All I did during my childrens' Christmas vacation was work at the clinic during the day and take care of house chores and my family in the evenings.

I spent a lot of time with my sisters, just visiting or watching movies. Most of the time we played card games such as Rummy and Skip-bo.

On New Year's Eve they had a dance at the gym. I went only to browse through the raffle items. While waiting to see if I'd win anything, I sat, listened to the music and talked with family members and friends when they weren't dancing. I bought a lot of tickets for different items and all I won was a coffee maker.

At midnight I walked over near the clinic to watch the fireworks display put on by the city. My husband, my sister Olga and I watched the fireworks for about 20 minutes, and when we got cold we all went home. When I got home I watched TV. The ARCS station was reporting New Year's celebrations all over the world.

I was worried about the Y2K issue, and although I was hoping something would happen, nothing did. I felt sorry for other worried people in other places who had stocked up with food and other supplies. To me, New Year's day seemed like any other day of the year except for all of the excited people running around Marshall.

A Bad Blizzard

The only time Natalia can remember about being in a place where she experienced really bad weather was when she was very young. She remembers a time when she and her parents were traveling by dog team to their winter camp and they were back behind Marshall where there were many hills. She was in the sled and she had a tarp over her. She was trying to see what the weather was like and so she tried making a hole through the tarp. When she finally got a hole made through the tarp she saw it was really blizzarding outside. It was almost a total white out. While they were traveling it had gotten really stormy, so after trying to go a little further they finally stopped. They were lucky to find a cabin where they stayed for the night. The next day the weather was better so they continued traveling to their winter camp.

By: Natalia George

Interview by: Theresa George

"This is a story that I heard about a few women picking berries in bear country and being very careful there weren't any bears around.

It was in late July when the salmonberries were ready to pick. The women were all dressed in kuspuks and carrying buckets with them. After picking berries for a few hours, they became tired and decided to eat. They were sitting down eating dried fish when they saw a bunch of ravens flying around in a distance. Everyone was curious about what was going on. Then one of the women said that there was a bear and the ravens were circling it. The women did not see the bear but knew from past experience that where there were ravens there was probably a bear nearby. Since they didn't have any guns or other ways to protect themselves, they collected all their belongings and walked to the boat."

Story by: Lula Teganlakla
Interviewed by: Darcy Kameroff

A Bear that Visited

On the night of October 1, 1986, Martha was awakened by a loud thump and a dog barking. When she went out to check on it, she could see a big black figure standing there. But thinking it was just a dog, she went back inside. When the dog began to bark again, this time she went out to her smoke house, about 10 feet away from her house. There she saw a very big Brown bear looking at her. And when it started after her, Martha ran behind a drum, pushing it down before the bear took a big swing at her. Terrified, she ran into her house and woke up Fred Smart. After he saw the bear was right outside playing with a red 350 ATV, Fred went back in the house to get a rifle. Then he searched for the bear. He found it by Charlie Evan's house, and when he took his first shot at it, it ran towards Martha's house. When he shot again and again it kept on running. Finally, after the last two shots were fired it fell down and died.

By: Martha Evan As told to Barbara Andrew

A BEAR'S GROWL

A bear's growl makes me feel unsafe.

It makes me tremble like a leaf

that wants to break.

It scares me

before I go to sleep at night.

The growl can come from anywhere in the trees,

from a bear digging in my trash

and eating up my left overs

and snorting out the food stuck on its nose

and growling at me.

When I think it's coming after me,

it gives me a BIG chill!

BY: Carmen Pitka

 

 

When I was a young bee my parents taught me how to protect myself. I never used to run into anyone that used to come into my way. Then one day a lot of "things" took over my land, home and freedom. These human beings thought they ruled us. So I decided to make them know I wanted my land and freedom back. The things I most used to do were lie in the grass and fly into the flowers and trees. But a lot of giant things used to come around and kill some of my friends. Then all of us used to get mad at those giant things that killed our friends. We would pay them back by charging them with our stingers. Then the giant things would not stay around our homes and interfere with our lives. They would let us have our own lives, our own land and freedom. We would suck on flowers, have our own honey bee nests, trees to put our nests in and places to fly. Everyone would have there own freedom, even the human beings that used to rule over our land. Now we don't have to fight over whose land is whose. And everyone is happy about the things they got.

THE END!!!

By: Palassa Sergie

"One year I went snorkeling on the Island of Oahu at Mokuleia. I was diving near the reef close to shore when I spotted a Huma Nuku Nuku Apuaa. It was a fish that had many colors like red, yellow, green, and orange. It also had a beak like a parrot. I shot the fish in the middle with a spear gun. The gun had a barbed spearhead, so after I speared the fish I tried dragging it to shore. But the fish flopped all over the place in the water. When I finally got the fish to shore I tried to take the spear out with my hands, but I was scared to because the fish had a beak like a parrot and I thought it might bite off my fingers. So I finally took my knife and cut the hook out because the barbs were stuck so deep in the fish.

After I brought the fish home I called a friend of mine and asked if the fish was edible. He told me that there was a fish that looked like that which was poisonous. So I threw the fish away. I felt bad about killing a fish I couldn't eat."

Guy Sandlin

The first thing I did when Christmas vacation started was clear off the attendance in the school computer for the new school year.

When the break was official all I did for the first part was stay home and watch some movies.

Another thing I did was go out netting across from Marshall. My sisters, Pal and Sophie, were going to feed people in their houses during Slavic, so it was my job to go out and get some fish for them to make agutaq. I also bought some little things to pass out to the people as gifts.

During moose hunting season, my son Jon caught a moose and I had to help butcher it and put it away. I was really happy that I didn't have to hunt the moose because it was too cold for me!

Something I did that excited me was go square dancing here in Marshall during New Year's Eve. It was a blast. I also went out to see the fireworks display. Even though it was very cold out, it was a beautiful sight.

Throughout the Christmas vacation I had the Elementary School basketball teams practice at the school. On some days it was a lot of fun, but on others it seemed like plain old work.

And, of course, something I wouldn't miss for the life of me, I took a nice hot maqi with the men almost every day during the vacation.

In 1997, when the school was closed for Labor Day, Tom Andrew decided to take me and his son Stip out moose hunting at Devil's Elbow.

As we were driving through the slough, Tom hollered, "Moose!" At first, Stip and I didn't see the bull. We only saw the cow as it was coming out of the water. Then we saw the bull coming out of the water. Stip grabbed his rifle, crawled up to the front of the boat, then he shot three times. He hit the moose on his first shot, but he hit it in the wrong spot. The next shot he missed it completely! It seemed like he didn't even aim but he said he did. He shot once more, but the bull had already escaped into the trees.

We landed the boat where the moose got out of the water, and we went ashore to look for the moose. Soon we found a big blob of blood on a leaf. That was the start of the moose's blood trail. We followed it for a while until it led into the grass and then we lost it. Stip and I were going to go into the next meadow to see if the moose had gone in there, but then Tom told us to follow him. As a result, we didn't find the moose.

A week or two later, Stip told me that Tom might have seen the moose's carcass in the meadow that he and I were about to walk into. If Stip and I had gone in there we might have gotten the moose. But we didn't.

Hooper Bay is located twenty miles south of Cape Romanzoff and approximately twenty-five miles south of Scammon Bay. It is on the coast of the Bering Sea on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta. The present town is separated into two sections. The old townsite is located on two gently rolling hills. The newer section is located on slightly lower land a quarter mile southwest of the older section toward the airport. Hooper Bay's first name was "Askinuk" which refers to the mountainous area between Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay.

The present Yup'ik name is Naparyarmiut since it is located on the slough called Naparyaraq which drains out to the body of water called Hooper Bay. The name, Hooper Bay, came to be used to describe the town when the U.S. Post Office was established here in 1934.

Compiled by Maria Green,
Hooper Bay