Peter Demoski
March 16, 2017
TCC Convention, Keynote Speaker
Preserving Our Way of Life
I believe that to preserve our past, you need to be tied to the past. You need to have lived in the past. The elders have lived in the past. My presentation is to tell the youth how we lived in the past and stories similar to mine can be told and re-told to following generations.
We lived without electricity, without snow machines, without high powered river boats, without TV and telephones. We lived in log cabins that were chinked with moss and had mud roofs. Log cabins were small, one room and heated with a homemade barrel stove cut out of 55 gallon drums. That wood stove was also the cooking stove year round, so wood was a year round necessity for survival. Winter temperatures were a lot colder than now -40, 50 below zero for days at a time. Each house had a honey bucket curtained off in a corner somewhere. Outhouses were our toilets and tissue paper was unheard of. Thank God for Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs.
Every village had more dogs than people. Every family had a dog team for survival – dog teams were necessary for hunting, trapping, transportation and hauling wood. They had to be fed and watered every day. These days we take good care of our machines because we need them for hunting, trapping, transportation and hauling wood. That was the way with dog teams – they had to be well tended and looked after because they were necessary for survival.
Our parents, our grandparents, together with their children lived in spring camps, summer camps and winter camps. Some traveled to spring camps by dogsled before the river ice began breaking up. Spring camps were set up along lakes and sloughs. Most camps consisted of a 10 X 12 foot canvas wall tent with the sled dogs staked out nearby. The lakes were frozen and they were dotted with muskrat houses. Thousands of muskrats populated the lakes and every family harvested them for food and as a source of income. Over the past 20 years, muskrats all but disappeared. No one goes to spring camps anymore.
Within a few weeks, the rivers and sloughs would be free of ice. The rest of the family members would make their way to the spring camps, usually by row boat. Boat motors were scarce in those days. Life renews itself in all forms during spring time and our parents and grandparents took advantage of what nature offered them every spring. They harvested muskrats, ducks, geese, beaver and lake fish. Hunters paddled canoes day and night shooting muskrats with .22 rifles. Daylight was 24 hours long and you heard ducks and geese all day and beaver slapping their tails on the water when they got to close to camp. There used to be so many geese, they numbered in the hundreds when they flew over. In late May, it became time to leave the spring camp, return to the village, and prepare for summer camps. In Nulato people coming from spring camps all waited for each other a few miles below the village. They tied their boats together and continued on to Nulato. A couple miles below the village, everyone began shooting their guns to let the people in Nulato know that the spring campers were returning.
It was time to prepare for summer camp. The whole family, along with the sled dogs, moved to summer camp for fishing. Fast powered boats didn’t come in to the village until the 1960’s and most families had boats with in board motors – chuk-chuk boats – slow moving but they got you to your destinations. Fish camps were intensive as thousands of fish had to be harvested and preserved for both humans and dogs for sustenance through the coming winter. Empty out the fish wheel and set nets early in the morning, cut fish all day, gather firewood for the cooking fires, gather smoke wood for the drying racks and the smokehouse, feed and water the dogs twice a day. We could not do this day after day and occasionally, we took a break. Our fish camp was 120 miles below Nulato with other fish camps above us and below us that we could visit. Or we went hunting for moose and molting geese. Nowadays it is illegal to hunt molting geese.
Fish camps were always plagued with raiders – the black bear. Bears sensed that the doges were tied up and posed no threat and the bear would raid the smoke house. You could kill one and the next day, another would appear. They were a constant scourge to us.
We returned to our villages during the month of August. We visited relatives in nearby villages, keeping our communities linked through culture and heritage. It would take all day to travel to Galena (50 miles above Nulato) by chuk-chuk boats. When the miners and Air Force use to be in Ruby, the elders used to chuk-chuk all that way to dance and have a good time. They danced to fiddle music-square dance, two-step, jitterbug, etc. During this period was also moose hunting season. In Nulato, we are descendants of the Caribou Clan. Moose only entered our hunting grounds during the 1930’s and they replaced the caribou. There are no more caribou in our hunting grounds.
Families went to wood cutting camps to gather firewood for the coming winter. A few days cutting up wood, building a wood raft for the wood and floating the raft home. Most rafts held four to five cords of wood. My wife and I quit going to wood yards during the 1980’s. We were among the last of the families in Nulato to do this. Our wood yard was 40 to 45 miles above Nulato.
Winter camps! I never lived in Nulato during the winters to experience living for months in a camp for one purpose – trapping. I was of a generation who left the village for schooling, and went in to the U.S. Navy. I stayed in the cities for more schooling, working at various jobs, etc. Winter camps consisted of very small cabin quickly thrown together if you had time, but for many, camps was living in a canvas wall tent. It was a rough, tough and hard life – up before daylight, snowshoeing all day, returning to camp after dark, skinning your catch before you went to bed. Every day was the same and that was the only life our ancestors knew.
Trappers didn’t have flashlights. They used a gallon can punched through with holes with a candle in the can. That was their flashlight. Their tents were lit with kerosene lanterns.
A trapper couldn’t trap in one are year after year. Every few years, they would have to trap in a new area – sometimes a hundred miles apart. That way the animals in the old trapping area could replenish themselves. This is an example of our ancestors knowing about the preservation and conservation of wildlife – long before the white man came around.
I heard so many stories about trapping that I became a trapper myself. I wanted to live in a winter camp, trapping, as my ancestors did. In 1980, I and a relative about my age who never left the village as I did and who lived in winter camps before deciding to go trapping 120 miles below Nulato. Where his and my parents trapped before. We had an elder make up a list of food we would need for a couple months or so. Crackers, flour, sugar, coffee, tea, eating fish, potatoes and a moose hind quarter. No junk food! We chartered a plane, loaded up and took off. The pilot dropped us off on the river, said he’d pick us up in a few months on a certain day and he left us. We put on our snow shoes, packed our supplies up the bank, shoveled out an area of snow large enough to put up our 10 x 12 canvas wall tent.
Like our ancestors, we were up before daylight, snow-shoed all day on the trail, and returned to camp many times after dark. Fifteen to twenty miles snow-shoeing every day! We used headlamps to light our way – not the gallon cans with a candle. Our meals were really spartan – pancakes for breakfast, dried fish and crackers on the trail, then moose meat and potatoes for dinner. Day after day! I was actually enjoying myself out there.
I had relatives who lived 15 miles below us – they lived there year round. One day we took a break and snow-shoed on down to visit them. Seven hours by snow shoes and we had to spend the night with them. Early the next day we put on our snow shoes to head back upriver to our camp. Along the way, we ran into a moose trying to get up the cut bank along the river edge. Fresh meat is always welcome in winter camp and my partner loaded up the 30-30 rifle and he tells me he only brought four bullets. That didn’t worry me – who misses a moose only a couple hundred feet away! My partner was 20 feet or so to the side of me and starts shooting – once, twice, three times. That moose became enraged, turned around and charged us. It was running at me – not my partner with the gun. I’m standing there with only an axe and I’m hollering “shoot the S.O.B.” he shot and that moose dropped about 15 feet in front of me. I was shook up and it took me a little while to get myself under control.
Winter conditions went to all extremes while we were out there. It could be 10 to 20 degrees above zero, it could be 30 to 40 degrees below zero, and a couple times it rained on us. Sometimes it got so windy, we snow shoes leaning into the wind. Whatever the weather, we snow shoed every day to check our traps, except when it rained.
The day was coming for us to be picked up. We were out of food. It began snowing and no plane was coming. That storm lasted three days and we were forced to dig up marten carcasses, gutted them and put them in the pot for boiling. We lived on marten for three days. We ate these all day and were still hungry.
I wanted you to know that your ancestors survived for thousands of years in the most extreme weather conditions on earth. They were strong, persevering and dedicated survivalists. They preserved their families, their culture and traditions. You are the results of their heritage. You don’t have to live like they did anymore but you can still be strong, persevering and united. By being so, you will do honor to your ancestors and the Athabascan people will not disappear. We will life on forever!
March 16, 2017
TCC Convention, Keynote Speaker
Preserving Our Way of Life
I believe that to preserve our past, you need to be tied to the past. You need to have lived in the past. The elders have lived in the past. My presentation is to tell the youth how we lived in the past and stories similar to mine can be told and re-told to following generations.
We lived without electricity, without snow machines, without high powered river boats, without TV and telephones. We lived in log cabins that were chinked with moss and had mud roofs. Log cabins were small, one room and heated with a homemade barrel stove cut out of 55 gallon drums. That wood stove was also the cooking stove year round, so wood was a year round necessity for survival. Winter temperatures were a lot colder than now -40, 50 below zero for days at a time. Each house had a honey bucket curtained off in a corner somewhere. Outhouses were our toilets and tissue paper was unheard of. Thank God for Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs.
Every village had more dogs than people. Every family had a dog team for survival – dog teams were necessary for hunting, trapping, transportation and hauling wood. They had to be fed and watered every day. These days we take good care of our machines because we need them for hunting, trapping, transportation and hauling wood. That was the way with dog teams – they had to be well tended and looked after because they were necessary for survival.
Our parents, our grandparents, together with their children lived in spring camps, summer camps and winter camps. Some traveled to spring camps by dogsled before the river ice began breaking up. Spring camps were set up along lakes and sloughs. Most camps consisted of a 10 X 12 foot canvas wall tent with the sled dogs staked out nearby. The lakes were frozen and they were dotted with muskrat houses. Thousands of muskrats populated the lakes and every family harvested them for food and as a source of income. Over the past 20 years, muskrats all but disappeared. No one goes to spring camps anymore.
Within a few weeks, the rivers and sloughs would be free of ice. The rest of the family members would make their way to the spring camps, usually by row boat. Boat motors were scarce in those days. Life renews itself in all forms during spring time and our parents and grandparents took advantage of what nature offered them every spring. They harvested muskrats, ducks, geese, beaver and lake fish. Hunters paddled canoes day and night shooting muskrats with .22 rifles. Daylight was 24 hours long and you heard ducks and geese all day and beaver slapping their tails on the water when they got to close to camp. There used to be so many geese, they numbered in the hundreds when they flew over. In late May, it became time to leave the spring camp, return to the village, and prepare for summer camps. In Nulato people coming from spring camps all waited for each other a few miles below the village. They tied their boats together and continued on to Nulato. A couple miles below the village, everyone began shooting their guns to let the people in Nulato know that the spring campers were returning.
It was time to prepare for summer camp. The whole family, along with the sled dogs, moved to summer camp for fishing. Fast powered boats didn’t come in to the village until the 1960’s and most families had boats with in board motors – chuk-chuk boats – slow moving but they got you to your destinations. Fish camps were intensive as thousands of fish had to be harvested and preserved for both humans and dogs for sustenance through the coming winter. Empty out the fish wheel and set nets early in the morning, cut fish all day, gather firewood for the cooking fires, gather smoke wood for the drying racks and the smokehouse, feed and water the dogs twice a day. We could not do this day after day and occasionally, we took a break. Our fish camp was 120 miles below Nulato with other fish camps above us and below us that we could visit. Or we went hunting for moose and molting geese. Nowadays it is illegal to hunt molting geese.
Fish camps were always plagued with raiders – the black bear. Bears sensed that the doges were tied up and posed no threat and the bear would raid the smoke house. You could kill one and the next day, another would appear. They were a constant scourge to us.
We returned to our villages during the month of August. We visited relatives in nearby villages, keeping our communities linked through culture and heritage. It would take all day to travel to Galena (50 miles above Nulato) by chuk-chuk boats. When the miners and Air Force use to be in Ruby, the elders used to chuk-chuk all that way to dance and have a good time. They danced to fiddle music-square dance, two-step, jitterbug, etc. During this period was also moose hunting season. In Nulato, we are descendants of the Caribou Clan. Moose only entered our hunting grounds during the 1930’s and they replaced the caribou. There are no more caribou in our hunting grounds.
Families went to wood cutting camps to gather firewood for the coming winter. A few days cutting up wood, building a wood raft for the wood and floating the raft home. Most rafts held four to five cords of wood. My wife and I quit going to wood yards during the 1980’s. We were among the last of the families in Nulato to do this. Our wood yard was 40 to 45 miles above Nulato.
Winter camps! I never lived in Nulato during the winters to experience living for months in a camp for one purpose – trapping. I was of a generation who left the village for schooling, and went in to the U.S. Navy. I stayed in the cities for more schooling, working at various jobs, etc. Winter camps consisted of very small cabin quickly thrown together if you had time, but for many, camps was living in a canvas wall tent. It was a rough, tough and hard life – up before daylight, snowshoeing all day, returning to camp after dark, skinning your catch before you went to bed. Every day was the same and that was the only life our ancestors knew.
Trappers didn’t have flashlights. They used a gallon can punched through with holes with a candle in the can. That was their flashlight. Their tents were lit with kerosene lanterns.
A trapper couldn’t trap in one are year after year. Every few years, they would have to trap in a new area – sometimes a hundred miles apart. That way the animals in the old trapping area could replenish themselves. This is an example of our ancestors knowing about the preservation and conservation of wildlife – long before the white man came around.
I heard so many stories about trapping that I became a trapper myself. I wanted to live in a winter camp, trapping, as my ancestors did. In 1980, I and a relative about my age who never left the village as I did and who lived in winter camps before deciding to go trapping 120 miles below Nulato. Where his and my parents trapped before. We had an elder make up a list of food we would need for a couple months or so. Crackers, flour, sugar, coffee, tea, eating fish, potatoes and a moose hind quarter. No junk food! We chartered a plane, loaded up and took off. The pilot dropped us off on the river, said he’d pick us up in a few months on a certain day and he left us. We put on our snow shoes, packed our supplies up the bank, shoveled out an area of snow large enough to put up our 10 x 12 canvas wall tent.
Like our ancestors, we were up before daylight, snow-shoed all day on the trail, and returned to camp many times after dark. Fifteen to twenty miles snow-shoeing every day! We used headlamps to light our way – not the gallon cans with a candle. Our meals were really spartan – pancakes for breakfast, dried fish and crackers on the trail, then moose meat and potatoes for dinner. Day after day! I was actually enjoying myself out there.
I had relatives who lived 15 miles below us – they lived there year round. One day we took a break and snow-shoed on down to visit them. Seven hours by snow shoes and we had to spend the night with them. Early the next day we put on our snow shoes to head back upriver to our camp. Along the way, we ran into a moose trying to get up the cut bank along the river edge. Fresh meat is always welcome in winter camp and my partner loaded up the 30-30 rifle and he tells me he only brought four bullets. That didn’t worry me – who misses a moose only a couple hundred feet away! My partner was 20 feet or so to the side of me and starts shooting – once, twice, three times. That moose became enraged, turned around and charged us. It was running at me – not my partner with the gun. I’m standing there with only an axe and I’m hollering “shoot the S.O.B.” he shot and that moose dropped about 15 feet in front of me. I was shook up and it took me a little while to get myself under control.
Winter conditions went to all extremes while we were out there. It could be 10 to 20 degrees above zero, it could be 30 to 40 degrees below zero, and a couple times it rained on us. Sometimes it got so windy, we snow shoes leaning into the wind. Whatever the weather, we snow shoed every day to check our traps, except when it rained.
The day was coming for us to be picked up. We were out of food. It began snowing and no plane was coming. That storm lasted three days and we were forced to dig up marten carcasses, gutted them and put them in the pot for boiling. We lived on marten for three days. We ate these all day and were still hungry.
I wanted you to know that your ancestors survived for thousands of years in the most extreme weather conditions on earth. They were strong, persevering and dedicated survivalists. They preserved their families, their culture and traditions. You are the results of their heritage. You don’t have to live like they did anymore but you can still be strong, persevering and united. By being so, you will do honor to your ancestors and the Athabascan people will not disappear. We will life on forever!