Chickaloon Wild: End of an Athabascan Family's Way of Life

Epilogue

Chapter 1

The Big Decision

Mary was in the yard, bent over the wash tub scrubbing small, faded jeans on the scrub board, when the family dog, Jug, started to bark and charged down the trail. It was not a bark of alarm, but rather a joyous bark, signaling the return of Johnny, her Athabascan Indian husband. Mary placed her hand on the small of her back, pressing into the muscles sore from bending over the wash tub all afternoon, while shading her eyes with her other hand as she looked down the trail and into the sun.

The day was cool and smelled of early spring. The trees and bushes, backlit by the late afternoon sun, shone lime green with the tiny buds just beginning to burst forth from their brown cocoons. "So, handsome," she thought as her heartbeat quickened at the sight of her tall, dark husband moving toward her with long fast strides. I’m sure glad I didn’t listen to my sisters. She chuckled to herself remembering how they tried to dissuade her from seeing the Indian from C’enacet Na’ (Knik), a village along Cook Inlet near the town of Wasilla. Johnny had a reputation as a ladies man, and her family had been concerned that he might break her heart.

Johnny took in the homey sight with a glance, noting the fire off to the side of the yard where Mary had kettles of water heating to do the wash. He saw clothes swaying on the clothes line and the small cabin in a clearing on the banks of the Chickaloon River with a curl of gray smoke rising from the chimney. But it was on Mary that his eyes rested. She was standing in the golden sunlight, her dress fluttering in the gentle spring breeze. Wisps of raven black hair that had escaped her bun were wet with perspiration and framed her mahogany face that was lit up with a smile, happy to see him. How did I get so lucky? he asked himself again just as he had many other times over the past ten years.

Mary was his life, his entire world. He loved her completely and without reserve, and she him. From the first day he met her at her home village at Old Man Lake he knew this was the woman for him. He teased her and called her his Mary Girl to which she would retort, I am Mary Nickolie. Both became pet names that had stuck and he now pulled her against him in a tender hug inhaling the scent of her. She smelled like wind, and smoke, and soap. His heart swelled with love as he stood holding her.

I missed you, Johnny Shaginoff, she murmured against his denim shirt. You made the trip to Palmer fast.

Stepping away and holding her at arm length, Mary felt a twinge of fear at the sudden change in her husband. He came home to her with bad news. This she knew. What has happened? she cried in alarm. Is it Paul? Mary lived in constant fear that her first born son, now quarantined in the Native Hospital in Anchorage with polio, had worsened.

No. No, Mary, It’s not Paul. In fact, I brought a letter for you from Paul. I picked it up at the Roadhouse on the way here. He thrust his hand into his pack and pulled out a rumpled envelope. Johnny handed it to her and waited as she quickly ripped it open then handed it back to him to be read. He hurriedly scanned the words, and then visibly relaxed. He read it again out loud for Mary. He saw her smiling from time to time at something her teen son from her first marriage had written. Mary had an especially close bond with Paul as he had been very young when his father died in an accident. She was happy that Johnny had accepted Paul and treated him well.

Oh Johnny, I wish I could go see him. When will they let me see him? she lamented.

I don’t know, Mary Girl, he said pulling her back into his arms. Polio is so contagious. We must wait until it is safe so the others, he nodded his head toward the cabin, don’t get sick. Where are the boys? By now they are usually all standing around to see what I brought them," he smiled.

They are out gathering more wood for the fire, she grinned.

Oh, you wanted a little peace and quiet, huh? he chuckled as he glanced at the wood piled by the cabin.

Johnny, what happened in town? Mary asked suddenly remembering her earlier concern. The town she referred to was Palmer, a city recently formed when the President of the United States came up with a plan called The New Deal to send families from the Midwest, struggling to live during the Great Depression, to Alaska to start farms that would supply food to the military bases near Anchorage. The families were referred to as colonists.

Johnny’s expression was serious once more as he told her of the recent deaths of four children belonging to the colonists. Polio continued to crop up here and there, along with several other diseases brought to Alaska with the influx of the white settlers. I’m not sure what to do to keep the boys safe. It is so different in town. I don’t know how long I can keep them away from the changes that are happening in the world. Just a few years ago this whole area was wilderness. Now there are farms all the way to Wasilla. Mary, less than thirty miles away is a city. There is a store and restaurant. There is a movie theater and a school. The buildings are getting hooked up to electricity where you just click a switch on the wall and a light that is fastened to the ceiling comes on. The more he tried to explain what was going on right outside their world the more frustrated he became. We can’t keep the kids away from this other world forever. They need to go to school. They need to learn how to get along in the white man’s world….

No! demanded Mary. She rarely raised her voice, but now spoke with conviction and determination. No. she repeated, How can you say that being called a dirty heathen, a savage, or stinking Indian is going to be good for our boys? How, she continued while pacing back and forth in front of him, do you plan on explaining the signs posted on the buildings: ‘No dogs and no Indians allowed?’ How will you tell them that they can’t go into a restaurant because they are Native? I don’t want them ever to know how it feels to be treated like dirt. To be treated like they are not even human."

Mary, not all the white people are like that. Some are friendly to the Natives. The others are ignorant. There are new laws that will make them take those signs down. We can’t stay in the wilderness and hide just because we don’t want our feelings hurt, he added in a softer tone. But Mary, this is not what concerns me today. We do not want to take the boys to town now with the white man diseases causing deaths. In fact, I’m thinking just the opposite. My thinking is that we should go farther away for the summer. Go up to Puritan Creek and away from contact with others for a couple of months to let the disease go away. Then we will decide what to do about school for the boys and maybe start taking them to town.

Mary was eager to do anything that would prolong the need to introduce the boys to this new world, this world of the white man with all their diseases, prejudices, and changes. Let’s do it. Let’s leave right away.

Chapter 2

The Journey to Puritan Creek

B oys, time to get up, urged Johnny as he stuck his head into the back bedroom, elbowing the curtain that served as a door, off to the side. Through the shaft of lantern light he could see the little boys all snuggled under a heap of heavy, wool army blankets and quilts. Burt, being the eldest, slept on an army cot under the one small window, while the other three slept together in a bed off in the back corner of the little room. Right inside the door to the left was Johnny and Mary’s bed.

All four boys tumbled from their beds in a rush to meet the day. Today they would start the two-day trip to Puritan Creek where they would stay for the summer. They would travel by horseback, taking many of their household items with them.

It was there they would hunt for deniigi (moose) and debae (sheep), catch fish for themselves and the dog, and pick a variety of gigi (berries). They would gather laduudze’ (Labrador tea) leaves to dry for winter, and a variety of medicinal herbs.

Mary was at the large, black, cast iron cook stove slicing potatoes into a big frying pan. The slices popped and sizzled as they hit the hot bacon grease. A stack of crispy begin (bacon) sat on a tin plate in the stove’s upper warming oven. Mary smiled at her little guys as they hurried into the room tucking in shirt tails and zipping up jeans as they walked.

Smells good, Mama, Donald said as he climbed up on an overturned wooden box to get a look at the potatoes. He watched as Mary added a pile of diced onions to the crispy brown potatoes.

You boys have a lot of work to do so better eat a big breakfast. Give you strength. As she stirred the onions into the potatoes, the smell of the food caused Donald’s stomach to rumble.

Mary sent the boys to use the outhouse and wash up while she set the table and scrambled a big pan of fluffy, yellow eggs, deftly flipping slices of homemade bread directly onto the cast iron cook top. She watched the bread carefully as it toasted quickly.

Burt, go out to the shed to get your Dad. He’s packing the last of the things we need to take, Mary said, as she began bringing the food to the table. Burt slipped on a jacket and headed out behind the cabin where Johnny was stacking tools, weapons, and food in various piles.

He looked up as he heard Burt’s approach and smiled. Is it time for breakfast? I’m almost ready for you to start bringing the horses in to get loaded. Let’s go eat then we’ll load them up. We don’t want to keep your mama waiting, he added with a grin.

Soon the family was enjoying a hearty breakfast as Johnny explained the plan for the day. The cabin was cluttered with panniers, a wooden box designed to carry heavy loads on a gon (horse). Some were filled with clothes, pots, pans, dishes, and food, others with sleeping bags, pillows, towels, and personal items. All were painted red using the tsiis (Indian paint, ochre) that oozed out between cracks in the face of a rock cliff in the King River area. Johnny used this paint to preserve the wood of ax handles, picks, ’aas (snowshoes), and now the panniers. The panniers and duffel bags out by the shed held tools, ammo, and food. Scabbards attached to the saddles of the riding horses held rifles.

Johnny reminded his family that the trip would take two full days of travel and they needed to get an early start. Burt and Donald, at nine and seven years old were to help get the horses ready, and Jimmy and Lloyd, the little boys, at six and four, were to stay inside and help their mother.

After the last-minute packing was done, dishes were washed, everything not needed for the trip was put away and the cabin closed up. Johnny and Mary worked together loading the panniers onto the horses. They used their horse, Kitty, to ride, and borrowed four other horses from their neighbor, Ray Grasser. One horse was to ride and three other horses to pack.

Burt, while we get each pannier filled you start tailing the horses, Johnny ordered, gesturing to a pile of short ropes heaped by the supplies. Burt fiddled around with the length of ropes, pulling them free and laying them in rows for ease of grabbing them. He brought the second horse right up behind the lead horse and deftly tied a short rope from the halter of the second horse to the tail of the front horse. He purposefully tied the rope short so that there was no slack preventing the tailed horse from passing the one in front of it. The horses were accustomed to traveling in this way and were content to follow one another along the trail.

With the horses loaded and ready to go, Johnny lifted Burt into a wooden pannier of the last horse in line and put Donald in the pannier on the opposite side. The boys were snug in this nest of clothes and blankets with just their faces sticking out. Lloyd was settled in front of his mama where she could keep her arms around him should he fall asleep, and Jimmy was in front of his dad.

Soon after the trip began, Donald was lulled to sleep by the steady rocking motion of the horse ambling along. Burt and Donald were facing backwards in the pannier boxes, and Burt could see a big