It's cold, It's dark, It's Alaska

People ask now and then  how I put up with the darkness and cold during the winter while living in Alaska.

That is sort of a misconception held by many in the lower 48. It is not dark all the time, at least not in Hooper Bay, Pitka's Point, or Noatak. Yes, it does get cold, but it gets cold in Independence also, albeit not for as long or perhaps as cold.

The sun usually came up around 11:30 a.m., and sat around 4:30 p.m., until the last part of December and then started to gain a few minutes of daylight every day. The only strange thing to me about that was the way the sun traversed the sky.

The sun appeared on the southeast horizon and then scooted along the southern edge of the earth until it eventually sat in the southwest. Purists and those who have lived up there for a long time could give you better coordinates, but you get the picture.

Some of the teachers really did have a problem with the whole thing , however, and my best friend up there suffered tremendously. So much so that he planned on only staying one year. He went into a depression about November and did not come out of it until around March.

I kept telling him it was because he was from Wisconsin and he couldn't make it to a Packers game, and the cheese he got up there was not the same, and beer was nowhere to be found at a reasonable price.

His wife installed indoor lighting designed to fight off the depression but it not work very will

It really is a problem, and I was blessed by not having the malady. The villagers seemed to adjust well and you never heard about any of them suffering from the problem, but sometimes I wonder if the higher-than-normal suicide rate and alcoholism could have been attributed to latitude.

I had the reverse problem with the sun. When I was teaching summer school it did not get completely dark until 1 a.m., and then the sun seemed to be shining like noon at 4 a.m.. This played havoc on my sleep cycle.

It is a strange sensation to be sitting looking out the window at midnight and not having to turn on the lights to read a book. Give me the dark and just a few hours of daylight anytime.

I guess if any natural happening effected me at all it was the lack of seasons. I have a brother who lives in Columbus, Ohio, and one of the reasons he moved from Tucson was that he missed the change in seasons.

There did not seem to be seasons in the places I lived in Alaska. There was winter, then a little less winter, a mild winter, and then winter again. Now and then the temperature rose to near 70 in July or August, and people complained that it was too hot and many of the kids cast off their clothes and jumped into the Bering Sea, Yukon or Noatak Rivers.

The cold is something you needed to deal with and deal with seriously. The Alaskan winter can be unforgiving.  For instance if I wanted to go outside let's say for 15 minutes I would have to do the following. I slipped into a set of silk underwear and flannel pajamas I then put on a pair of insulated socks and carefully stuffed the tops up under my leggings. Over the flannel PJ's I put on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt and top it off with a waterproof nylon set of bib overalls. I would bend down the best I could to put on insulated boots, tie them with bated breath, waddle to the closet and squeeze into my Colombian coat with hood, certified to 50 below. I'd don gloves, face mask, eye protectors, and skull cap. Putting on all that stuff did keep me warm and I hadn't been cold yet.

Some villagers now and then could be heard to say it was really cold out but did not complain. They were used to the cold and knew how to dress and survive in temperatures that fell well below the zero mark.

Besides if it gets really cold they told me they just stay inside. Very ingenious.

Ski Lesson, Alaska Style

Two of my so called friends when I was living in an Alaskan village decided I needed to learn how to ski. I suggested to them that there did not seem to be many hills on the tundra. They said cross-country skiing is what they meant.

I have always been a reluctant athlete. Neither my father nor grandfather ever did anything physical unless being in the Calvary for my grandfather or my dad participating in an extended camping trip they called Korea counts.

My athletic training was left to the 20 or so kids that lived on Lake Drive. I was usually the tackling dummy or the right fielder or the person on whom everyone else practiced their wrestling holds and throwing over their shoulders. I eventually did play football at Van Horn but the only real ability I had was that I did not mind getting knocked down.

Living as the youngest kid on the block gave me a lot of practice; I could always hit the ground without breaking anything and still can. When it comes to falling I am very coordinated and good at it. Getting up, however, at my age gets to be a struggle.

Things are usually scarce in bush Alaska, but let me just tell someone that I would love to learn how to cross-country ski but, alas, have no equipment, and sure enough skis, poles, and boots showed up out of nowhere.

Having exhausted any possible excuse, I met my "friends" behind the school one Saturday. They helped me put on the skis, showed me a few pointers, like how to move forward, gave me some encouragement as I began, then set off ahead of me and yelled over their shoulders that they would wait for me on the small rise just up ahead, which seemed sort of far to me. I did what they told me, putting my left arm forward opposite my right foot and vice-versa, crouching over the skis like a gorilla, and swaying like a fat lady from side to side. Those are terms they used and typical in cross-country ski jargon, I guess.

I found the rhythm and was doing very well, even if I did say so, which I did because I was all alone watching them on the rise waiting for me. It was very exhausting and lonely work. By the time I got to the rise I was huffing and puffing and looked for a soft blanket of snow to lie upon, feeling sort of smug that they would have to lug my body back to the village after my coronary.

They were amazed that I had not fallen and heaped much praise upon me. Good balance has always been a trademark of mine. We three were standing there, I savoring mastering yet another sport, when I fell over. Not from exhaustion or anything, I just fell over. Apparently when on skis on soft snow you must always concentrate on keeping your ankles, knees, and hips aligned and not shift your weight from foot to foot.

As I was lying there waiting for assistance from my "buddies" they said that happens now and then, and I needed to learn how to get up on my own. They were nice enough to offer me words of encouragement and instruction while I flopped around like a wounded walrus. Getting up on two skis is not an easy task. My feet would not turn the way I wanted, the ankles would not bend in the proper direction, my skis kept getting tangled and every time I put a pole into the tundra snow to brace myself it would hit a soft spot and down I would go again.

My two nemeses did try to stifle their laughter between instructions on how to regain an upright position but they failed miserably. Eventually my ski pole struck one of the four boulders on the tundra and I managed to get to one knee, then another, and finally to my feet again. No sooner had I assumed my position as a crouching gorilla when they said we needed to move on. I followed them around the dump, thorough the abandoned oil tanks, and into and through the grave yard. Nice touch, I thought, just in case.

We eventually made it back to the rear of my semi subterranean dwelling. They helped me stumble up the back steps. They pounded on the back door for me because I could not raise my arms that high nor had the strength to knock, plus they thought it unseemly to watch a grown man butt his head against the door to get his wife's attention. What are friends for. I was let inside by a bemused wife, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening prone on the couch checking my vital signs.

Bear'ly friends

One day I was reading in the Anchorage Daily News about a man who was walking his dog near the military base that bumps up to the city limits of Anchorage. It was not the wilderness by any means.

All of a sudden a big Brown bear jumped out onto the wooded path.  He (the man walking the dog not the bear) immediately pulled out his .357 magnum and several shots later the bear lay dead.  Several things came to my mind after reading the article.  I had seen moose walk along the side of the road in Anchorage proper, a friend of mine said she could not keep a garden in the suburbs because moose would eat up her planting, and I could not remember the last time I walked a dog and carried a gun.(of course many do that today in Arizona and several other states all the time I hear.)

There were no bears in Hooper Bay.  There were bears in Pitka's Point and Noatak.  I use to ask the villagers how they protected themselves against the bears when they would go out berry picking.  They told me they didn't worry about it and if they did come across a bear they just left it alone.

Some of my students at Pitka's Point told me that one night a bear did come into the village and wondered around.  They had been outside playing and to keep out of the Bear's way they took refuge in an abandoned house and waited for the bear to go away.

I have a phobia about being eaten by a bear so that hindered my exploring the country side.  I am sure I missed out on a lot of things by not communing with nature but a bear is a bear and I know I could not out run one even if my legs became unfrozen after I stumbled onto one.

In Pitks's Point it was about 100 yards from my front door to the school's main entrance.  I seldom ventured out after the sun went down and when I did I was cautious.  Call me silly and you can tell me about the probability of not being eaten by a bear all you want, but it is like people who buy lottery tickets weekly.  The odds of winning are stacked against  them but try telling that to the guy who won last week.  It is the same as the chances of being eaten by a bear or a shark for that matter (I never swim in anything I cannot see the bottom of ), someone always wins and I would just as soon it not be the bear.

So how do the villagers manage their fear?  Do they fear an attack at all?  It does happen you know, at least enough to make the paper or Internet.

I decided to ask one of the elders if he was afraid or did he just "leave them alone."  He was wise, most elders are.  He said you have to respect the bear.  "The bear has a spirit and there are good spirits and there are bad ones.  If you respect the bear and understand that we are all bears, ravens, moose, rabbits, and salmon, we all just have different skins.  We leave each other alone and the spirits we have blend and we become one. We all have animal spirits and all the animals have human spirits."  "At last," I thought to myself, I should have talked to this guy many months ago.

He then said one more thing that brought everything in to perspective and focus and provided me with a touch of Eskimo wisdom that I shall carry with me for the rest of my day.

"It also helps," he said, "that when you are walking across our great land, enjoying what the great Eagle and Raven have made, that you walk with a friend, a close friend, a friend that you have known for many years, a friend you know that you can run faster than."

Prohibition village style - Alaska

Alcohol, or the lack thereof, has never been a problem for me. When I was informed that Hooper Bay did not allow the consumption, possession, or sale of alcoholic beverages, however, the forbidden fruit, or grain in this case, seemed more appealing.

Prohibition works about as well here as the 18th Amendment did for the rest of the United States.

Home brew is made by the gallons here and it is no secret who makes it, who drinks it or who sells it. Most of the men and many of the women drink. In fact the only ones who do not drink are the teachers, and when they do they do not admit it to anyone. A teacher being found with alcohol gets a one way ticket out of the village at his own expense.

Once things are forbidden, they become desirable. Once desirability sets in, obtaining such becomes an obsession and once obsession grabs hold ignorance doesn't seem to be far behind.

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, said that when he first got here he thought it was unfair that the natives got by with drinking and he could not. He tried buying from the local bootlegger but at $150 a fifth it was too steep a price even for a teacher.

His dad was willing to send him alcohol in used after shave lotion bottles. "It worked in Korea," his dad told him. But that never came about. He turned to his mother for help, as all true men do when confronted with a problem, but she was doing penance in a convent and wouldn't be a party to such a thing. His brother, when told of his plight, was appalled and said he would supply all that was needed for $100 a fifth plus shipping and handling. Not a real close family I guess.

He flirted with the idea of mailing it to himself when he went home for Christmas and put his wife's former husband's return address on the package just in case postal inspectors decided to open the package or it broke in shipment. Plausible deniability I guess, but he chickened out.

Making his own was out of the question because he heard that the process smelled and would be a sure to attract attention. He told me that NyQuil on ice with a splash of seal oil was an urban myth and not to try it, it tasted terrible.

He was right. He eventually resigned himself to a life of sobriety, and so have I.

I asked one of my Eskimo friends that since most everyone in the village seemed to drink more often than not, why didn't they just vote prohibition out? They had that right; other villages had done so. Yes, my friend told me, they did have that right, but the elders were against legalizing alcohol and they respected the wishes of their elders.

There is logic somewhere there I guess.

From Russia with...Alaska

Russia is closer to Hooper Bay than Anchorage. Russian influence is just around an Alaskan corner.

I had reason to travel to my first Eskimo village outside Hooper Bay one weekend. The settlement was, and still is I guess, called Russian Mission.

Russian Mission is about an hours plane ride just northeast of Hooper Bay. It hugs the side of a mountain and creeps toward the Yukon River. Russian Mission is home to about 350 Yup'ik Eskimos with a smattering of other than brown eyes. Names like Vaska, Kozev, Nikoff, Alexie, Nickoli, and Stafphanoff are proudly displayed on the school sports banner.

Promyshlenniki – Russian fur traders – established a trading post on the banks of the Yukon in 1830. The Russian Orthodox Church soon followed and started a mission, thus the name. Of course a thriving Eskimo village had been on the same spot for around 10,000 years but such technicalities have never stopped a Gussick from naming anything.

The first thing that struck me as we pulled up to the school, other than all the trees, was a strange-looking animal hanging from a drying rack. I found out it was an otter, caught and skinned by the students to feed the Lower Yukon School District board members who were meeting at the school that day. It was not ready for cooking, though, and the board had to be fed caribou and dried salmon instead. Life is hard sometimes in the Last Frontier.

The Russian Mission school had and I hope still have a subsistence curriculum. Besides learning the three R's, the kids ran trap lines twice a week, spent three weeks a couple of times each year at a fish and hunting camp and learned survival skills. The high school girls were just getting ready to go on their own three-day caribou hunt when I arrived, the boys having gone the previous week.

The Russian Orthodox Church still dominated the scenery with no less than two churches having seen use and a brand new one displaying the onion dome.

The school had 100 students K-12, about one-third of the village population, and nine certified staff including the principal a 17-year veteran of the district and responsible for developing many programs that could be a model for many an Alaskan bush school.

In addition to the subsistence curriculum the school raised enough money the previous year to send some students to Japan to environmental conference and were planning another trip.

I was there because I was the Academic Decathlon coach, and Russian Mission was sponsoring the tournament. The gym was too small to host athletic events and each village in the district was designated to hold at least one district wide event each year. It was Russian Mission's turn.

Forty students from around the district participated in the event. They gave speeches, wrote essays, gave interviews, and took tests in math, English, economics, science, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The event lasted two days and, through superb coaching, Hooper Bay did just fine. Our five girls came in second, third, fourth, and fifth. Two will attend the state championship in Anchorage and our team tied for third with Russian Mission.

I would like to take the credit for our team's achievement but in reality I did very little. I could not get the girls to practice very much and the few times I was half way successful, they more than not did their research by checking and sending e-mails to the boys they met in Russian Mission.

Drum Beat - Alaska

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun..." Robert W. Service

When I was young my given name of Conley was the same as that of my grandfather. I never liked that name growing up because I identified it with old people.

I much preferred the nickname given me by my name sake – Snapper. Why Snapper? Well, the family story goes that when Baba (my grandfather) first saw me I was red and blinked my eyes like a red snapper. I am sure he had never seen a red snapper but facts like that never got in his way.

Times have changed and I no longer introduce myself as Snapper. It sounds sort of silly for a person of my age. I have come to think of Conley as a very sophisticated and beautiful name.

In most of the villages I lived in while in Alaska the naming of a child took on a complexity all its own.

Many children, when given a Christian name, were named after the recently deceased, relative or not. Some believed the spirit of the deceased entered the body of the person thus named. So if you take this to the extreme you can really be your own Grandpa.

Most villagers had two names, Christian and native. When given Christian names, the girls were often named after their mothers and were tagged with the Junior and Senior thing, just as boys. It was not uncommon for children to take their mother's last name.

To complicate the matter, some children were given to relatives or neighbors after being born, and they kept their birth name regardless of who raised them. For instance Sandi Collins' mother was Sandi Collins, her father was a Kohely, and she was raised and adopted by a Quinn but she is always Sandi Collins Jr. Her brothers and sisters, even if she was a twin, might have altogether different last names depending on who's who in the tribal hierarchy at the time.

Trying to tell who belongs to whom or who is related to whom got very confusing.

I have not figured out tribal naming customs to a great extent, and the natives have a hard time explaining it to an outsider. They are sort of reluctant to anyway, because they have been conditioned to feel that Gussicks (non natives) don't approve of the double name thing. Perhaps way back that was true, but all the Gussicks I knew think it really a neat thing. But old wounds do not heal very fast between cultures.

I use to ask kids what their tribal names were but I seldom called them that because I could not pronounce the names correctly and when I tried I got laughed at.

Now and then Gussicks are given an Eskimo name. Usually it is just a casual thing, and the name more often than not refers to an animal or a physical feature the Gussick might have. Like Polar Bear (for a big guy), Walrus (for someone who has long teeth), bearded one, or baldy, things like that.

These names when said in English do not sound flattering, but when said in the local language, it is almost elegant. Besides the names are not given to be insulting, just descriptive.

Sometimes, however, a Gussick is named by an elder under unusual circumstance, usually without warning, and it takes on a mystical quality, almost as if that elder has or had some connection to the ancient shamans. There are no shamans anymore, or so the natives would have you believe, once again keeping such knowledge to themselves so as not to suffer ridicule by the Gussicks. There are hints from time to time that one or two are still around, but don't try to pin a native down on who or where.

I now have a Yup'ik Eskimo name. It was given to me by an elder who was telling stories to my students one day. She stopped her story in mid sentence, looked at me and asked if I had a Yup'ik name. I had not and said so. She looked at me for a long time and said, "You will be known as Cauyam anngaa."

Don't even try to pronounce it. I have heard it several times and still can't. I wondered at the time if she was one of those closet shamans that are said not to exist.

I use to write a weekly column for The Independence Examiner and liked Tundra Drums as the title. But there was a newspaper up there that served the delta region with the same name so that was out. I also used the same title for a collection of short storie I wrote and made available to friends and family. I use to have a web page called "Arctic Drums" and the first story I ever wrote was about the making of a drum. No native at the time knew any of this.

So why do I think the elder might have been a shaman in hiding? What mystical quality surrounds my Yup'ik name to make me think such? Well the English translation for Cauyam anngaa is "Brother of the Drum." Go figure.

So this is Conley Stone Snapper Cauyam anngaa McAnally wishing you well, as always. The beat goes on.

Teddy's Letters

McAnally, Teddy Stone, Papers, 1953-1955
4182 .7 cubic feet

RESTRICTED
This collection is available at The State Historical Society of Missouri. If you would like
more information, please contact us at shsresearch@umsystem.edu.

INTRODUCTION
The papers of Teddy Stone McAnally contain the correspondence of a sergeant
from Independence, Missouri, who served during the Korean War. The collection is
largely comprised of letters home to his parents and son. Also included are coded letters
between McAnally and Ruth Streaber of Eldon, Missouri, miscellaneous military
correspondence, and several photographs of McAnally and his fellow soldiers.

DONOR INFORMATION
The papers were donated to the State Historical Society of Missouri by Conley S.
McAnally on 2012 25 October (Accession No. 6335).

RESTRICTIONS
Permission from donor required for commercial uses.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Teddy Stone McAnally was born on October 6, 1928, to Joseph Conley McAnally
and Marie Tennessee McAnally (maiden name Kingsoliver) in Independence, Missouri.
As a young man he resided in Joplin and Sedalia before moving back to Independence.
McAnally made Sergeant First Class while serving in Korea from 1952-1954. He
belonged first to Company “G” 5th RCJ APO 52 and switched to the 19th Infantry
Regiment 24th Division September 20, 1954. Before he was sent to Korea, he received
training by military intelligence at a naval base in San Diego, California, on how to send
and receive coded messages if he was ever captured by the North Koreans.
After his service, he returned to Independence and to his job at Westinghouse
Electric Company, and later became a pilot instructor and an active member of Quiet
Birds. At the age of 42, he began work at the Federal Aviation Administration and
retired as a GS 15. After retirement, he joined the VFW and became a member of the
Horse Mounted Guard in the Shrine. McAnally died on September 28, 2002.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The papers have been arranged into the following three series:
Personal Correspondence
Miscellaneous Papers
Photographs
The Personal Correspondence series contains letters written by Teddy Stone
McAnally to his mother (Marie Tennessee McAnally), father (Joseph Conley McAnally),
C4182 McAnally, Teddy Stone Page 2
and son (Conley McAnally, addressed as Snapper). These letters date from 1953-1954
and cover his induction into the army at Camp Crowder, Missouri, basic training at Ft.
Roberts, California, and his involvement in the peace-time occupation of Korea. The
letters mention such topics as his base pay, his daily activities, TV shows he watched as
well as USO shows he saw, and his response to different events, such as the Bobby
Greenlease kidnapping and the Korean ceasefire.
Folder 10 contains letters he received from 1953-1954, including letters from
Gary P. Sipes and Ernest E. Lewellen. Folder 11 includes correspondence between
McAnally and Ruth Streaber of Eldon, Missouri. These letters are coded letters based on
a poem, and since McAnally was never actually captured by the North Koreans, they may
have been a way for him to practice the skill.
The Miscellaneous Papers series consists of material pertaining to his service in
Korea. The papers include an army camp newsletter dated October 9, 1953, a registration
certificate for McNally issued on September 18, 1948, and a leave of absence letter from
Westinghouse Electric Company dated February 16, 1953. Also included is a letter to
Mrs. McAnally from the Lt. Col. Arty Commanding, noting McAnally’s arrival at Camp
Roberts, California on February 21, 1953, and his assignment to Battery A, 440th
Armored Field Artillery Battalion.
The Photographs series contains photographs and negatives of McAnally and a
few of his fellow soldiers, taken during his time in the army. The last names included on
the photographs are Thiederman, Stulby, Lewellen, Miller, and Sipes.

FOLDER LIST
f. 1-11 Personal Correspondence
f. 1 2/9/1953-3/31/1953
f. 2 4/5/1953-7/5/1953
f. 3 8/3/1953-9/30/1953
f. 4 10/1/1953-11/30/1953
f. 5 12/1/1953-2/28/1954
f. 6 3/1/1954-4/27/1954
f. 7 5/1/1954-6/29/1954
f. 8 7/6/1954-9/28/1954
f. 9 9/30/1954-12/6/1954
f. 10 Letters Received, 3/9/1953-7/9/1954
f. 11 Coded Letters, 7/30/1953-10/6/1955
f. 12 Miscellaneous Papers, 1953
f. 13 Photographs, 1950s

INDEX TERMS
Subject Folders Image
Camp Crowder, Missouri 1-10
Fort Roberts, California 13 y
Fort Roberts, California 1-11
C4182 McAnally, Teddy Stone Page 3
Subject Folders Image
Fort Roberts, California--Weather, 1950s 1-11
Greenlease, Bobby--Kidnapping 3-11
Korean War, 1950-1953--U.S. Army 13 y
Korean War, 1950-1953--U.S. Army 1-12
Korea--Weather, 1950s 1-11
McAnally, Teddy Stone (1928-2002) 13 y
McAnally, Teddy Stone (1928-2002) 1-12
U.S. Army, Infantry, 19th Regiment, Company G 13 y
U.S. Army, Infantry, 19th Regiment, Company G 1-12
U.S. Army--Military life, 1950s 13 y
U.S. Army--Military life, 1950s 1-12
U.S. Army--Pay, 1950s 1-11
U.S. Army--Training, 1950s 13 y
U.S. Army--Training, 1950s 1-12
United Service Organization--Camp shows, 1950s 3