5. Shaktoolik

While we were at the Mission Dad had remarried and was living at Shaktoolik. We arrived in Shaktoolik just in time to start seventh grade. Although Henry was about two years older than me we were always in the same grade.

The grade school at Shaktoolik was a single room affair and the teacher was a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent. I immediately felt a big let down in the quality of teaching. How could one man, no matter how gifted, effectively teach eight grades? There was almost no homework and the things I was learning for seventh grade I had learned two years before.

The teacher, Mr. Collins, was the only white man in the village. He was obviously not expected to exist by subsistence hunting. Instead, the North Star arrived in summer and about nine tons of foodstuffs were lightered to see Mr. Collins through the year.

While the North Star was there everyone went aboard to get X-rays. It was then that it was learned that Henry had TB.

The year at Shaktoolik introduced me to the Welfare system that was overwhelming the people. Dad had TB and the teacher forbade him from all hunting. If he tried hunting the teacher would call in the United States Marshall and send Dad to jail. But not to worry. Dad would get a Welfare check every month. The incredible wealth of Western Civilization would assure us that we would never have to hunt again.

Every night about 6 we would tune in to the short wave network that the teachers had to discuss medical problems with the doctor in Kotzebue. After everyone had a chance to talk to the doctor they would have a chat session over the airwaves. They talked to each other as peers and about the difficulties that arose from living in the far north. One of Mr. Collin's big ambitions was to get enough muskrats for his Eskimo wife Nellie to make him a coat. His signoff word was always, “Oogruk!”

My seventh grade at Shaktoolik would turn out to be the only year that I would ever live in a village. I never got the years long training it took to become an Eskimo hunter. I was in a very uncomfortable situation - never knowing what to do when hunting and fishing situations arose. Stanley, Henry and I were in a circumstance where we helped the best we could but our biggest contribution would be in acquiring fire wood. Lawrence, the oldest one, was still at Holy Cross where he eventually hoped to build his own cabin.