7/19/12
I had been a little skeptical of the event as Helen had organized it but it didn't seem to be publicized very well. She's not very organized but then neither am I and I sort of delight in the chaos. (Amy does not - thank God - at least with her things get done.) There were no signs, no activity in the office for days but somehow it all came together and it seemed like there were well over a hundred people there.
Today we had a Chuathbaluk Tribal Gathering with bike races, egg toss, three legged race and a BBQ of steak, ribs and salmon. We lucked out with the weather. It was cloudy and about 50 degrees but it never really rained which is good. There were bike races, egg toss, sack races that we helped out with.
There was a fish cutting contest and several of the elders took part with Sophie the winner cutting up a salmon in 59 seconds. Father Mike blessed the meal. He is a Yupik man here who is also a Russian Orthodox priest. He has an office in the building, actually the room where Amy and I sleep. He comes in around 9:00 am in his long black robes with his long shaggy black hair. At first he seemed cold and unfriendly but after some time I realized that this is the Yupik way. They are known to value silence and I have come to admire it although my skills don't run in that area. In an effort to connect with him I shared that my grandmother was Russian Orthodox and he seemed to appreciate that.
Last night I joined Father Mike, his wife Matushka and Helen on a boat for the fishing contest. This involved something called a drift. For some reason that I don't really understand this is best done at 12:00 midnight (that's Yupik time which is actually 1:00 am in Gussick time). I actually debated going as we had to be up so early the next morning but I wanted to experience it.
I walked down to the river at 11:45 am with some ambivalence as I saw Amy snuggle into her sleeping bag. It was cold and rainy and I was tired but I didn't want to miss it. As I walked down the empty road past dark log cabins it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time for a bear to emerge. I walked past a broken down deserted cabin that the kids said was haunted and thought I heard a noise and moved quickly.
I arrived at the beach and no one was there, for the contest. (Helens methods of publicizing this event were somewhat ...well... low key). It was dark grey outside, windy and misty. I was immediately freezing and wished I hadn't come. But it was also kind of beautiful. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there are so few people in this part of the world. True wilderness here. I stood on the beach divided. One part of me hoping that no one would show and I could go back to bed and the other enjoying the peaceful serenity of standing on the river beach in the grey misty wind alone.
While I was waiting a couple came along on an ATV. I thought finally someone is here for the contest but they were looking for their son William who had taken a boat to Aniak that morning. The Yupik man was dark haired, around forty five and handsome in a chiseled kind of way. The woman, younger and part Caucasian, was worried. Her 19 year old son and friend hadn't returned and their cell phone wasn't working. They were in a canoe. I looked out at the choppy river and hoped nothing had happened to them. So many young people die here from suicide and drowning.
Finally Helen and Father Mike arrived around 1:00 am. Now I'm from New York City ... you know...the city that never sleeps, but Yupiks really never sleep. They seemed to find this perfectly normal to be going out fishing in the cold rain at 1:00 am. This wouldn't have really bothered me except that we had to be up at 7:00 am and there was also the issue of the ribs. But I'll get to that in a minute.
The Yupik people have this really soft way of speaking. To my New York nasally ear it's almost as if they are swallowing their word which makes it difficult to understand sometimes. There is also a Canadian aspect to their accent or border accent - sort of like the one they had in that movie Fargo. It reminds me of how far north I am. I like to listen to their voices. I sat on the boat shivering and watched as Father Mike and Helen put out a large net into the water down river from Chuathbaluk. Then they sat until the floats started bobbing which is apparently the sign for fish getting caught. Matushka was steering the boat, coming close to the other side of the river moving where Father told her to go.
The salmon get their gills caught, I think. As they pulled them in I was amazed at the size of them. They were at least three feet across. Father Mike struggled to get their teeth out of the net and was bitten at one point. Their teeth are large. We went to another location (extending our 'half hour' trip into two) and found many more in a net that had been set up a day before. . It was really cold but still a grey light was out as this is summer time. The others seemed completely unaffected by the cold. As they pulled fish in they determined which ones were too old for eating and Helen would throw those back. But that would be only if they would survive. Because if they were going to die anyway she said they would use them. I was excited to see tradition in action. Father Oleska had told us in Anchorage that the Yupik culture involved the concept of wasting nothing. So no fish would be wasted. It was about respecting the animal and his offering. They found chum salmon and whitefish and they were huge. It was soooo cold for me with the wind and the mist but doesn't bother them. there seemed to be no worry about the time and the temperature. I don't think people sleep much in the summer. Children seem to stay out half the night and no one seems to worry. I wondered, not for the first time, if this is some adaptation to the seasons as it is so light for so long in the summer and so dark and cold in the winter. For our 'half hour' ride we returned home at 2:00 am and Helen came in to check the ribs. I had to be up at 7:00 am. I am not a morning person.
Now about the ribs. Helen had asked me to cook ribs for the barbecue. Yes me, who never turned on her stove, cook ribs. Earlier in the day she asked me if I could cut up a giant box full of frozen beef ribs and boil them. She said this would take an hour. Appalled, I pointed out that Amy and I had no actual kitchen to do this in, no large knife, no stove and most importantly of all, no frig. "Oh," she said in her soft voice, " I guess I'll have to do them." Thank God, I thought, I don't even like to eat chicken with bones. Suddenly Amy says, "Are you sure we can't help, Helen? It's not really a problem." Helen replies, "Oh, that would be great. I have a big pot and you can put it on the hot plate." I look at Amy in shock. What is she thinking? She doesn't even like to look at meat and I don't cook. Helen runs home to get her big pot.
"What are you doing?" I ask exasperated. "I thought you wanted to do something traditional. You were just complaining that we hadn't done anything traditional so here's your chance. I'll help."
Now Amy is a pescatarian. She doesn't eat meat. She hardly eats fish. I knew this would be traumatic for her. Since she had been doing most of the cooking I decided to do it all. "You know" I said as I searched for rubber gloves,"Barbecued ribs are not traditional food."
I began the surgery. I started cutting the frozen ribs in the bathroom, our only sink, with an old knife that I found in the outside. (I had found it when we were playing hide and seek with the children. One of them said to me, "That's Jamie's mothers." I responded, "Not any more." ) We had cleaned it and hidden it after that. I began when I realized I could get blood on my pants so I asked Amy to remove them since I had my surgical gloves. I hope no one was walking by the cabin when this happened. For two hours I sawed at the ribs. There was blood flying everywhere in the small bathroom. "Oh, god, oh god," I kept saying. Amy offered to help but I thought only one of us should be traumatized so she chatted with me from the other room. I began to load up the giant pot on the tiny burner until it was full. Then I had to find something to fill it up with water. The only thing we had was a coffee pot so in and out of the bathroom I went, pants less, filling up the pot. Pictures were taken. After the giant pot was filled with ribs and water we turned on the plate to boil. Helen came in and asked if we could set our alarm at 3:00 am to check it. I said no. I had to draw the line somewhere.
When we returned at 2:00 am nothing had happened with the water despite the plate being on for three hours. We just turned it off and I crawled into bed at 3:00am. She returned at 7:30 am full of energy, much to my chagrin. The loud leader of the tribe had returned after a few days in Anchorage and decide to take control of the meeting on running the days events in her ever diplomatic style. The games were fun although the poor boys had to do a very long bike race around the town that Helen devised to get their energy out. Poor guys came in sweating and drained. But then they did three legged races and that seemed silly and fun. Before the meal the elder woman named Sophie spoke at the meeting about how elders weren't being taken care of and how the parents are drinking too much and needed to get back to the old ways. Her soft voice resonated and people listened so quietly.
Afterwards we had a BBQ where the Russian Orthodox priest father Michael said a prayer and we ate steak, ribs, salmon, whitefish, macaroni salad and agudiq which is Crisco, sugar, berries and fish. They call it Eskimo ice cream. People won prizes for picking berries and for fishing including ten gallons of gas which is worth about $100 dollars. There are no roads here and the only way in or out is by boat or plane so that is worth alot. Father won as he was the only participant.
I walked down to the river at 11:45 am with some ambivalence as I saw Amy snuggle into her sleeping bag. It was cold and rainy and I was tired but I didn't want to miss it. As I walked down the empty road past dark log cabins it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time for a bear to emerge. I walked past a broken down deserted cabin that the kids said was haunted and thought I heard a noise and moved quickly.
I arrived at the beach and no one was there, for the contest. (Helens methods of publicizing this event were somewhat ...well... low key). It was dark grey outside, windy and misty. I was immediately freezing and wished I hadn't come. But it was also kind of beautiful. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there are so few people in this part of the world. True wilderness here. I stood on the beach divided. One part of me hoping that no one would show and I could go back to bed and the other enjoying the peaceful serenity of standing on the river beach in the grey misty wind alone.
While I was waiting a couple came along on an ATV. I thought finally someone is here for the contest but they were looking for their son William who had taken a boat to Aniak that morning. The Yupik man was dark haired, around forty five and handsome in a chiseled kind of way. The woman, younger and part Caucasian, was worried. Her 19 year old son and friend hadn't returned and their cell phone wasn't working. They were in a canoe. I looked out at the choppy river and hoped nothing had happened to them. So many young people die here from suicide and drowning.
Finally Helen and Father Mike arrived around 1:00 am. Now I'm from New York City ... you know...the city that never sleeps, but Yupiks really never sleep. They seemed to find this perfectly normal to be going out fishing in the cold rain at 1:00 am. This wouldn't have really bothered me except that we had to be up at 7:00 am and there was also the issue of the ribs. But I'll get to that in a minute.
The Yupik people have this really soft way of speaking. To my New York nasally ear it's almost as if they are swallowing their word which makes it difficult to understand sometimes. There is also a Canadian aspect to their accent or border accent - sort of like the one they had in that movie Fargo. It reminds me of how far north I am. I like to listen to their voices. I sat on the boat shivering and watched as Father Mike and Helen put out a large net into the water down river from Chuathbaluk. Then they sat until the floats started bobbing which is apparently the sign for fish getting caught. Matushka was steering the boat, coming close to the other side of the river moving where Father told her to go.
The salmon get their gills caught, I think. As they pulled them in I was amazed at the size of them. They were at least three feet across. Father Mike struggled to get their teeth out of the net and was bitten at one point. Their teeth are large. We went to another location (extending our 'half hour' trip into two) and found many more in a net that had been set up a day before. . It was really cold but still a grey light was out as this is summer time. The others seemed completely unaffected by the cold. As they pulled fish in they determined which ones were too old for eating and Helen would throw those back. But that would be only if they would survive. Because if they were going to die anyway she said they would use them. I was excited to see tradition in action. Father Oleska had told us in Anchorage that the Yupik culture involved the concept of wasting nothing. So no fish would be wasted. It was about respecting the animal and his offering. They found chum salmon and whitefish and they were huge. It was soooo cold for me with the wind and the mist but doesn't bother them. there seemed to be no worry about the time and the temperature. I don't think people sleep much in the summer. Children seem to stay out half the night and no one seems to worry. I wondered, not for the first time, if this is some adaptation to the seasons as it is so light for so long in the summer and so dark and cold in the winter. For our 'half hour' ride we returned home at 2:00 am and Helen came in to check the ribs. I had to be up at 7:00 am. I am not a morning person.
Now about the ribs. Helen had asked me to cook ribs for the barbecue. Yes me, who never turned on her stove, cook ribs. Earlier in the day she asked me if I could cut up a giant box full of frozen beef ribs and boil them. She said this would take an hour. Appalled, I pointed out that Amy and I had no actual kitchen to do this in, no large knife, no stove and most importantly of all, no frig. "Oh," she said in her soft voice, " I guess I'll have to do them." Thank God, I thought, I don't even like to eat chicken with bones. Suddenly Amy says, "Are you sure we can't help, Helen? It's not really a problem." Helen replies, "Oh, that would be great. I have a big pot and you can put it on the hot plate." I look at Amy in shock. What is she thinking? She doesn't even like to look at meat and I don't cook. Helen runs home to get her big pot.
"What are you doing?" I ask exasperated. "I thought you wanted to do something traditional. You were just complaining that we hadn't done anything traditional so here's your chance. I'll help."
Now Amy is a pescatarian. She doesn't eat meat. She hardly eats fish. I knew this would be traumatic for her. Since she had been doing most of the cooking I decided to do it all. "You know" I said as I searched for rubber gloves,"Barbecued ribs are not traditional food."
I began the surgery. I started cutting the frozen ribs in the bathroom, our only sink, with an old knife that I found in the outside. (I had found it when we were playing hide and seek with the children. One of them said to me, "That's Jamie's mothers." I responded, "Not any more." ) We had cleaned it and hidden it after that. I began when I realized I could get blood on my pants so I asked Amy to remove them since I had my surgical gloves. I hope no one was walking by the cabin when this happened. For two hours I sawed at the ribs. There was blood flying everywhere in the small bathroom. "Oh, god, oh god," I kept saying. Amy offered to help but I thought only one of us should be traumatized so she chatted with me from the other room. I began to load up the giant pot on the tiny burner until it was full. Then I had to find something to fill it up with water. The only thing we had was a coffee pot so in and out of the bathroom I went, pants less, filling up the pot. Pictures were taken. After the giant pot was filled with ribs and water we turned on the plate to boil. Helen came in and asked if we could set our alarm at 3:00 am to check it. I said no. I had to draw the line somewhere.
When we returned at 2:00 am nothing had happened with the water despite the plate being on for three hours. We just turned it off and I crawled into bed at 3:00am. She returned at 7:30 am full of energy, much to my chagrin. The loud leader of the tribe had returned after a few days in Anchorage and decide to take control of the meeting on running the days events in her ever diplomatic style. The games were fun although the poor boys had to do a very long bike race around the town that Helen devised to get their energy out. Poor guys came in sweating and drained. But then they did three legged races and that seemed silly and fun. Before the meal the elder woman named Sophie spoke at the meeting about how elders weren't being taken care of and how the parents are drinking too much and needed to get back to the old ways. Her soft voice resonated and people listened so quietly.
Afterwards we had a BBQ where the Russian Orthodox priest father Michael said a prayer and we ate steak, ribs, salmon, whitefish, macaroni salad and agudiq which is Crisco, sugar, berries and fish. They call it Eskimo ice cream. People won prizes for picking berries and for fishing including ten gallons of gas which is worth about $100 dollars. There are no roads here and the only way in or out is by boat or plane so that is worth alot. Father won as he was the only participant.
I had been a little skeptical of the event as Helen had organized it but it didn't seem to be publicized very well. She's not very organized but then neither am I and I sort of delight in the chaos. (Amy does not - thank God - at least with her things get done.) There were no signs, no activity in the office for days but somehow it all came together and it seemed like there were well over a hundred people there.
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