North in Alaska - The Twins, Settling in, Halloween Warning

The "Twins," Sally and Sara, are delightful girls.  Their eyes sparkle, their voices radiate friendliness and their constant chatter overlaps and completes each others sentences.  Their uncle, Uncle Frank, on the other hand is as dower and uncommunicative as anyone I have ever met.  I immediately found out that if you wanted to talk to him you did so through one of the Twins.  He claims not to speak English and given his ever present scowl I am not sure he would if he could.

Apparently the Twins parents were killed in a bear attack while the Twins were still infants and as is true in many Native American families the mother's uncle took charge of the girls and has raised them like his own.  Regardless of his demeanor he must have done a good job because the Twins seem well adjusted, well read, well versed in the practical arts, and just all around good girls given the fact that they had spent the last 14 years in near isolation conditions.

There is no electricity in the cabins.  The girls occupy one cabin and Uncle Frank has his own smaller version.  The Internet was out of the question so I spent a little bit longer than normal in discussing with the girls how we ought to proceed with their education.  Uncle Frank seemed to ignore us and continued working on some sort of animal hide.   We, the Twins and I, agreed that I would come by each Tuesday and Thursday and spend three to four hours going over the previous lessons and assigning the next.

I asked Uncle Frank, through the Twins, if he had any questions and he just stared at me, turned and walked away.  The Twins giggled and then hugged me goodby which I thought a little out of character for a student teacher relationship specifically and an Athabaskan in general to a non relative or tribal member.  They were so natural about their physicality that no awkwardness was felt among the three of us.

It took me about an hour and a half to get back to our cabin.  Bev had done wonders with organizing the place and our little house in the woods really looked like something Laura Ingles would have been proud of.  We ate dinner consisting of beans and franks and she reminded me that Halloween was tomorrow and that for me not to plan any trips out to see students. 

I looked at her rather puzzled and she said that Mr. Sam came by with a load of old Civil Defense hard candy in a great big tin and informed her that Halloween is a special time in this part of the world and that the trick or treaters start early and do not stay out past dark.  We should expect visitors all day long he said.  He was afraid that the school officials had not informed us of the local custom and he wanted us to get off on the right foot with the "neighbors."

He said there was much interest in us and that we would surely have people from miles around come by to get candy and visit.  He said to offer the kids candy and the grown ups tea. 

As he left he told her that there would be no visitors after night fall and that if anyone came to our door tomorrow after the sun went down not to answer the wrap at the door.  He said that the little people would be roaming around and it was just not a good idea.

Neither of us have any idea what he is talking about.

North in Alaksa - Eddie Joe

Eddie Joe lived about an hours ride on a well travelled wooded trail.  He was the son of Ida Jones and Willie Smith.  Ida and Willie had adopted Eddie Joe from Ida's older sister Sally.  Sally already had 5 kids and Ida had none so it was just the thing to do.  It is a custom that is very common in this part of the world.  No one seems to go through any legal entanglements and everyone knows whom everyone is.  No surprises later in life.

Their cabin was not as nice as the one we have and not as well kept.  Ida and Willie have more important things to do, like make sure they have enough food on hand to get through the winter and are able to stretch their state dividend check far enough to buy ammunition, gasoline and things like that till the next dividend check or the Indian Corporation money comes in from the yearly profit sharing. 

Ida and Willie were very hospitable and welcomed me as a long lost cousin.  Eddie Joe and I talked for awhile just to get to know each other.  I soon learned that Eddie Joe was pretty well versed in English and math.  He did not know a whole lot about government or history other than his tribes history but even then only locally.  His former teacher had left me notes about Eddie Joe and they were very accurate.  

I gave him his assignment for next week along with my email address and told him if he needed any guidance along the way to please contact me. 

I asked Willie about how to get to my next stop and he showed me on the map and put aside my fears that the map may not be all that accurate.  After a cup of tea and a biscuit we bid farewell.  My next stop was to be Sally and Sara Meaghan, the twins.  It was another hour away.

North in Alaska - At the Cabin

It took us about 4 hours to make it to the cabin. It is sort of a nice looking place, just like I pictured it to be.  The men unloaded the gear from the sleds and the women helped put the canned and dry good away and filled up the smoke house which was a pleasant surprise. 

Before they all waved good by and left us alone they did make sure that the boat, generator and four wheeler was working and that we had plenty of gas to run all of them for what they estimated would be about two weeks.   They assured me that they would be back with more sooner than that.  They also left me a rifle with a box of ammunition "just in case" they said.

Tomorrow I will take the four wheeler and start my visitations.  This ought to be interesting.  I guess the map is accurate.  If you don't hear from me for several days you will know it wasn't.

North in Alaska - It Will Be Fine

Well I guess I should not have been so hard on everything the other day. I was just tired from the long trip from Tucson to the little Athabaskan village just north of the Arctic Circle.  Besides we will only be here for a few weeks but it can be a culture shock.  I had forgotten the reality of the bush.

She was not down because of the surroundings, it was I found out later, more because she knew I was upset fearing I had lead her astray.  Oh well.  The supplies should get in tomorrow and the convoy to our cabin should take place soon after that.

When I got the offer to be a travelling teacher I jumped at the chance even if it was only going to be for a few weeks.  How really could I turn it down.  A log cabin and four wheeler along with a motor boat came with the deal and all I had to do was venture out two times a week and make home visits to kids and answer any of their questions from the lessons they took over the Internet from long distance schooling at the University of Alsaks-Fairbanks.  This ought to  be a pretty good adventure.  The only down side is that I have to keep the generator running and I am not mechanically inclined.  In a pinch they told me Big Bear Sam lived about a mile away and he could always be counted on to help. Between the out board motor, four wheeler, and generator I suspect Mr. Sam and I will become good friends.

North in Alaska - The Adventure Begins

We arrived yesterday. This is the most dismal looking place I have ever seen.  Nothing like the pictures you see.  The village is dirty, the houses are little more than plywood shacks and the teacher housing, at least for us, is some where next to the type you would find in the ghetto.

There are fly's all over the place, our food has not arrived, we have no phone or TV yet and we only get one station on the radio. We are very remote here, you can feel it, we feel forlorn and even with both of us here we cannot help feeling alone and isolated. A silence has fallen between us but it isn't out of anger. I think I might have made a mistake.

Women are the ones who are the real pioneers and are the back bone. They make a house a home.  She is doing all the right things but I can tell her heart is not in it. It pains me to see her unhappy.

It is 52 degrees outside, the wind is out of the west at 17 mph.

The school building is the pits. My classroom is OK and in all fairness everyone we have met, native and teacher, have been very nice and helpful. This is a good thing I guess given the fact that yesterday we were all strangers.
 

Fishing With the Moose

By: Paul Fender                                                            

Fishing With The Moose

While living in Spokane, WA in 1993 my brother Chris came up for a fishing trip.  I had talked with several area fly fishermen about good places to go.  After much discussion and investigation I decided that we should explore the tributaries of the Clear Water in Northern Idaho.  The time of year was early September.  The weather was in the sixties during the day and the night time temperatures were still above freezing in the mountains.  Our plan was to leave Spokane on Friday morning and drive through Northern Idaho on I90 into Montana then back over the mountains through the Hoodoo pass back into Idaho and down to the confluence of Moose Creek and Kelly Creek where there was a camp ground.  We would make our camp site there and fish Moose Creek, Kelly Creek, and Cayuse Creek.  We would be fishing for trout.  We would be wading the creeks fishing with five weight fly rods, floating lines and 3lb tapered tippets.  The dry flies that were suggested for the area and this time of year were Yellow Humpies, Renegades, Stimulators, and Wooly Bugers.

The construction project that I was working on had been completed and we were just finishing the punch list.  I had workers on site so I could take off Friday and Monday. Everyone had been lined out so all was in place.  However, as usual I get a call earlyFriday morning that there is a problem with one of the new Chillers installed and it was leaking gas.  This was a federal project so anything leaking into the atmosphere was a big deal.  The mechanical room was actually located three stories below ground level with a specially designed venting system just in case this type of leak occurred.   This was the only project in my career that even had this safe guard.  Leave it to our government to waste money.  I had to be present to analyze the repairs.  I called the company responsible and they provided a tech that morning.  When we left before noon all was ok. 

We are now several hours behind schedule but being the adventurous souls we were, we pressed on.  We headed east on I90.  I had scheduled a few stops along the way so that my brother could experience some of the local ambiance.  Our first stop was the Snake Pit in Catalpa, ID.  The Snake Pit is and old two story western bar and whore house back in the day.  It dates back to the 1880’s.  Looked like it belongs on a movie set.  It is a favorite stopping off spot for bikers touring along I90.  We stopped for burgers and fries and a few adult beverages.  We continue along through Kellogg and Wallace.  These are two towns that were mining towns in there day.  Kellogg is where Hemmingway lived and where he is buried after his suicide.  Wallace is famous for their Sheriff.  He had been indicted three times by the feds but all three times the jury acquitted.  They could not get a jury to convict the sheriff and the federal judge would not change the venue. The sheriff was the man who controlled illegal gambling, prostitution, and other trades the feds frown on.  You need to remember this is still the old west.  A lot goes on in theNorthwest woods and that will take another story.  We press on.

We make another stop at the $100,000 bar for some additional reinforcement.  There actually is a $100,000 dollars in silver dollars laminated into the bar top.  My dream has always been to own a convenience liquor store in NW Montana with the slot machines allotted, with a small no tell Motel out back with illegal gambling and fancy ladies. Never happened.  When we leave it has begun to drizzle and it is getting dusk.  Superior is a little further East on I 90.

At this point I will write out the directions we were given by my friend who now lives in Anaconda, Mt.  They go like this:  “Go to Superior and take the exit off I 90.  You will need to get back to the other side of I90 so go West until you come to the creek and turn left under I90 you will see a lumber yard.  There is a drive between the lumber yard office and the storage barns.  The drive is really a road up the mountains.  It is unimproved but it is really pretty good.  As you go up the mountain the roads splits many times but always stay to the right except for one spot about half way up where you go left.  You will be able to tell as it is the most used.  When you go over the Hoodoo pass into Idaho the road becomes paved.  Go down the road until you come to the camp ground.  You better by gas in Superior before you start up the mountain because there won’t be any where you are going.  If you have an emergency  there is a Ranger Cottage at the confluence of Kelly Creek and Moose Creek and there is a phone.”

We buy gas and start are trek up the mountain.  It is dark now and the drizzle has turned to a light rain.  This road up the mountain starts out like many country roads but as we go up it winds around.  There are many switch backs and as we continues to it turns into nothing more than an old logging road.  We continue on.  My brother begins freaking out as the downhill side is very steep.  You can really see it with all the lightning strikes going on.  There are no markings along the road.  We keep going right at the Y’s in the road and after a good hour and a half we are at Hoodoo Pass.  It is raining harder now and getting colder.  We are now at the Idaho border and the paved road.  We are home free now.  Just have to find the camp site.

At this point I think it would be nice for you all to see a more accurate set of directions to the camp site.  You have to remember back in the 1990’s we didn’t have GPS or Google maps.  I used Google maps and followed it up the mountain.  It goes like this: Take I90 East to exit 47 at Superior, MT.  Turn left onto State Road 257, turn Right ontoRiver St. and then left onto Diamond Road.  Diamond Road still goes through the lumber yard.  Diamond Road becomes Trout Creek road.  Trout Creek Rd. is also named County Rd. 250 as you go over Hoodoo Pass.  Up to this point it is still an unimproved road. County Rd. 250 is improved and is also named Moose Creek Rd.  As you continue on the name changes to Black Canyon Rd. but it is still County Rd. 250.  Continue on to theHidden Creek Camp Ground.  Now the camp ground has a name.  This is where we stopped.  If you continue to follow the road on down you will run into the confluence of the North Fork of the Clearwater River.  If you continue on down the river and take the progressively better road you will take Hwy. 11 to Hwy. 12 to Orofino, ID.  If you check this out it is a very long way and you are still 100’s of miles from Spokane.  However, this a beautiful drive.  So our trip home will take us back over Hoodoo pass into Montanathen back west along I90.

We arrived at the camp site about 11:00 pm.  There is only one other group in the whole camp ground.  It is raining  pretty hard now and a lot of lightning and thunder.  By brother suggest that we sleep in the truck until morning.  I am not for that as I absolutely hate to sleep in the front seat of a truck.  Being the older brother I get my way.  Naturally we have a new tent that has never been erected before.  I open the box up and get the directions  and get back in the truck to read them.  Simple enough we can do this.  My brother again suggest that we sleep in the truck.  I get my way.  So we dawn our rain gear take a swig of Patron and we head out into the elements like true mountain men. Jim Bridger and Jeremiah Johnson had nothing on the Fender Brothers.  After we struggled with the tent for an hour we had it up including the rain fly.  As the years went by my granddaughter and I could erect the tent in about 15 minutes.  Must have been the Patron.  I remind my brother to leave the food locked up in the truck as there are Grizzly bears in this area.  We put our gear in the tent and we immediately fall to sleep listening to the rain fall gently on the tent.

About 3:00 am my brother wakes me up.  “Do you hear that?  I think there is a bear out there.”  It had quit raining and you could hear a crunch crunch like a cow eating corn. My brother is sure it was a bear.  He gets out his hunting knife.  I ask him what are going to do with that, slit your wrists, because you come after a bear with that knife he will eat you and I’ll laugh.  We hear the crunching sound continuing then the animal begins walking towards the tent.  I could tell that whatever it was it was on all fours.  It came up alongside the tent and stopped.  My brother is getting really nervous at this point. Then all of a sudden the animal begins pissing on the tent.  It smelled really bad.  At this point I had had enough and curiosity was getting the best of me.  The animal had begun walking on.  I came out of the ten with my big Mag Lite.  I shined the light in the direction of the animal.  It was a huge Bull Moose.  He just looked back over his shoulder at me and wondered off.  It was a big Moose close to 1,500 lbs.  All this time my brother was still in the tent and I was  outside being quiet.  He kept calling my name and I crept back over by the tent and started pawing at the tent with my hands.  He came roaring out the tent in a rage.  It was hilarious.  The other group of campers had been watching all this and we all roared with laughter.  My brother was not a happy camper.  We went back in the tent and went back to sleep enduring the smell of Moose piss.  Over the years when I and my grandkids would sleep in that old tent they always asked what that smell was.  It never went away although lessened over the years.  So at night after the kids were tucked in I had to tell them the Moose pissing on the tent story.

The next morning we found out from our neighbors what the crunching sound was.  The Moose had been going from camp site to camp site eating the wet coals from the fire pits.  They had also heard the crunching and began watching the moose.  They were a group of college students from Idaho State out for a weekend of trout fishing.  We built a fire with the dry wood we brought with us and cooked breakfast.  After breakfast we went fishing back up the creek from where we had camped to an area the students had suggested.  On our way up the creek we heard a bull elk bugling and the a cow answering.  The bull really began bugling up a storm.  My brother being the outdoorsman he is says, “Is that some ones car alarm?”  Enough said.

The fishing started out slow.  I wasn’t catching anything and brother who is an excellent fisherman caught a few.  We fished for three or four hours and went back to camp.  We noticed one of the students fishing way back up in a notch a long way from the road.  He was facing into the current casting up stream and stripping line as his line came back to him.  He was catching a lot of fish.  He came back to camp soon after we had.  We shared some beers with him and he told us what he was doing.  He was getting back away from the road where most fishermen would not make the effort and was stripping Stimulators with the current.  The bank on the road side of the creek was extremely steep with the road about a hundred feet above the stream bed.  You would have  to hike along the road and find an accessible way down to the stream.  Then wade the stream back away from the road back where it cut back into the mountain.  We caught a lot of cut throat trout.  Fish is good.  The weather cleared and we fished till Monday, broke camp and headed back over Hoodoo to I90 then West to Spokane.

Columbus Day

If you have been following my Appian Way saga, you might have picked up on the fact that the end of my adventure coincided with Columbus Day Eve, if there is such a thing.

It is up for interpretation but Christopher Columbus was born on October 31, 1451 and due to the change in the calender it was moved to October 12 of the same year. Due to the Monday thing the celebration is a different date every year.  He died around May 20, 1506.

As grade schoolers we learned that Columbus discovered America.  When we got to high school we found out that perhaps that was not entirely true, but his voyage in 1492 for shadowed European colonization of the Americas.

There are a few places in the United States that hold Columbus Day celebrations but not as many as you might think considering America's large Italian/American ethnic group.  The patron saint of Italians, St. Joseph, celebrated on March 19, is a much bigger deal in many communities especially New Orleans.  The parade they hold there every year honoring the husband of Mary is only surpassed by MardiGras.  However that is odd in and of itself because New York is where most of the Italian immigrants disembarked and New Orleans for some reason was the main port of entry in the 19th century for Sicilians.  Do not confuse the two.  Sicilians and Italians are as different as Eskimos and Indians.  You don't call one the other.

In actuality Sicilians have made more of an impact on American culture and folk lore, mainly because the Mafia and Cosa Nostra, with their code of silence, Omerta, started in Sicily during the Roman times.  It was established to take care of "families" against the evils of the Roman Empire.  It served a purpose back then and has eventually been disbanded.  There is nothing like them that exist any more and what stories you do here are myths and urban legends.  I mean really have you ever really met a mob guy?

For instance I know this lady who is a third generation Sicilian.  She takes great pride in her heritage and bristles when people ask her if her family is part of the Mafia or if she knows anyone who was a "made man."

She adamantly rejects such notions and silences the inquiry immediately.  She points out that all her brothers are professional men and work in the family business.  One is a doctor, another a lawyer, and the youngest one a CPA.  Her uncle she proudly states is the head of the family now.  He runs the family business from Cicero on the south side of Chicago.



I asked her once what type of business it was and she told me it was a consulting enterprise and provided special services for private parties that wished to remain anonymous.  She did not know much about the business other than that and never understood why her father was annoyed with her brothers when they went to work for the uncle.  She said it must be a very profitable enterprise.  She said one brother told her that they were successful because they offered services and provided opportunities that were not  available normally and that the intrinsic exchanges were of such a nature that they could not be refused.