Teacher Good hands-on: Marten fur, beaver fur, dog harness, gasoline box, Coleman or kerosene lamp.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Teacher Good hands-on: Marten fur, beaver fur, dog harness, gasoline box, Coleman or kerosene lamp."

Cameron Miranda Nash
5 years ago
Views:

1 Teacher Good hands-on: Marten fur, beaver fur, dog harness, gasoline box, Coleman or kerosene lamp. Materials: Movie, Spirit of the Wind. The George Attla Story. Essential ideas: Simple machinery and aviation made travel and transportation easier for Bush communities. However, they have brought a growing dependence on cash economy. Engagement: A: Draw an approximate map of homes in your community 50 years ago and a map of how it is now. How many houses in your community were and how many are within proximity/view of the river? Indicate where the runway was and is now. Q: How many students have spent time in fishcamp away from the community? How many students have flown in a ski plane? A float plane? How many have gone beaver trapping? Marten trapping? How many have skinned an animal? How have times changed? In other words, how many have done activities that were part of the lifestyle 50 years ago? 3-50 years ago Vocabulary: Predator control- When the balance between predators and ungulates is restored to a healthy balance by reducing the number of predators. Fur Rhondy & North American: Urban Alaskan winter gatherings where dog team races are featured. People used to bring their furs in to sell them, shop and return home with supplies. Student reading. Some changes that had taken place since pre-contact times were: Russian Orthodox and other missionaries had come, fishwheels we brought from the Colombia River in Washington/Oregon, airplane travel, Statehood, post offices, schools and trading posts in many villages, electricity in a few larger towns, chainsaws, kerosene, Aladdin and Coleman lanterns, outboard motors, and the very early snowmachines. There were a few telephones in many towns and villages. People traveled to regional hospitals when they were sick and for emergencies. The Spanish flu, tuberculosis, measles and other sicknesses had wiped out whole villages and created thousands of orphans. Families were destroyed and cultural patterns were disrupted. Change happened very rapidly.

2 One of the biggest change agents was the advent of schools in the villages. Families that used to roam the country for food were forced to moved to villages, and had to travel out from the village out to the resources. Students sat in classrooms while family members went hunting and trapping. Many subsistence skills were being lost. Summer land travel Fifty years ago, there were no fourwheelers, cars and trucks in most small villages. A few bigger towns had cars and trucks. Perhaps the post office or store had a truck, but many people born at that time flew in airplanes several times before they ever sat in the seat of a car. People lived close to the river, the post office, store and each other. They walked within the village. People also traveled by boat to berry picking sites, and walked for days picking berries. Land travel during the summer and fall was limited. Almost every family had a boat and motor, and the cost of fuel was very cheap, as low as $.35/gallon. Water travel was the primary way of getting around. Many families heated their homes with wood gathered by rafting driftwood from upstream. Winter land travel During the 60 s almost every family had a dog team. The advent of the fishwheel in the early 1900 s allowed people to feed a number of dogs. Dogs were used to haul wood, run traplines and hunt. Dog teams were the center of family life. Fishing was about getting enough food for the dog team as well as the family. Childrens chores often included feeding/watering the dogs. In the fall, families gathered large amounts of grass for dog bedding.

3 Dog racing became a sport. In Anchorage and Fairbanks, teams of dogs raced 25 miles a day for three days. There were champions and heroes. Fur Rhondy in Anchorage and the North American in Fairbanks drew thousands of people out of the villages for great gatherings. Travel by dog team was not easy. Wind covered the trails. Deep fresh snow made it hard for dogs to travel. Many long conversations were centered around the condition of the trail. Breaking a new trail with dog team often involved the musher walking ahead of the dogs with snowshoes. When traveling, the musher would many times stop and make camp around three in the afternoon, tie the dogs, then snowshoe for 3-4 hours ahead and back so the team would have a hard trail to travel on for the early part of the next day. Trails harden up overnight in cold weather. Travel on the river was common, and everyone knew the portages that cut miles out of the big river bends. Frequent portages were maintained in the summer in preparation for winter travel. Everyone knew how to walk on snowshoes. No one thought of traveling far from the village without them. Gun, matches, axe, snowshoes, and teapot were the essentials. Making snowshoes was a art-form mastered by the highly skilled. It is interesting to note that 50 years ago, all the poor people had dogteams, and only the very few well off families had one of the early snowmachines. Evinrude, John Deere, Scorpion, Rupp etc. Nowadays, the poor people have snowmachines, and many of the dog mushers are doctors, lawyers, international figures, and otherwise wealthy people.

4 B Water Fifty years ago, most families could only afford one boat and motor. Long slim displacement boats are good for hauling a big load. Wide, short planing boats are good for traveling fast with a light load. Most families had a long slim displacement boat made out of locally sawn planks. It was powered with a small two stroke motor, perhaps hp. Cash was hard to get and time was plentiful. People didn t mind going slowly as long as they got to the destination. Every trip was a hunting trip, and spending time on the river was always viewed as profitable. Fish and Game didn t watch as closely then as they do now. The skill of piloting a boat with a huge load and small motor was perfected by the best pilots. Marine gas was cheap, purchased in bulk or in cans. People sometimes bought gas in square five gallon cans. Two cans made a case. When asked how far someplace might be, people said, about two cases. That was a distance: two cases or four cans of gas. Five gallon marine gas and Blazo containers were protected by wooden boxes, which were very precious. They became seats, shelves, bureaus and other storage items. They were a hi-lite of that era. When the metal cans became empty and the spouts no longer good, people made tent stoves and dog plates out of them. Families moved to spring camp and stayed until breakup. They moved to fishcamps and stayed in tents for months. Later in the fall, people went on hunting trips that lasted weeks. The long slim displacement boats could haul considerable supplies upriver and 1-2 moose downriver. All men were good at fixing outboards, and stories abounded of the ingenuity men used to keep their kickers going. The prop on the right was repaired with pieces of 55 gallon drum with nails as rivets. Most young men built their own boat out of local

5 lumber. A young man who built his own house, made his own boat, made his own dogsled and was a good hunter was considered a mature skilled man and a worthy husband. Just previous to that time, in the 40 s and 50 s, all families had long slim wooden boats powered by much heavier inboard motors. They were much slower than two stroke outboards, but still faster than poling and lining up. Often, on big bends in a river, the whole family would get out of the boat and walk across a portage while the pilot drove the lightened boat more quickly around the long bend. When aluminum boats arrive in the 70 s, they quickly replaced plank and plywood boats because they are light, easy to care for, don t leak, don t rot and don t wear when the ice is running. On the Kuskokwim, fuel was brought upstream to the villages by barge out of Bethel. Fuel was $16 for a 50 gallon drum in 1968 if the purchase was 10 drums or more. The local trading post sold fuel with a bit of a markup above that. There were no EPA regulations then. On the Yukon, fuel was brought downstream from Nenana, as the mouth of the Yukon is too shallow to allow deep water freighting boats to enter. The Yukon River has three mouths, upper, middle and lower. A tremendous amount of water flows out of the Yukon, but the country is too flat, and there are many entrances to the Yukon. Food came to trading posts by barges twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. The whole village went to the trading post and helped unload the barge for a day or two. No one was paid, as the effort was for the whole communities well being. Villages that weren t on the barge line were at a considerable disadvantage. People could haul gasoline for personal use, but fuel oil to heat schools and run electric generators was at a premium. Being on a barge line was important for the local economy. When ordering groceries from a barge, traders had to send large sums of money to Seattle and wait many months for the food to arrive, and many more months to get a return on the money. In the 70 s, traders started flying food to villages. The cost of air freight was higher, but the traders could invest less money and turn it over much more quickly. Many villages had good runways, and many more were being built. Barge service declined as air transport increased. This is one of the biggest changes in transportation in the bush at that time. C Air transport Fifty years ago, airplanes were relatively inexpensive and aviation fuel was very cheap. A Supercub could be purchased for $8,000 and fuel was around $.35 a gallon. Most people were poor in cash, but rich in resources. Even at $8K, not many people could afford an airplane, but those who could, enjoyed wonderful advantages. Many pilots had a plane on floats in the summer and skis in the

6 winter. Distances that had previously taken weeks and months to travel could be reached in an hour or two. Medical emergencies were not as severe once planes could fly people to hospital and clinics. Aerial predator control in the 50 s and 60 s produced a huge number of moose and caribou. Very few families went hungry during those times. There were basically two aircraft manufacturers, Piper and Cessna. There were two major manufacturers of engines, Lycoming and Continental. Many of those planes are still being rebuilt and flown today with 50 year old technology. Insurance claims shut down both Piper and Cessna for decades. Cessna has come back, but Piper refuses to take on the staggering cost of constant insurance claims. Aircraft built today are far out of economic reach for the normal person. Many villages had runways, but some did not. Airplanes flew on wheels, skis and floats. Almost every air taxi had at least one plane on floats. Villages and fishcamps were served by air taxis that brought food and/or fuel. Almost every village was aligned with one or two traders, and the competition among them was good for everyone. Villagers marked ski-plane runways on the river with spruce branches on either side. Small planes opened the whole country for trapping. People from Sleetmute trapped beaver on the Mulchatna River. People from Stony River trapped the Big River. Trappers could fly to more remote locations with the local pilot who was often the trader. Trapping brought in enough money for many families to live comfortably year round if the trader allowed credit during the off-season. Trapping far from home required men to leave their families for several months, but when they came back, they had fur, food and perhaps money left over after paying their bills at the trading post. Generally, the traders took care of the trappers and the trappers were faithful to the traders. Marten averaged $25 and it wasn t unusual for a good trapper to take 100 marten, even on snowshoes. Trappers who used dog teams could cover longer lines.

7 Beaver averaged $30 and every trapper could take a limit of 10, but many trappers counted their beaver in limits. They shared with Elders and other community members. Fresh beaver meat was always a treat. Perhaps the best portrayal of life at that time was in the movie of George Attla, Spirit of the Wind. Nothing comes close to conveying the sense of those days like that movie. Most planes were small, carrying one to three passengers. A Cessna 180, like the green float plane above, was considered a big plane. Life was simple. Aircraft brought mail three times a week when weather permitted, and people felt rich when they had a woodpile, a moose hanging in the smokehouse and enough fish for the dogteam in the cache. That was wealth. Houses were lighted with kerosene and Coleman lamps, and water came from a hole in the river. But change didn t stop there. Change kept happening. Students: Answer the following questions. Do the science, math, social studies and writing activities as directed by your instructor. Assessment: 1) What is the difference between the layout of villages 50 years ago and now? 2) Describe summer travel 50 years ago. 3) Describe winter travel 50 years ago. 4) How did aviation change trapping? 5) Describe how life 50 years ago was increasingly dependent on modern forms of transportation. Math: A) Ask Elders how much gasoline was 50 years ago. Ask them how much people made an hour if they were working, perhaps firefighting or cannery work. How much is gasoline today, and what is the average wage in your community? Is gasoline actually more expensive, or is the ratio of hourly wage to gas price about the same?

8 B) Draw a graph with 12 months across the bottom. Do a bar graph of the income in each month as people worked then. Was income steady, or very inconsistent? What got people through the lean months? C) Estimate what percentage of peoples food came from the land? From the stores? Compare that with today. Land vs. stores? Draw a pie chart for both periods of time. Science: Materials. Marten and beaver pelts. Describe the life cycle of two of the main fur bearing animals people in your community used to trap. What did people use for bait? What tricks did they use to attract the animals, and how did that play into the animals weaknesses? Bring samples of that fur to class. Writing: Ask Elders if they miss the times 50 years ago. Write down what they miss the most, and what they are glad has changed. Would they want to go back if they could? Do those days sound interesting to you? During those days, people were becoming more dependent on machinery, but had not lost their ingenuity. Collect stories of how people improvised to get a piece of machinery, either boat, or snowmachine home. Social Studies: Materials. Globe or world map. A) Ask the Elders if they thought of themselves as poor or rich? By what definition? B) Research all the different kinds of early snowmachines that people had in your community. Which did people favor? How many different companies made them then? Show on the globe where the snowmachines used in your community today are manufactured. State Standards Mathematics [7] 7.RP.A.3 Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems; Examples: simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease, percent error. Cultural Standards. The following standards are met by this lesson.

9 A.1: Recognize the validity and integrity of the traditional knowledge systems A.3: Provide opportunities and time for students to learn in settings where local cultural knowledge and skills are naturally relevant A.6: Continually involve themselves in learning about the local culture B.1: Regularly engage students in appropriate projects and experiential learning activities in the surrounding environment B.3: Provide integrated learning activities organized around themes of local significance and across subject areas B.4: Are knowledgeable in all the areas of local history and cultural tradition that may have bearing on their work as a teacher, including the appropriate times for certain knowledge to be taught B.5: Seek to ground all teaching in a constructive process built on a local cultural foundation D.3: Seek to continually learn about and build upon the cultural knowledge that students bring with them from their homes and communities E.2: Provide learning opportunities that help students recognize the integrity of the knowledge they bring with them and use that knowledge as a springboard to new understandings E.3: Reinforce the student s sense of cultural identity and place in the world

It s a fact of life for Masek, who has been trapping on the Minto Flats, east of Fairbanks, for more than 30 years.

It s a fact of life for Masek, who has been trapping on the Minto Flats, east of Fairbanks, for more than 30 years. print It s easy to get a snowmachine stuck; getting it out is another matter by Tim Mowry/tmowry@newsminer.com 12.12.12-11:37 pm FAIRBANKS Every winter, usually sooner rather than later, Jim Masek knows