The most exciting thing that happened to me this summer was going camping. On July 14th my uppa Frank's family and my family went camping at "Chuilnguq". It is a two to three hour boat ride downriver in a slough near Marshall. We camped there for three days.

We left Marshall at around 8:00 in the evening in three boats. In the first boat there was Frank, Angeline, Joey, Girlie and Glen. The second boat had my dad, mom brother, sister and me. In the third boat there was Patty, Richard and Jon. We reached our camping spot at about 11:00 in the evening. It was a small island that had no trees. The first thing we did when we landed was unload the boats. Then, Patty's boat took off to camp somewhere further inside "Chuilnguq". After we watched them leave we started to set up our tents. My uppa and Joey had no problem setting up their canvas tent. But it took everybody in our family to set up our big new tent. It was brand new and had never been used before. My mom read the directions and told us what to do. It took us maybe 20-30 minutes to set it up, and it was worth it. The tent was a six person tent. It had one door, two windows the size of the door and you could make a clothes line at the top of the tent where all the six sides joined. Every night we hung up our socks there so they could dry.

After the tents were put up the adults made a fire and sat by it drinking coffee. We kids tried our luck with the hungry pike. After awhile Diane caught one and when she tried to reel it in her line snapped and she lost it. A couple of minutes later I felt a bite and tried to reel it in too fast and my line snapped and I lost my fish too. While I was trying to reel in my fish my dad changed Diane's leader and gave her another hook. After mine snapped he got mad and said that after he fixed my line he wasn't going to fix them anymore. So, after he fixed my line I put my rod away and watched everybody else fish. My mom didn't have a rod so she found herself a strong stick, tied some string to it and put a hook on. She "manaqed" for awhile and was just about to give-up when she looked into the water at her hook. She saw a pike heading for it, but she pulled too early and the fish got away. She looked at me, and with a big smile on her face she said, "It's cool watching them when they go for your hook,uh?" I just looked at her and didn't say anything. We all fished until around 12:30-1:00 a.m. and then went to bed.

All we did the next day was take boat rides, fish and play football. The day before we came back home Patty, Jon and Richard came to check on us. My uppa told Patty that there might be a fire and he and Joey might have to go firefighting. So, Patty left Jon and Richard with us and he and Joey went back home. On that evening Willie Paul caught a fish the size of Glen and kept it. He also caught a small King salmon. Later when we got back to camp we had fish soup. It tasted good. Before everybody went to bed Richard and I played tackle football.

In the morning everybody took down the tents and got ready to go home.

I wouldn't mind going there again because it was lots of fun. Being alone in the country with your family and the animals can be very exciting.

Rose Lynn Fitka