6. Summer

In the summer we set up camp up the river to fish. We took our dogs with us. We had the manpower of two families to beach seine for salmon. After the day's catch was made the fish was divided and I would help by hanging the cut salmon to dry. We improvised a canvass topped shelter to keep the fish out of the rain. The dried fish was stored for the winter when it would become staple for us and food for the dogs.

In late summer large areas of the tundra was grown over with salmon, blue, red, and black berries. Great amounts were picked and stored in seal pokes. Sometimes seal oil was added. The pokes were then placed over frozen permafrost and covered over to be stored until winter. Herbs and roots were also picked and stored. In early spring tender shoots of willows were picked, mixed with seal oil and stored. This was called "surra" and considered gourmet to be eaten with dry fish in winter. I became very fond of "arctic-tea". It was a pine needle like growth that had a bit of orange under its folded stem. It tasted just like orange pekoe and pekoe.

I didn't participate in - I didn't even get to watch - the whale hunt. The beluga whale was hunted which isn't a very large whale but I guess you hunt whatever is available. Muktuck are the outer layers of the whale and was what we ate in winter. During that time fish and seal meat were the staples of the season. Living wholly on subsistence hunting doesn't provide a variety of food. Seal blubber is rendered into oil and the oil is eaten with every meal. I became very fond of seal oil.

It was the year at Shaktoolik that Henry grew fast into early manhood. He got over being a bully to his peers. He was lucky and effective in his hunting endeavors. Though I think he » was about three years older than me I watched him grow beyond his years. Before too long he would be an eligible bachelor. Henry and I became very close brothers. At Holy Cross Lawrence, Stanley, Henry and I developed a wonderful love for each other.