Shadows on the Koyukuk

by Sidney Huntington

  We had been told never to go into the store unless adults were present, but we had no food. Poor Marion was constantly crying, and Jimmy’s bravado was wearing thin. I was growing weak from not eating. We decided we had to disobey and go into the store, at least to find some milk for Marion.

  Inside the store we found a can that looked like the condensed milk cans Mom had used in the house, but then I had the problem of opening it. I used my boy’s axe, and of course spilled some of the rich creamy liquid. I poured the milk into Marion’s dirty bottle, a ketchup bottle topped with a stretchy rubber nipple, and to dilute the milk we added river water.

  After drinking a couple of these haphazard mixtures, Marion seemed to feel better. Jimmy and I tried some of the Eagle Brand without diluting it. It tasted good, so we drank two cans, and ate some hardtack, cookies, and candy. Then, sleepy again, we all crawled inside our shelter and dozed off.

  All three of us woke up sick and vomiting. To add to our problems, Marion had developed diarrhea. We had run out of clean diapers, so we rinsed the dirty ones in the river and hung them on a pole to dry. Despite our efforts, Marion’s skin became raw from diaper rash.

  Feeling sick, we slept fitfully. Into what was probably the second day after our mother’s death, I was awakened suddenly by Marion’s screams; a black bear had its teeth clamped on her diaper and was dragging her from under our shelter. I grabbed Marion’s arms and pulled her back, and the bear ran over to her two big cubs nearby still carrying the dirty diaper.

  The bears must have located us by smell. We were surrounded by our vomit, and that must have attracted them. Surprisingly, they didn’t return. I have always felt that the mother bear sensed that something was amiss. She could easily have killed and eaten all three of us. Since then I have experienced more instances in which bears and other wild animals have respected the helpless young of other species.

  Days passed. Every so often one of the dogs, and sometimes all of them, cried with that long low wail—a sound almost like sad singing. We continued to feed Marion Eagle Brand milk and tried to keep clean diapers on her. Although we slept under the mosquito netting, all three of us were badly bitten, for early June is the peak of the mosquito season in the Koyukuk. We had accepted the death of our mother. Our ideas of Dad were vague; we knew he was gone, but we really didn’t know when or whether he would return.

  “We have to get someone to help us, Jimmy,” I finally said. “Dominic will help. He helped me last winter.” I thought I could find Dominic Vernetti by traveling overland to the Bear Creek mine. Dominic had helped me just four months earlier, and I was sure he would help again.

  We took a can of milk and a few crackers and set out through the portage, which I knew quite well. Two big lakes lay behind the house, with grass along the edges and deep water out in the lake. A mile from home, at the edge of the lake, we came upon the mother black bear and her two big cubs. Standing tall on hind legs, they studied us for a long time. As we moved, they shuffled about uneasily. Then they walked out into the water, away from us.

  Each time we started to pass, the mother bear would lumber closer to us. Frightened, we would back up, and she would wade back into the lake. Again we’d head along the trail, and again she’d come toward us.

  In the deep grass, the mosquitoes were fierce. The bears kept blocking us, and we were tired. I finally said, “We’ve got to go home.” Jimmy and Marion were subdued and left the decision to me. When we turned around and left, the bears didn’t follow us.

  Our only other avenue to get help was by boat. But the river had dropped, leaving the boat high and dry on the steep bank. I had seen my dad and my mom push a pole under the ends of the boat to pry it into the water. I found a pole, put it under the back end, and moved the boat a little. I kept working on that end, but the other end didn’t move. Then it dawned on me; the far end was tied, and the rope was stretched tight. I tried to untie the knot, but my five-year-old fingers weren’t up to the job, so I decided to cut the stake the boat was tied to. Swinging my axe, I missed the stake and cut the rope instead. I then went back to the pry pole at the stern, and bit by bit I moved the boat. Finally the front of the boat hit the water with a bang. It was floating, and I tied it to a stake. Then, to our disappointment, the boat sank. The lumber had dried in the sun, and the seams had opened. We stood looking at it for some time, and then gave up on it for a time.

  The dogs were still moaning and howling softly. Jimmy and I had watered and fed them daily, finding some comfort in their greetings, their wagging tails, their affection. After our failure with the boat, the dogs cheered us some. We crawled onto our soiled mattress and fell asleep.

  The sun was high when we awoke. Night and day had become blurred as the sun circled, never setting. All three of us seemed to be OK. We hadn’t gone in the house to see our mom’s body for days, so I looked through the window. The sight I saw—a mass of squirming white maggots spread on the floor—has remained an ugly scar in my mind. Jimmy and Marion also wanted to look, but I wouldn’t let them, and for that I have always been thankful. It has been bad enough for me to carry that image all of my life.

  I decided then we had to make a move for sure. We went back to the boat, which was half full of water. Its seams had swollen shut enough for it to float. As the sun moved across the sky, I bailed with a can. I asked Jimmy to help me although he was really too young to do much, and by late in the day we’d gotten the boat almost emptied. We were weary, so we slept again. We must have slept quite a spell, for the sun was low when we awoke. We ate a few crackers, which had become our staple food, and drank some milk. Then we finished bailing the boat.

  In the boat we loaded a blanket for Marion, more crackers, and one can of milk, and with my little brother and sister huddled on board, I shoved off into the swift, broad Koyukuk and leaped aboard myself. We had hardly left the beach when the five dogs again lifted their muzzles to the sky with their end-of-the-world howls.

  Suddenly the wind came up, blowing straight across the river from the east. We drifted with the current, of course, for paddling the boat was beyond my strength, and the wind blew us around. We were caught in eddies, and then pushed onto the beach, fortunately on the same side as our cabin. We had spent hours in the boat, but traveled only about a mile downstream. Then a hard spring rainstorm struck and we quickly became soaked. Jimmy and Marion started to cry, upset because I had not brought the tarp. I decided to return home through the woods to get it.

  “You and Marion stay in the boat,” I instructed Jimmy. He was reluctant, but I insisted, and he finally agreed.

  I started off by myself, walked about a hundred feet, and stopped, thinking. Would my mom have wanted me to leave my brother and sister alone in the boat? I knew the answer. I returned and got them. “We’ll all go home,” I said.

  I knew the trail, for I had been on it in winter, snaring rabbits with my mother and hauling wood with my father. Just the same, on that day the woods frightened me; I had been warned to stay out of the trees because I might get lost.

  We were sopping wet. Marion could scarcely walk on the rough trail; she kept falling. Finally, I carried her, but she was heavy for me. I piggybacked her for twenty or thirty steps at a time. We struggled for hours traveling that long mile back to the cabin. As we neared, the dogs again started howling.

  Later, Jack Sackett said we were lucky the boat hadn’t drifted downriver. He had no boat to retrieve us with, even if he had happened to see us go by. We might have drifted for days. Or if the boat had hung up on a beach, we might have gone ashore searching for help where no help existed.

  When we finally arrived back at the cabin, the sun was high so it was probably near noon. Worn out, we sprawled in the sun and went to sleep. When I awoke, the sun was low. I looked at Jimmy and Marion, who were still sleeping. They had sores all over them from insect bites, and they were filthy. I began to cry, knowing they wouldn’t see me. After a time, I brushed away my tears and woke them.

  My eyes mu
st have been red, or maybe he hadn’t really been asleep, because Jimmy asked, “Have you been crying, Sidney?”

  “No. A bug got in my eye,” I answered lamely.

  I didn’t fool them. Both of them put their arms around me. My tears started again. For the first time I felt beaten. With tears still trickling down my cheeks, I decided we must go back to the boat and again try to go downriver. Mosquitoes swarmed around us while we fed the dogs and ate more crackers. Marion grew sleepy, as the sun dipped low in the sky, and we lay down to rest before walking to the mile-distant boat.

  The sun was high in the sky when a strange sound awoke me. The dogs barked an alarm. Between the strange noise and the barking of the dogs I became frightened. It was the first time I had felt that kind of fear. I awoke Jimmy and Marion and urgently said, “We’ve got to run. Something is coming.” I was afraid to run into the woods. Instead, we fled to the cellar of the store.

  The unfamiliar noise I had heard was the steamer Teddy H., owned by trader Sam Dubin. It almost passed our cabin, but then it slowed and reversed. People on board talked so loudly we could hear them even under the store.

  “I don’t see Anna,” someone said.

  “There’s no boat,” said another.

  A third shouted, “I saw the kids run into the store.”

  People came ashore looking for us. I closed the hatch in the floor and locked it with a pole.

  Then I heard, “The woman is dead and the kids are gone.”

  Another voice: “I know I saw the kids run into the store. The door was wide open.”

  “There’s no one here. You must have been seeing things,” was the answer. We heard footsteps on the floor overhead. We sat, petrified, looking upward.

  “I’ll bet a bear ate the kids. Didn’t you see that bear on the hillside back there?”

  About then Marion bumped against the wall and whimpered and someone yelled, “I hear something under the floor.” They called and called, but we refused to answer. One of the men started pulling the floor apart with a pry bar. Soon a man’s head came through a hole in the floor and he quickly spotted us.

  They pulled me out first. I fought, and bit old Sam Dubin on the arm. Jimmy was frantic, and struggled like a wildcat. When the people tried to grab Jimmy or Marion, they clung to me for dear life. We had become terribly afraid and insecure during that terrible time. We felt that Mom and Dad had left us, and when the trust we had in them was violated, we lost our faith in all adults. This attitude would affect me for years.

  Those wonderful people carried us to the boat, and with cake and other goodies bribed us into calming down. They gave us badly needed baths. Matthew Titus, one of the boat’s crew, God bless him, rolled our mother’s remains up in the tarp that had sheltered us kids, and helped make a coffin. The passengers and crew of the Teddy H. buried Mom near the house.

  Then the steamer, with Jimmy, Marion, and me aboard, started downriver. Six miles downstream, we met Dad, Elsie, and Ada coming upriver in Dad’s boat. I don’t remember much about our meeting except that I sobbed and hugged Dad a lot. I remember saying, “Dad, we did something bad. We stole candy and cookies from the store.” He hugged me and tears ran down his cheeks.

  Sam Dubin had David Tobuk, the steamer captain, tow Dad’s boat back to our cabin. Dubin and those aboard the steamer stayed for a few hours until Dad regained some composure. Then, with a mournful toot of her steam whistle, the Teddy H. chugged on her way, leaving us on the riverbank.

  Word of our mother’s death was carried downriver by those aboard the little steamer. In a few days, Old Mama, my uncles and aunts, and other relatives and friends arrived by canoe and poling boat. For days there was much singing of sad old Athapaskan songs and a great deal of crying—almost a continual wail in the old Indian way, as they held a memorial potlatch. There was much food, many words, and many tears.

  Dad moved Mom’s grave away from the house to a beautiful wild spot among the spruces and birches. He read from the Bible as everyone gathered around the crude coffin.

  Ninety years have passed, but I still return frequently to that lonely grave. I am grateful for memories of my wonderful mother, and haunted by those two weeks when Jimmy, Marion, and I were three babes alone in the wilderness.

  4

  ANVIK

  The loss of my mother was a blow from which our family never recovered. Never again did all of us live as a family under the same roof. When the relatives left after the funeral potlatch, Dad spent hours wandering up and down the riverbank, and he often sat quietly by Mom’s grave.

  He suddenly had the sole responsibility of caring for five children. Elsie, who was eight, and Ada, six and a half, now home from mission school, took care of Marion and Jimmy as best they could, but it was obvious that other arrangements had to be made.

  Homemaking and child care on the Alaska frontier of 1920 was a rugged job for a woman. Life was difficult, although we thought nothing of it at the time. We carried our water from the river in buckets. For light we used candles or lamps fueled with kerosene or gasoline, which we hauled upriver with the rest of our supplies. We dug a pit for our outhouse toilet. We washed clothes by soaking them in a tub of boiling water on a wood-burning stove and scrubbing them by hand. We used those same big washtubs as bathtubs for a once-a-week bath. Women tanned furs and made them into winter parkas, mittens, and hats for every family member. Fish, a food staple for us and our sled dogs, had to be caught, then dried or smoked.

  Usually, men caught the fish and women cut and dried them, although sometimes women did the catching. Even sawing and splitting the many cords of firewood for cooking and keeping a cabin warm through the long cold winter was a mammoth job in which women often participated.

  Running the trading post was a full-time job for Dad. He barged in the goods and had to man the store. To drum up trade, he sometimes traveled to remote mining camps. It was clear that there was no way he could take care of us as a homemaker as well as earn a living.

  Help for our family came from the Episcopal mission at Anvik. In late June, the Pelican No. 1, a 28-foot mission boat that annually traveled the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers, stopped at our place at Hog River. Above its inboard engine and large cabin flew an American flag. Missionaries on the boat served the scattered villages and isolated residents by holding religious services, performing marriages, baptizing children, and helping in whatever ways they could. Aboard the vessel that June was Episcopal bishop Peter Trimble Rowe, who had first come to Alaska in 1896 (and would serve as a missionary in Alaska for 46 years).

  “Can you take my children?” Dad asked the bishop, after prayers for my mother and a long conversation.

  “Of course,” was the instant reply. “We’ll be happy to have them.”

  Thus all five of us were loaded aboard the Pelican No. 1 with our clothing and a few prized personal possessions for the trip to Anvik Mission, 500 miles down the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers.

  The Episcopal mission at Anvik, an Indian village on the right bank of the Anvik River about a mile from its junction with the Yukon, was established in 1887. The Reverend John Chapman and his wife arrived that summer, and they would remain with the mission for sixty-one years. Their son, Henry, would become a priest and succeed his father at the mission.

  I was impressed by the size of the mission when I got there, and, indeed, for the time and place it was a large establishment. The log church was about twenty-eight feet by forty feet. It had been built by two Russians, the story went, and that church building still stands today. The logs were hewed flat on four sides, and the corners were dovetailed. All other buildings were made of lumber sawed and planed by a small mill at the mission; sawdust was used as insulation. The girl’s dormitory—a thirty-six-foot by eighty-foot single-story building—was the largest structure. It housed about twenty-five girls and the two women who watched over them, and included a kitchen and a dining room.

  The smaller boys’ dormitory housed up to twelve boys and included the quarter
s of The Reverend and Mrs. Bentley, who supervised the boys.

  The Chapmans’ two-story home also housed the occasional visitor to the mission.

  The mission woodshed was big enough to hold at least thirty cords of stacked wood for the stoves. Water was hauled from the Yukon River with a dog team during winter, and in summer was pulled up the bank with a small steam winch once a week. We also packed some water with buckets and a shoulder yoke.

  The nearby Athapaskan Indian village of Anvik was made up of about 100 people who lived in small, mostly dirt-floored log cabins.

  Early in this century missionaries fulfilled a need in Alaska when that need was great. It was a time of transition for the Natives from their original life of living off the land and migrating in search of food, to a partial dollar trade economy as permanent settlements became established around trading posts. At the time there were few federal or territorial public services on Alaska’s frontier. For these reasons, missions and hospitals built by Bishop Rowe and others were the salvation of many, including orphaned Indian, Eskimo, and half-Native children. (As early as 1903 there were at least eighty-two missions and mission churches of eleven or more denominations in Alaska.) In some cases, white fathers left Alaska and didn’t return, leaving Indian or Eskimo women alone with their offspring. Many of these children surely would have perished without the missions. The missions had an open door for all, including children sent by their parents to be educated, because there were few public schools for them.

  Support for Anvik Mission came largely from donations from the eastern United States and overseas. The teachers, nurses, matrons in charge of the girls, and male attendants in charge of the boys received little or no salary for their dedication to the welfare of these young Alaskans.