You look exotic. What kind of Indian are you?
I’m the kind that comes from a detailed phylogeographic analysis of one of the predominant Sámi mtDNA haplogroups, U5b1b, which also includes the lineages of the “Sámi motif” was undertaken in thirty-one populations. The results indicate the origin of U5b1b, as for the other predominant Sámi haplogroup, V, is most likely in western, rather than eastern, Europe.
Can I touch your Indian Hair?
The researcher promised it was a non-invasive form of gathering biological information. It’s just dead skin. With 99.999 percent accuracy he yanked my hair, pulling the strands, stuffing them into a plastic Ziploc bag. Right then and there he analyzed the root bulb, told me a story of Y-DNA, linking me to Asia and a story of haplogroup I, linking me to Europe, and of U5b1b connecting me to the Berbers. Even though it was a complicated story, full of tricksters and fornicators, it was a good story so I let him touch my hair again. This time he didn’t pull it out. Instead, he leaned in and sniffed my hair. He said it smelled like a New Year, or maybe gunpowder.
Do you want to touch my Chinese Hair?
Well, we don’t know if we’re Chinese but we might be. We had a relative who worked in the canneries in Wrangell, Alaska, who came from China. Maybe he intermarried with our family. Maybe I have Chinese cousins.
Do you want to touch my creation story?
This story began with a young woman, me, who went off to college to study ology to become an ologist. She learned everything she could about Greeks so she could understand the colonizers’ Western worldview like why she had to memorize the birth of Zeus and not the story of how Raven stole the sun, or how the Wind Man created the tundra for her Sámi people. She specialized in over four hundred ology stories: heliology, phycology, trichology, odonatology, nephology, and more. But even today she resists stories with beginnings, stories with a middle motivation, and an end that makes sense, a story so clear you can see a salmon egg on the bottom of the stream. Warning: These stories are not fairy tales. These stories are not for children.
Date: 2000s
Recorded by John Swanton
Assisted by Tooch Waterson
Big Jon Keats
“Big Jon Keats brought the first wave of cannery workers from Masset, British Columbia. But instead of working at the cannery, he worked at the meat department at Harbor Market. That’s where I met him.”
The cop stuck his finger in my chest. “Jorma, did you work at Harbor Market, too, or were you a bad boy and just shoplift there on occasion?”
“No sir,” I told him. “I don’t shoplift. And I work at Hammer’s Hardware, but you know that already. It’s Wrangell. Everybody knows everybody’s business here.”
“So,” the cop questioned, “Did you notice anything different about Mr. Keats?”
I laughed. “Didn’t you ever notice him walking around the town like he owned it—his black top hat on his head. Jeez, he was huge.”
“Yeah, I noticed, kid. People say you two hung out together.”
“We didn’t hang out. I talked to him once in a while and went to his matches.”
“Matches?”
“Yeah, he wrestled in Petersburg mostly. That ultimate fighter stuff. Jon is … he was wicked. He was so big he could flip a sea lion. That’s what it looked like to me anyway, like he was hunting.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” the cop said. “I think I saw his fight poster downtown on the drugstore window.”
“Yeah, I’d show up at the fights and me and the guys would be cheering, and Jon would smile, like he was licking his lips.”
“You two ever get in a fight?” the cop asked, looking me over.
“Hell, no. I’m not stupid.”
“He ever threaten you?”
“No, but … he liked to tease.” I almost broke into a smile. When I first met Big Jon, he came at me from behind the counter with two fistfuls of live dungies and put them on the floor. The crabs clicked around at my feet, and I jumped back. He laughed and said, Kid, which one for lunch? They’re all good.
“When Jon smiled, he’d flash those long teeth, sharp bicuspids, and they’d glint, you’d swear it.”
“Was he a killer?” the cop asked.
My eyes widened and I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I kept thinking about the way he tossed his opponents onto the mat.
The cop rephrased the question. “I mean, do you think one of his opponents could have fought with him outside the ring?”
“No, Jon wasn’t like that outside the ring. Although I wouldn’t cross him. Ever.”
“Sure he never shoved your skinny white ass in a dumpster?”
“No.”
“Maybe you made fun of his face.”
“His face?”
“Don’t give me no crap,” the cop said. “You know, the birthmark on his face.”
I once stood at the counter when a tourist walked in, and she took one look at Jon and stood there, staring. He had to ask her twice what she wanted. Jon had some of those dark brown marks on his arms too. They were hidden under his clothes most of the time. The one on his face covered the left cheek almost completely and then went down the side of his neck a bit.
“No, I hardly noticed it.”
“No? Right,” the cop said, shaking his head. “Well, we know you were on City Park Beach Saturday night.”
“Yeah, what about it?” Near dusk, I’d been sitting on the big log out in front of the main shelter. How much I wanted to tell the cop, though, I wasn’t sure.
The cop leaned back in his chair. “Here’s the deal, Jorma. You were the last one to see him.”
“Maybe his friends saw him last,” I said.
“Friends? Those guys at the cannery?”
“Yeah, them. He came to town with them. Jon told me he was from Masset, BC. He’s Haida.”
The cop tapped his pencil on his notebook. “I already went to question them today, but they’ve all left. Gave the cannery short notice and left town.”
“Well, the season’s almost over. The cannery will be going on its fall schedule.”
“Yeah, we get all kinds in here, from the Ethiopians to the Natives …”
I cocked my head. I thought I’d heard the cop say “Natives” as if it was a bad word. Those same slurs have been slung at me and my friends at one time or another. I came out light-skinned, with my dad’s Native features and my mom’s Finnish eyes. My blood quantum card says I’m Alaska Native but some see me as not Native enough. But that only happens when I go to visit friends in Juneau.
I shrugged.
“Your friend Clay says you told him you saw Big Jon Keats on Saturday,” the cop said.
I cringed. “Clay said that?”
“Yeah, your buddy. Your girlfriend.”
I wanted to say, Fuck you, you Idaho flunkie. Can’t get a job in Anchorage so you work in a small town until you get enough arrests and make a name, then move on. You don’t know anything about the people here. I thought this but said nothing.
“Well, kid, Earth to Jorma,” the cop said, holding his hands up in exasperation. “Were you or were you not at City Park Beach on Saturday night?”
I’d sat on that log smoking some weed, watching the sun go down. It must have been late, because it finally got dark. Then I saw a big shadow walking down the beach and knew, by the shape of the head, that tall top hat, that it was Big Jon. He didn’t see me. I don’t think so anyway. But I saw it happen. Yeah, I did it. I’m guilty of not stopping him, of not running and grabbing his legs, of not trying to wrestle him down and keep him from walking out into the water.
“I was sitting on the beach,” I finally said, “watching the sun go down.”
“Just sitting. Maybe we could do a drug test, kid, and see what you were sitting with.”
“Come on,” I said, which came out like a whine.
“Tell me what happened.”
I sighed. I didn’t know if there was a law against watching someone
kill themselves, but it had been weighing on me for two days now.
I began, “I went to Harbor Market to buy halibut and they said Jon hadn’t showed up for work. They were worried, so someone suggested I go up to his house and see if he was there. Me and this other guy from work went to his apartment. He wasn’t there. That’s when the head butcher called the cops.”
“So how’d you end up at the beach?”
“I was upset Jon was gone, so I drove to City Park and got out to walk my dog. I have a black lab.”
“I don’t give a shit about your dog. What happened then?”
“Like I said, I was sitting on the log and it was dark out but not really dark dark. I saw Jon walking down the beach toward me. I kept real still on account of his size and all. I didn’t want a big wrestling giant to get spooked.”
I figured I had to tell the truth. “Big Jon turned toward the ocean before he got to me and walked out into the water until his big head went under.”
“You certain it was him?”
“I saw his top hat. I could see the shape of it in the dark and he was wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants like he always did. I could see the white shirt.”
“Did he take his clothes off before he went into the water?”
“No.”
“You know kid, we’ve got divers now looking near the beach and boats going along the shore. If you’re lying and he’s on the ferry to Skagway or home to Masset, then you’re going to have to pay us back for the search. Or if we find his body, there’ll be an autopsy.”
“What if you never find him?” I said. Somehow, I didn’t really expect them to find him. It was what it was. Big Jon was gone, like a lot of people who disappeared around here and never came back.
The cop clicked his recorder off. “Well, we might want to talk to you later, when we drag the body up. For sure, he’ll be a floater soon.”
The cop cocked his head, looked down at his notebook, then jotted something down.
“Did Big Jon know how to swim?”
“I dunno,” I said, then thought about it. “Once, I did see him and two of those cannery guys coming from the pool early in the morning, about 7:00 a.m. I was riding my bike to work ’cause the cruise ship was coming in early that day, one of those Sunday ships. Big Jon nodded at me as he came down the steps. So maybe, yeah, they might have been swimming in there.” What did I know? It wasn’t like I hung out with those guys from Masset. What I didn’t tell the cop, though, was that it was before the pool was opened. The sign still said “closed.” It didn’t open on Sundays until nine.
“So maybe he can swim,” the cop said. “I wouldn’t have figured a guy with a lot of friends like he had to off himself.”
I left the police station at dusk. They’d kept me there for two hours. I was shaken. I didn’t know Big Jon well, but he was always nice to me and the guys. Gave us good deals on prawns.
I walked down Church Street, down the hill, to the city’s cement dock. The sun dimmed to a pale gold behind the clouds and it started to rain. “Summer” was iffy here. Rain or sun, and rain usually won. I sat on the bull rail and hung my feet over. I wasn’t afraid of heights. The only thing I was afraid of was staying in Wrangell forever, never going to the Outside, never going to Seattle, never finding a good job. Mostly, I was afraid of being the same as everyone else in Wrangell. Big Jon gave me hope there were different people in the world. I wanted different.
That’s when I saw them. There were about a dozen. The one in front was leading them toward the cement dock. I’d grown up in Wrangell, and I was always told not to say anything bad when you saw a pod of killer whales swimming near the beach. When I was a kid, Grandma Liv told me whenever I saw a killer whale, I was supposed to head up to the treeline and stop playing by the water. Maybe she thought they might think I was a seal or something floundering around.
Now, the killer whales’ breath misted the dusk, creating a cloud of vapor. They swam below me nearer to the pilings. From my height, I could see their sleek black-and-white bodies moving through the water. They lingered for a bit. The large one’s tall dorsal fin rose out of the water like the top of a submarine. He moved out in front of the others, not lifting his nose completely out of the water, but I could see he was watching me.
I reached into my pocket and took out my Altoids tin and grabbed the last joint from the box. The pod moved back and forth along the front of the dock. Must be a ball of herring in here, I thought to myself. Then, before I lit the joint, I stopped. The large whale blew again. I put my lighter down on the rail beside me and put the joint in the palm of my hand. Ah, what the heck, I said to myself. I crumbled the joint in my hand.
I swung my legs back over the rail and stood up, locking my feet beneath the cement rail. I leaned over as the large whale turned and made another pass in front of the dock. I held out my hand and let the pot fall. It scattered in the water below. The killer whale blew again, his air rising up and filling my own lungs. I inhaled his big warm breath, smelling of salt, fish, and sea.
The killer whales turned, the big one with his towering black fin led the others down Zimovia Strait toward Prince of Wales Island. Maybe they would be stopping at Hydaburg, maybe head toward Haida Gwaii to Masset. And on the way, the pod might circle a rock island filled with sea lions like a pack of wolves. And the big killer whale, the one with the big top hat, will sneak up on a sea lion and toss it down into the sea.
Date: 1990s
Recorded by John Swanton
Assisted by Tooch Waterson
The Man Who Saw the Light
In the real world, there are always competing elements. In Sven Bolstad’s world, it’s fire and water. It wasn’t as if he’d never considered this before. But for most of his life, he hadn’t considered the consequences of anything he did. He sold custom fishing tackle that he himself created, working for Dammen Outfitters. He was a public servant and an important one, too. He was on the Ports and Harbors Commission and the Fire and Police Commission at the same time. And last October, he’d been elected port commission chairman, a paying position. Plus, he was the most successful drug dealer in town.
In a town the size of Wrangell most of that knowledge was of public record anyway, even his dealing. Ask anyone where to score some weed, coke, maybe painkillers. “Oh, that would be Sven or one of his six cousins.” He had more experience with importing drugs to Wrangell than he had with Roberts Rules of Order. Those rules were confusing. Mostly because there wasn’t an order to things. There was no evolution, no scientific method, and there certainly wasn’t a god zapping and abracadabra-ing people into behaving. There were only random acts of chaos. All one had to do was look around Wrangell to discover that truth.
Of course, he never told anyone about these views, preferring to keep his theories to himself. After all, no one would have elected him commissioner if they knew he didn’t give a shit about their ordinances. He didn’t give a shit about their petitions. He didn’t give a shit about their laws. He was a public servant because he loved center stage. Wrangell was the perfect place to be a “big fish in a little pond,” as they say. He held this truth close, as if it were the last joint in his pocket. That is, until he had his first religious experience.
He’d been commissioner for one year exactly. The first meeting after the October elections had let out. He’d met new assembly members, new port commissioners, police and fire commissioners, the new parks and recreation committee, and the school board. He’d watched them being sworn in, professing to keep the laws of the state of Alaska, the US of A and, of course, their little borough, their little island. The new ones to town didn’t know what they were getting into, always thinking they were going to change something, make the town better. Hell, Wrangell couldn’t get any better. This town was Camelot, a perfect haven for Soapy Smith when he wanted to escape the heat in Skagway. A perfect spot for Seattle Mafia vacations and the antisocial hermits who lived on Back Channel. As one of Wrangell’s political fathers had once
said, “It’s a dirty little town, and we’re gonna keep it that way.”
Sven walked up the Drug Store Hill to Church Street. Church Street boasted a church for nearly every denomination. Missionaries had first come to Wrangell in the 1800s to save the Natives. Funny thing, though, they were still here trying to do the same damn thing, coming into town in droves every summer, setting up cowboy- and Hawaiian-themed Bible summer schools. He didn’t need saving, nor did anyone else he knew.
The meeting had given him a headache from trying to smile and nod while thinking, You fucking weirdo new-to-town greenie geek with an environmental degree in your spanking new Carhartt pants trying to fit in. It won’t do you any good to try and change us “backward” folks. I know you’re thinking that about us. Well, wait fifteen years or so and, if you’re still here, we might accept you as one of us. Maybe.
He shrugged, pulled his hood over his ball cap, and slogged through the rain. The rainwater rushed like a muddy waterfall down the hill. Ah, crap, he’d forgotten to wear his boots. His shoes were soaking through.
At the top of Drug Store Hill, Sven’s chest tightened. He coughed into his wet hand. The October storm season was in full swing and the weatherman called for seventy mile-per-hour gusts tonight. His doctor had suggested he take a walk now and then, and so he did. Once a month, he’d walk the few blocks down the hill to the City Hall near the water. He lived at the very top of the second hill.
Tonight, he’d practically snored through the discussion about whether or not to extend the cement dock another fifty feet. What did he care? Spend the money. Spend, spend, spend. The City Council wanted to extend the dock so they could accept large cruise ships into their deepwater port. What was the point? The ships weren’t coming no matter what they did. There would be a few here and there. Some would schedule landings and others would drop out. Lately, only the smaller ships were consistent, and those old folks never spent any money in town anyway. Not even with the Stikine River playground in Wrangell’s backyard. In order to get cruise ships here, they’d have to hijack the ships on their way to Sitka, the Paris of the Pacific, out on the ocean, and drag them all the way in here to the Inside Passage.
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