years With Rifle and Shotgun
All of the above are available directly from Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1-888-763-8530.
Arctic Bush Pilot
F ROM N AVY C OMBAT TO F LYING A LASKA S N ORTHERN W ILDERNESS
Tales of Alaska s Big Bears
SHADOWS ON THE
K OYUKUK

An Alaskan Native's Life Along the River
SIDNEY HUNTINGTON
AS TOLD TO JIM WARDEN
Copyright 1993 by Sidney Huntington and Jim Rearden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
The print edition is available from Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Inc. pictorialhistoriespublishing.com
Library of Congress Control Number 2010931576
ISBN 978-1-57510-153-8
ISBN (e-book) 978-0-88240-930-6
Cover and book design by Bergh Jensen, Seattle
Map by Bill Vaughn, Arrow Graphics
Cover Painting: Twilight by Sydney Laurence, c. 1919. Oil on canvas over board, 15 11 inches. Reproduced courtesy of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Washington.
Photograph by Paul Macapia.
Published by Alaska Northwest Books
An imprint of

P.O. Box 56118
Portland, Oregon 97238-6118
503-254-5591
www.graphicartsbooks.com
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER, J AMES S. H UNTINGTON ,
MY MOTHER, ANNA,
MY BROTHER JIMMY, AND
MY SISTER ADA
CONTENTS

P REFACE
M AP
1 A NNA
2 K ALLYHOCUSES
3 T HREE B ABES A LONE
4 A NVIK
5 A LATNA
6 E KLUTNA
7 N ULATO
8 T HE B ATZA R IVER T RAPLINE
9 D EEP C OLD
10 M Y F IRST B OAT
11 T HE F LOOD
12 S NARING A G RIZZLY
13 O N O UR O WN
14 N O M AN S L AND
15 T HE O LD K OYUKON W AYS
16 S IWASH
17 K OYUKUK G OLD
18 S LED D OGS
19 B EAVER
20 S PEARING G RIZZLY B EARS
21 K OYUKUK M OOSE
22 K OYUKUK W OLVES
23 B OOZE
24 G ALENA
25 R EFLECTION
E PILOGUE
R ELATED R EADING
I NDEX
P REFACE

I met Sidney Huntington in 1972, when he was appointed to the Alaska Board of Fish and Game on which I served. At our meetings, which often lasted weeks, the twelve members decided all fish and game policies and regulations for the state of Alaska. And the depth of Sidney s knowledge of wildlife soon became evident. To make a point, he d often tell the board wonderful stories of his life in the Koyukuk River country in northern Alaska, and I was fascinated by his experiences.
In 1975 Alaska s legislature split the Board of Fish and Game into two bodies, each with seven members. Sidney and I, now friends, found ourselves serving on the Board of Game.
At a Fairbanks meeting I saw another side to Sidney when we encountered a young Indian from Galena, Sidney s current Yukon River home. I thought you were at school, Sidney said.
No more money, Sidney. I m going home to earn more so I can go back, the young man answered.
How much you need? Sidney asked.
Eight hundred dollars.
Sidney opened his wallet and handed the young man eight $100 bills.
You go back to school, he said.
The young man stared at the money in his hand as if he couldn t believe his eyes, then he said softly, Thank you, Sidney. Maybe I pay you back one day. He walked off with a spring in his step.
I asked Sidney if he thought he d ever get the money back, and he said, I don t care if I don t. That boy belongs in school.
I learned later that Sidney has financed schooling for many young people from the Koyukuk.
I left the game board in 1982, but Sidney remained, apparently impervious to political winds which, with each change in governor, produced a virtually new board. He finally resigned in 1992, after twenty years of unpaid service to the state.
In 1988, recalling his wonderful stories, I proposed writing a book with him about his adventurous life. When he agreed, I flew to Galena with a tape recorder. I discovered that he had spent the weeks before my arrival writing down many details of his life. Shadows on the Koyukuk was assembled from those written accounts and my tape-recorded interviews with him.
About that $800: while I was at Galena, I asked Sidney if the young man he had given the money to in Fairbanks had ever repaid him. He paid me back after he got an education, Sidney replied. He now has a family, a home, and a job. He s doing well.

The Koyukuk valley, where Sidney Huntington was born and where his family ties extend into the dim past, covers about 33,000 square miles of wildland drained by Alaska s Koyukuk River. This gin-clear stream, Alaska s third-largest river, arises in the arctic Central Brooks Range and meanders southwest for 554 miles before it pours into the Lower Yukon. Immense forests of birch, aspen, and tall spruce thrive on its banks. In the uplands, the northern taiga gives way to treeless tundra, with tree line at 2,000 to 3,000 feet. Moose, caribou, wolf, grizzly, and black bear populate the region, and in season, the area teems with birds.
Koyukuk country is a land of extremes. At winter solstice, the sun appears at Bettles for only an hour and forty minutes. But between June 2 and July 10, the sun circles endlessly, never dropping below the horizon. Winter temperatures commonly skid to 60 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit or colder, and summer temperatures can reach the 90s. Most of the soil is rock-hard permafrost-permanently frozen ground- which traps surface water, and so lakes, ponds, and marshes abound. Precipitation is only ten to twenty inches annually, which may include up to six feet of fluffy snow.
Most Americans might think of Koyukuk country as unpopulated wilderness. Even in the last decade of the twentieth century, fewer than 600 men, women, and children live along the wild Koyukuk River. These predominantly Koyukon Athapaskan Indian residents (named for the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers where they live) reside primarily in four riverbank villages: Allakaket, Bettles, Hughes, and Huslia. Villages situated along the Yukon River and occupied by another 2,500 Koyukon Indians are Stevens Village, Rampart, Tanana, Ruby, Galena, Koyukuk, Nulato, and Kaltag.
The Athapaskans are a large and diverse family of Indians who live throughout much of central Alaska and across a vast region of western Canada. In Alaska, there are eleven cultural groups, including the Koyukons, who live along major river drainages, in the uplands, and on the Pacific coast.

Shortly after 1900, Klondike gold rusher James S. Huntington wandered down the Yukon River, where he met and married Anna, a Koyukon daughter of the land. Their son Sidney has now lived for nearly a century in the Koyukuk country where he was born. His life s story is a fascinating slice of Alaskan history.
Sidney grew up in a subarctic wildland of birchbark canoes, dog teams, trappers, gold miners, and Koyukon Indians. He continues to live in essentially the same culture, now modernized with snow machines, bush planes, and satellite TV. He is a product of the land, who thoroughly knows his region, the animals, and the people who live there. The memories he shares in this book bring alive a way of life that is gone forever, for as a teenager and young man he lived primarily off the land; his interest in traditional Koyukon tales provides an intriguing peek into Koyukon Indian prehistory.
In addition to leading an incredibly adventurous life, Sidney Huntington is a special kind of person. His is a bootstraps-up, inspirational success story of survival. Despite this, Sidney has always found time to help others-a trait that in recent years has brought him statewide respect and an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska. Long before he received that degree, I regarded Sidney as holding a doctorate in life, for he is self-educated, with knowledge that extends far beyond the horizons of Alaska s Koyukuk country.
In telling Sidney s story, I have made every effort to retain his straightforward, honest, laconic style, because I want the reader to hear it as he told it to me. I hope I have succeeded, for Sidney Huntington has left a clear, straight trail that is worth following.
Jim Rearden Homer, Alaska
Sprucewood September 1992
The Koyukuk Region
1
A NNA

It was the Koyukon month of the hawk. The long days of March had arrived, when migratory hawks return to the Koyukuk River valley. Schilikuk, a coastal Eskimo trader, had come to visit and trade with my Athapaskan mother. He was a big man, perhaps six feet tall and 190 pounds. On his face, instead of tattoos carried by some Eskimos, he had tribal cuts through his cheeks on each side. He amazed me, a four-year-old, by putting his crooked stem pipe through the slit on one cheek and blowing smoke out the other cheek. This was one of my earliest memories.
My mother s family lived at Hogatzakaket ( kaket is river in the Athapaskan tongue), which on maps is simply called Hogatza. We call it Hog River. It is a tributary to the big Koyukuk River, which in turn flows into the Lower Yukon River.
My grandmother-I ve always called her Old Mama -had fifteen children. Eight of them, five daughters and three sons, survived to adulthood. Of these, my mot