Shadows on the Koyukuk

by Sidney Huntington

Lerdahl, Herman

  Literary Digest

  Little Peter from Hog River. See Weaselheart

  Little Sammy

  Little William

  Livingston, Dick

  Loft, Oscar

  Lolee-ann (Koyukon chief)

  Mack, Augie

  mail, delivery in early 1900s

  mail teams. See dogs, sled

  Main, Phil

  Malakof (Russian creole)

  mammals. See also bear, black; bear, brown; beaver; moose; wolf

  caribou

  Dall sheep

  lynx

  marten

  mink

  muskrat

  porcupine

  rabbit (snowshoe hare)

  wolverine

  marriage, in the Koyukuk tradition

  McKinley, Mount. See Denali

  medicine men

  missionaries

  missions

  Monkey John

  moose

  arrive in Koyukuk

  best skin from pregnant cow

  charges Weaselheart

  description

  first seen by author

  found dead in Koyukuk

  hunting of

  importance to Koyukon people

  Indian use of

  killed with bow and arrow

  numbers reduced by wolves

  size of

  tanning of moosehide (see tanning)

  year of greatest abundance in Koyukuk

  mosquitoes

  Mount Edgecumbe (Native school)

  Mountain, Charlie

  Mountain, Cosmos

  Mountain, Vivian

  Mudhen (mail plane)

  mushrooms

  music (Koyukon fiddlers)

  Napoleon (Indian)

  near-death escapes by author

  in Koyukuk River

  in beaver slough

  No Man’s Land

  Northern Commercial Company

  northern lights. See aurora borealis

  Norton Sound

  Notti, Joe

  Nulato massacre

  Old Harry

  Old Mama (author’s grandmother)

  Old Toby

  Oldman, Abraham

  Oldman, Johnny

  Oldman, Kitty

  Olin (Koyukon chief)

  On the Edge of Nowhere (Jimmy Huntington)

  overflow

  Patsy, Toby

  Patsy, Tom

  Paul, Raymond

  Pelican No.

  permafrost

  perpetual motion machine

  pike

  Pilgrims

  Pilot, Andrew

  Pitka, Andrew

  Pitka, Terry

  plastic man

  poling (of canoe)

  potatoes, planting of

  potlatch

  prohibition

  ptarmigan

  Purcell Mountains

  raven

  Regan, Eliza (also Eliza Attla)

  Regan, Ned

  rivers

  Alatna

  Anvik

  Batza

  Dakli

  Dulbi

  Hog (also called Hogatzakaket and Hogatza)

  Huslia

  Kateel

  Kobuk

  Koyukuk

  Melozitna

  Nulato

  Pah

  Selawik

  Tanana

  Tozitna

  Yuki

  Yukon

  Romig, Dr. Howard

  Rossi, Father

  Rowe, Bishop Peter Trimble

  Russell, Pop (trader)

  Russian contact

  Russian traders

  Rutzebeck, Hans

  Sackett, Jack

  Sackett, John (senator)

  Sakeroni. See Old Harry

  salmon

  building processing plant for

  building smoking plant for

  catching in fish wheel

  catching in Yukon

  caught by Indians in traps

  decomposed, for eating

  overfished by Indians

  run in Koyukuk

  Saturday Evening Post

  Schilikuk (Eskimo trader)

  school boards

  schooling, of rural Alaskans

  Senif (revenuer)

  Serum Run

  Seventy-mile Cabin

  Seward Peninsula

  Shade, Ole

  sight, author's loss of

  Simon, Andrew

  Simon, Edwin

  Siwash

  derivation

  fighting words

  survival siwashing in winter

  snow machine

  snowshoes

  built by author

  built by Eklutna John

  rigged backward

  Sommers, Bill

  Sommers, John C.

  Sommers, Johnny

  songs (Koyukon)

  Sophy Sam

  spear, making of, for hunting grizzly bear

  St. John’s-in-the-Wilderness

  stick dance (Nulato)

  Stickman, Don

  Stickman, Joe

  Stickman, Lily

  Stickman, Lucy

  Stuck, Hudson

  Sun Mountain

  supplies, for winter trapping

  surveying

  Swanson, Charlie

  tanning, moosehide

  Teddy H.

  telegraph line

  Thanksgiving, origin of

  thermometer

  Tilley, John

  Titus, Matthew

  tlaabaas (Native knife)

  Tobuk, David

  trapping

  economics of

  traps (fish)

  tuberculosis

  ulu (Eskimo knife)

  United Smelting and Refining Company

  Utopia Creek

  Vachon, Andy

  Valdez

  Vent, Bobby

  Vernetti, Dominic

  Vernetti, Ella

  villages

  Alatna

  Allakaket

  Anvik

  Arctic City

  Candle

  Cutoff

  Eagle

  Galena

  Holy Cross

  Hughes

  Huslia

  Kaltag

  Kobuk

  Kokrines

  Koyukuk Station (also called

  Koyukuk)

  Louse Point

  Marshall

  Moses Village

  Nenana

  Nome

  Nulato

  Rampart

  Ruby

  St. Michaels

  Shageluk

  Tanana

  Tyonek

  Wiseman

  violin (made by author)

  Vixen,

  waterfowl

  Weaselheart

  whipsaw

  White, Sam

  whitefish

  Whitney-Fidalgo Packing Company

  wildlands, home to Koyukon people

  wildlife, abundance in Koyukuk

  Wingfield, Ernie

  Wolasatux

  wolf

  attacks child

  description of

  Eskimo tale of

  family swims Yukon River

  first in Koyukuk

  killed in Koyukuk by aerial hunt

  Koyukon attitude toward

  policy of federal government

  policies of state

  relationship to prey

  shot by author

  trapped by Gilbert Huntington

  use of furs

  Young Toby

  Youth Corp program

  Zane Hills

  ABOUT SIDNEY HUNTINGTON

  Half-Athapaskan Sidney Huntington, born in 1915, grew up in the Koyukuk River country of Northern Alaska, a region that most Americans consider frontier wilderness. In his early years, birchbark canoes, dog teams, and paddlewheel steamers were the primary modes of tra
nsportation. His Koyukon Athapaskan mother died when he was five, after which he lived at a Yukon River mission. Later, he attended the Bureau of Indian Affairs School at Eklutna, Alaska.

  When he was twelve, he joined his father on a trapline. Home was a log cabin, and the Huntingtons lived mostly off the land. He was on his own at sixteen, trapping and selling furs, hunting and fishing for food, and annually growing a vegetable garden.

  During his adventurous life, Huntington has learned the habits of wolves, moose, caribou, and other Koyukuk wildlife. Living in the wilds, he has had many narrow escapes, including a close call from a charging bear. He used his knowledge of wildlife when he served for twenty years as a member of the Alaska Board of Fish and Game and the Alaska Board of Game.

  Wild game and Yukon River salmon still make up most of his food. He observes many of the old Athapaskan customs, and enjoys traditional stories that reveal the history and character of the Koyukon people.

  Huntington lives with his wife, Angela, in the Yukon River village of Galena, Alaska.

  ABOUT JIM REARDEN

  Jim Rearden arrived in Alaska in 1947 to work as a summer Fishery Patrol Agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1950 he organized the wildlife department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he taught as head of that Department for four years. He resigned to become a freelance outdoor writer and photographer. To accompany that profession he became a registered big game guide.

  To support his writing he also worked as a carpenter, an office manager, a clerk in a trading post, and as a commercial salmon fisherman. From 1959 through 1969, he was Area Biologist for Commercial Fisheries in Cook Inlet for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In 1970 he became the Outdoors Editor for Alaska Magazine, as well as a Field Editor for Outdoor Life magazine. He held both positions simultaneously for twenty years.

  He has written twenty-seven books on Alaskan subjects and more than 500 features for about forty magazines in seven countries around the world.

  He served on the Alaska Board of Fish and Game and the Alaska Board of Game 1970–82. In 1976 President Gerald Ford appointed him to the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, where he served eighteen months.

  He is a veteran of WWII and was sonar operator aboard the USS Lovering, a US Navy destroyer escort in the Central Pacific war zone. He holds a private pilot’s license, and has owned three airplanes. He has degrees in wildlife conservation from Oregon State University and the University of Maine. In 2005, in recognition of his teaching, wildlife conservation career, and writing, he received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

  With his wife, Audrey, he lives in Homer in a log house he built himself.