Iliamna Lake  

“May I help you with your things,” said a young voice behind me.

Where was I?  Oh!  Yes, I was standing on a small floating dock on Iliamna Lake watching a plane disappear in the distance on its way to Anchorage.

Looking up at the buildings on the main dock, I read a large sign that said,  “HANS SEVERSON’S ROADHOUSE.”  Following my young assistant who was carrying my gun, I mounted the two steps up to the main dock.  One of the buildings on the dock was a general store and emerging from the entrance was an elderly man who was obviously Hans Severson. 

As we exchanged greetings and names, he said, “You must be the new teacher.  We have been expecting you.  You certainly entered Alaska by way of the back door.”

“It took a little while but I enjoyed the trip,” I replied, also stretching the truth just a little, as I did not mention the rough trip across the Gulf of Alaska.        

“Come inside where it is a little warmer.  Winter is about here.”

I was glad for the invitation to follow him.  A hasty glance around assured me that the store was well stocked with supplies necessary for the winter.  I could cancel one of my chief worries. 

Hans took his place in a sturdy chair behind the counter and cash register.  I found a chair close to the old fashioned stove, blazing with a warm fire. 

A second big worry was still on my mind.  When we came through our office in Juneau, we were advised to establish some connection with a local bank for handling our paychecks.  I had gone to the First National Bank in Juneau and deposited one dollar to open an account.  I explained this to Hans, adding that I was not sure when my first check would be deposited. 

Hans leaned back in his chair and had a good laugh.  “Did you see that plane leave?  Let me tell you, that was the last plane to come around until the lake freezes over.  You will not be going any place soon.”  How little did I know that that statement would come back to haunt me in the very near future.

“Where is that building I saw just before the plane landed?” I asked.  “I would like to take a few things over with me.”

“That building is about two miles away.  You can’t see it from here because of the trees on the point.”  Hans was writing my name on a sales pad.  “What will you be needing?” 

I had no idea where to start.  “I’ll be needing a little of about everything,” I replied.

Hans was listing things in his sales book already.  He tore off the first page and handed it to his son, Eddie.  “Collect these things in a box or something, and see if Mike Hatton is around.”  (Mike was an employee of the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife who lived nearby.)  “Ask Mike if he will use his outboard to run the new teacher over to the school house.”

As it turned out, Mike Hatton was tying his outboard motorboat to the cleats on the floating dock where the airplane had let me off only a short time before.  Eddie and I started carrying the supplies from the store to the dock where it accumulated into quite a stack of things.  I had never before purchased such a large order of groceries. 

It was only a short run by boat over to the Iliamna beach.  A lagoon in front of the school was separated by a sandbar from the larger Iliamna Lake, and a river-like opening was the only entrance into the lagoon. 

Mike and I got out of the boat and onto the sand and Eddie, wearing high boots, towed the boat up the shallow outlet stream into the lagoon.  It was only a short distance across the lagoon to another landing place in front of the school, but there was a portage to be made before reaching the school building itself, which was back about two hundred yards from the water’s edge. 

The building had the appearance of a new construction project: lumber, and other items from the construction work were left just where they had been used and there was no cleared area for a school playing field.  Mike had the key to the back door so we carried the supplies through the back door and deposited them on the kitchen table.

We had entered through a storm-shed which was incomplete; no floor or outside door had been constructed.  It was used for the storage of an assortment of items including a quantity of firewood. 

The kitchen was small in comparison to the kitchen in the Egegik School.  A hasty glance around showed that it seemed well equipped.  A door at the end, by the kitchen stove, opened into a bedroom.  Another door to my right evidently led to the main room of the living quarters. 

Mike and Eddie did not accept my invitation for a cup of coffee; I think they were aware of the fact that I had not yet located that item in the newly stacked grocery order.

 A quick tour of the rest of the building was the next item on my agenda.  The door to my right opened into the living room where there was a large heating stove, bare floorboards, and some chairs.  It did not take long to realize that there was alot of work left to be done. 

In the opposite corner were two doors.  Choosing the one on the right, I walked into a general entrance and cloakroom for the schoolroom and the living quarters.  The door in the second corner, opened right into the back of the schoolroom.  Come what may, I would not have far to walk to school on a cold morning. 

Returning to the kitchen, thoughts of a cup of coffee entered my mind and I began hunting for that first item I had asked for back at the store.  There it was right on the top of the stack of things on the kitchen table.  The coffeepot should be under the worktable with the other pots and pans.  Right again. 

Now for some water.  There was no faucet over the sink.  Under the sink was an empty gas can to catch discarded water.  This was the same type of plumbing as was installed in the Egegik School.  There was a galvanized bucket by the sink, obviously used for the very purpose I needed.  Taking the bucket, I went around the outside of the building looking for a pump, but no pump or water faucet was in evidence. 

I noted a fairly well-worn path leading away from the back door.  Oh!  They went that way for water!  I could hear the sound of a running stream somewhere down the path.  To my surprise, the path ended at a neat little building easily recognizable by the moon pattern cut in the door!  I must have missed a turn on my way down. 

Retracing my steps back toward the schoolhouse, I noted a fork in the trail.  This fork went to the left and up a little incline.  Following on for some distance, I came abruptly to a two-inch metal pipe running a full stream of water.  It was just the right height under which to place my bucket.  In less time than it takes to tell it, the coffeepot was on the stove and burping away as all coffeepots are expected to do.

Now that the coffeepot and source of water were taken care of, I continued the exploration of my domain.  The schoolroom was larger than the one at the Egegik School.  There was the usual teacher’s desk, two or three tables with a choice of sizes, a few standard student desks also in different sizes, some shelving for books, but no books. 

A blackboard extended the full width of the room.  Above, at the end of the blackboard, was a rack of assorted large maps.  I did not pull any of the maps down because I knew what they were.  The same maps hung over the blackboard in the little one room school that I had attended years and years ago.  They, too, were long out of date.

I noticed a second door, opening from the west wall (the front of the building faced east).  Could this be an emergency fire escape or exit?  I decided to find out.  The door opened into a clinic, a room the full length of the schoolroom, with a window.  It was complete with a counter, desk, file cabinet, and cupboards with shelves neatly supplied with all a clinic needs.  At the far end of the room was a bed and mattress.  Several blankets were folded and stored on the mattress.

 I had almost forgotten about the attic room opening on to the schoolroom, which comprised the space over the living quarters.  The back wall of the schoolroom had never been completed so there was an opening there resembling a balcony in a church.  There was a rickety makeshift ladder on the floor back of the stove.  It didn’t look very safe but I wanted to check that area, and since it was my school building now, I went up the ladder. 

The so-called attic was a well-stocked storeroom.  Shelving had been built along both sides forming two walls about four feet high.  They appeared to be well stocked with school supplies.  At the back of the room was another bed and mattress with blankets.

It was beginning to look like the day was about to “close up shop” so I returned down the rickety stairs.  Tomorrow I would build a series of steps up to that storeroom.  Chalk that down as job number one for tomorrow.

I was up bright and early after a cold night.  I wanted to investigate those warm blankets I had noticed on the bed at the far end of the storeroom.  They seemed to be the property of the school, not belonging to the clinic, so I tossed a couple of them down stairs.  One cold night was enough for this year.

While up in the storeroom, I looked for carpenter’s tools to accomplish my first task of the day.  In a wood box, I found a collection large enough to make any carpenter happy.  I selected what I needed and took them down stairs. 

I measured the wall to give me some idea of the length of lumber needed.  In the pile of scrap lumber outside were two 2”x 6” pieces about the right length.  Checking them over, I could see they were originally intended for roof rafters, but had been cut too short, so were discarded.  I found a number of 1”x 6” short ends, long enough for my steps.  I did not plan on the ladder being too wide.  By noon, I was going up and down a set of steps that were comfortable and safe.

Most of the afternoon was spent collecting materials to stock the schoolroom for the opening of school.  Later in the day I had a short list of things I needed from the store, so I walked over to the Roadhouse to get these supplies—chiefly a flashlight with batteries.  My business completed, I met Mike Hatton on the dock working on his boat. 

He told me there was to be a native dance or some other type of gathering that evening over at the Newhalen village.  He was planning on going and asked if I would like to join him.  I accepted the offer and he said that he would come by about dark.  As I walked back to the school building, I wondered if I would be invited to sit with the old men around the fire or if I should stand with the older boys and women in the background.  I was glad to go because I had wanted to see the village of Newhalen before ringing the school bell, announcing the opening of the school term. 

On the trail, I met an old man who stopped and gave me a long look.  Pointing his finger at me he asked, “Who you?”  I told him my name, and that I was the new teacher, and pointed to the schoolhouse.  He spit out his tobacco juice and said, “My boy more old than you!”  With that comment he pushed by me and went on his way.

Just about dark Mike tapped on my kitchen door.  There was a second man with him.  Mike introduced him as “Jack, a fisherman from Bristol Bay.  Jack spends the winter here,” he continued.  “He lives in that older log house next to me.”  These two men, and a man named Hanson and his wife who lived next to the store on the dock, were the only persons besides the Severson family who lived in the area of the store and dock.

Darkness was beginning to fall as the three of us rounded a low hill and looked down on the village.  I saw a Russian-type log building easily recognizable as a church, but I asked,  “Where are the houses?” 

Mike laughed at my surprised question.  “These people live underground like gophers,” he said, exaggerating a little.  Then he went on to point out numerous rounded piles of sod.  “Those are the houses.  They use sod for roofing.” 

That must explain why I did not recognize the village when we flew over the other day.  The village was built on rather a steep incline down to the river’s edge.  All of the houses faced the river, with walls of about four feet high on the front side.  Trenches three or four feet wide had been dug from the level of the path in front of the houses to the doorways and the soil from the insides of the houses had been removed, giving more headroom. 

On some houses, the bottom log had been cut out at the foot of the door frame, allowing a little more headroom when entering.  Long slender poles, meeting at the top, supported the roofs and the roof poles had been thatched over and then covered with soil.  All of the houses were circular in shape and appeared to be about twenty-five feet in diameter.  I never learned how many people lived in each house. 

We three felt a little like intruders.  There were no people or children about, only a few dogs tied to stakes by the houses.  Soon we spotted a much larger and more oblong house down near the river’s edge where there seemed to be some activity.

As we approached the open door, some women and girls pushed in a little so we could have standing space.  We were much taller than the women were, so we could see the center fire and the older men sitting on the benches.  I felt very conspicuous in the group and immediately noted whispering among the women, and fingers pointing.

The singing stopped shortly after we entered but not in response to our entrance: there was a change in the program.  An old man came forward, perhaps the one I had met on the trail earlier in the day.  He performed a solo, singing and dancing to his own music.  Then he came out through the doorway, never missing a note or losing the rhythm. 

He picked up a bolt of cloth lying by the entrance.  Taking the end of the cloth, he danced back into the room, dragging the cloth behind him.  When he reached the first elderly man on the bench, he danced while gathering the cloth up into an armful.  From somewhere he produced a pair of scissors, cut off a piece of the cloth, and gave it to the elderly man.  This was repeated with others on the front row of benches until he had finished the roll of cloth.  I presumed the recipient’s wives were glad for the cloth even though it had been dragged along the muddy path and would need washing before using.

We did not know how long this program would last.  Perhaps this would be a good time to bow out and find the path over the hill to the Roadhouse.  While watching the performance, we did not notice the change in weather.  It had been snowing for some time and was a little slick under foot as we left the gathering and began to make our way back.

By the time we finally decided on the right trail to take us home through the low brush and had walked its length, the school building at the end of that trail had become dark and cold.  It was Saturday night and I wondered if the school kids would come Monday if the snow continued.  On Sunday, it snowed a little more.  I spent some of the afternoon checking over my plans for opening school in the morning.

Monday morning dawned clear and bright.  I was up and had a good fire going in the schoolroom stove and then sat at the teacher’s desk and rechecked my plans for the day, my first day as teacher in my own school.  At last the clock on the wall said eight thirty.  I went out by the front steps and rang the big bell mounted nearby on six-foot posts.  I gave a few extra pulls then went back inside to wait. 

Soon I saw a dogteam and sled coming from the Roadhouse area.  How many teachers could stand and watch their pupils arriving by dog-team sled, I wondered.  It was a seven-dogteam, three kids riding in the sled and a larger boy riding the runners, commanding the dogs and controlling the sled.  I saw the driver of the team was my friend Eddie Severson, and I guessed the three others were Seversons too. 

Eddie strung out a long rope and secured it at both ends.  Then he unhitched the dogs one at a time and snapped their short necklines into rings on the rope.  The dogs lay down at once as if they knew they were in for a long day. 

The group of four came directly into the entryway, hung up their parkas and caps, and entered the schoolroom.  We stood around the warmth of the big stove and chatted.  They said they were glad to see the snow.  “We were afraid we would have to come to school over dry ground.”

While they were visiting among themselves, I was watching the clock and looking out the window.  Where were the other children from the village?  Finally, it was nine o’clock and I went out and vigorously rang the big bell.  From somewhere behind the building, the Aleut village kids came in a bunch, wearing their squirrel skin parkas and mukluks.  They proceeded right into the schoolroom without removing their parkas, only pushing their hoods back.  They went into a corner of the room and sat down on the floor.

I went to the front of the room and said, “Well I guess it’s about time to start a new school year.”  Turning to the blackboard, I wrote my name in clear script on the board.  To the class, I said, “My name is Arnold.  How many here knew that?”  Four hands went up.  “How many have gone to school before?”  There were no hands raised.  That was just about what I expected.

Mary said, “We went to school at home.” 

“Did your Father teach you?”  I asked.

“No, mama taught us some,” she replied.  “She had gone to school a little, so she taught us as much as she could.” 

I could see at once that I had two schools in one room.  Not two grades, but two schools, one with Athabascan Indian background and one with Aleut Russian background.  Socially, they did not mix. 

Some of the young men from the Newhalen village, who were old enough to go down to Bristol Bay and work in the canneries, could speak broken English.  Within their families, they spoke a mixture of Russian and Aleut, a language commonly used along the Aleutian Islands. 

So I had a total of nineteen students, four of whom could speak a language I understood, and fifteen with whom I could communicate only by sign language.”  My dear old teacher, who taught methods back at my alma mater, never prepared me for problems like this.  I would have to play this one by ear for a while.

I chose to start with the Severson family.  There was Eddie, age about fifteen or sixteen.  He seemed quite mature for his age probably from a lot of experience, watching and helping Hans, his father, in the store.  Mary appeared to be about fourteen.  I noted she was the one carrying the lunch bucket for the four.  She also helped the younger ones take off and hang up their heavy coats. 

They took the desks by the windows.  They all had taken advantage of the offer to look through the new library books I had brought, and seemed quite interested in what they found.  I had a few fifth grade arithmetic books.  I gave one to Eddie and Mary and asked them to look through the first part of the book to see if they had done similar problems.  While they were going over these books, I found some additional arithmetic workbooks for kids about their age.  It was easy to get them interested because workbooks were something new to them.

My Aleut students were sitting in the corner watching every move I made.  I rearranged the tables so they could all have a chair facing me.  Then I arranged chairs for each of them.  I sat in one of the chairs and motioned for them to join me.  There was no response.  I asked Mary Severson if she could ask the Aleuts to sit up at the table with me.  Mary tried without results.  Then she tried again by coming and sitting by me on a chair.  Hooray for Mary, some of the older ones came and sat in the chairs, but the younger ones still stayed on the floor. 

Without saying a word I went up the new ladder and got a special box which I knew was up there.  I opened the box while they watched. Out came a set of number blocks like some I had received for Christmas when I was a young boy.  I dumped the box of blocks out on the table where I had been sitting.  Without saying a word, I sat down and began to build a blockhouse.  The little ones on the floor could not resist any longer.  Their eyes were up to tabletop level.  Then they wanted a better look, so they climbed up in their chairs and put their elbows on the table.  The day had been won. 

I was glad when I looked at the clock and saw it was almost noon.  The children from the village disappeared somewhere around the building while the “Severson four” took over one of the smaller tables by the stove with their lunch pail.  I retired to the kitchen for a sourdough corned beef sandwich and coffee.  There was no cleared playing field for the kids to play ball or games of any kind.  This was a serious problem, which I was going to have to investigate.  The Severson children spent the noon hour looking through new books in the library.

At one o’ clock, I tapped the big bell out in the yard.  There was an immediate response from somewhere behind the building.  The village kids came on the run.  They rushed into the schoolroom, and climbed up on their chairs by the table.  My morning exercise in learning to sit on chairs was bearing fruit this afternoon.  I wanted to work with the Roadhouse group this afternoon, so I gave each of the children at the table a box of crayons and some paper.  I asked the boys to draw pictures of boats, and the girls to draw pictures of flowers.  These directions were given to find out how much English they actually understood. 

I left time for the Severson children to read, to get some idea about their educational background.  Eddie did fairly well with a sixth grade book, and in arithmetic he was ready to start learning how to handle fractions.  Mary would qualify as a fifth grader, but knew nothing about division in arithmetic.  Johnny, around age ten, would rate about a third grader and Betty was an eager beginner.  I got some books for them to take home to show to their mama.  I was fairly sure she would be working with them too.  Mrs. Severson impressed me as being an unusual native woman.

Well, the first day was over.  What came next?  Oh yes, I remembered then, the janitor’s work.  Way, way back when I was in the seventh grade, I stayed after school to sweep the floor and rearrange the furniture so the room would be ready for the next day.  After two years in the elementary school, four years of high school, and four years of sweeping schoolrooms in college, what had I accomplished?  Yes, I knew: I was in Alaska, the goal of nine year’s work and . . . where was that broom?

I was up early the next morning starting the fire in the big stove in the schoolroom.  On an impulse, I returned to my living quarters, retrieved the thick notebook on “Teaching Methods,” which outlined just how to start the first day in a new school.  Opening the door of the stove, I heaved the entire volume in on the struggling fire.  It helped the fire more than it did me yesterday.  Without looking back, I returned to the kitchen to fix breakfast.  I had survived the first day.

Day two started off the same as day one.  The Seversons arrived just after I rang the eight-thirty bell, and the village group came dashing in as I was ringing the nine o’clock bell.  They must have been hiding somewhere behind the school building, waiting for the last bell.  I began to review the possibilities of how they could be encouraged to come in where it was warm rather than wait out in the cold. 

I also began debating in my mind just how I should start the day.  Should we start with the usual flag salute?  If so, which flag?  The Stars and Stripes or the Hammer and Sickle?  The Priest for the local Orthodox Church did not support the American school with much enthusiasm.  However, we should work on the problem of getting the two sides of the room working together somehow.  Tomorrow maybe I would have one of the Aleuts raise the flag on the flag pole standing beside the big bell.

I started off with the new arithmetic workbooks that morning.  In their home schooling, the Seversons had never experienced workbooks.  These books gave the students experience in reading as well as solving problems. 

I had looked over the coloring projects from yesterday.  Some of them had even signed their names.  I had my temporary roll sheet and pencil ready, so as I returned the coloring work with names first, I identified the name with the student.  After putting the ones with names up on the bulletin board, I selected those without names and asked for help identifying the artist.  I received plenty of help from the group.  I had the names for my temporary roll sheet almost completed by the second day. 

On the blackboard in front of them, I had printed the ABCs, in letters resembling the letters on their building blocks.  I asked them to work in groups of three.  I had to do a little talking with my hands, but they got the idea.  They were to pick out blocks with the letters and line them up like the ones on the board.  I had planned that this project would keep them busy until noon, but they were smarter than I expected.  I produced the box of pencils with paper and asked them to copy the letters as they saw them on the board, and to select the letters used in writing their names. 

The rest of the morning I worked with the Severson children.  How could I find some activity where we could all work together on the same project but on different levels?  Four children, each one capable of working on a separate grade level?  I thought of geography.  There were no materials on Alaska or Alaskan history in our school library or up in the attic storage room.  That could be a possibility for a common project.  I would give it a try.  I began by bringing up something we could talk about among ourselves. 

“How many of you have been over to the village where the Aleut children live?”  I asked.  Only Eddie had ever seen the Aleut Village of Newhalen.  “Tell us about your visit, Eddie.” 

Eddie was just talking to me and his sisters and brother so he felt free to describe what he had seen.  This was a good beginning.  I began to realize that I would have to get them to talk about things they knew before I could introduce any of my teaching materials.  I began to see some hope for the situation.

Friday finally came with a little fresh snow.  In the afternoon, I had an idea.  I asked Eddie if he would use his team and sled to bring up a couple of sacks of coal from the big lake.  After the village kids had left, I went out with Eddie to help him hitch up the dogs.  I didn’t do much but watch, as I had never seen dogs put into harness before.  The team had been sleeping on the chain all day, and now it was time to come to life.  As each dog was hitched into the towline, he wanted to go immediately.  I could see why Eddie always used a long rope to tie the back of the sled to a small stump.  He used a slipknot which could be released with a jerk on the end of the rope.  A strong force was building behind the seven eager dogs lunging in harness on the towrope.

I sat down in the basket of the sled not anticipating what was going to happen next.  When Eddie reached back and jerked the slipknot loose, there was an action like being shot from the barrel of a cannon and I was thrown violently from the sled.  Landing on my head and shoulders, I heard or sensed a crack somewhere.  Glancing down at my left arm, I immediately saw the problem.  My lower arm and wrist were formed into a perfect “S” shape.  I didn’t need a doctor to tell me what had happened. 

Eddie got the team under control after a short run.  I called to him, and told him we would get the coal some other time and for him to drive the kids on home.  I did not want him to see what had happened to me.

I walked back to the schoolroom, trying to think what to do next.  The schoolroom was empty but the fire in the stove was burning well.  I saw the new set of steps going up to the storeroom, and remembered there was a big black medical book up there.  Supporting my left arm as best as I could, I went up the steps to the storeroom. 

There was the big black book, right where I could open it without lifting the heavy volume.  There too, was a picture of an “S” shaped arm, just like my own.  Beneath the picture of the arm I read, “After straightening the arm and working the bones back into their normal position, apply splints and bandage.”  Good for them, they told me just how!  Where was the doctor who would straighten the bones, etc.?  I was all alone up in an attic storeroom in an empty school building. 

I returned down the stairs and looked out the front door.  It was getting dark.  There was only one light over at the Roadhouse, and it was two miles away.  There would be no help over there even if I could walk that far.  Standing there in the open doorway, I recalled Hans Severson’s statement of only two weeks ago, “You are not going any place.  That was the last plane out and he will not be back until the lake freezes over.” 

I could see big Iliamna Lake from where I stood in the schoolhouse doorway.  Large, dark waves, highlighted by white caps, were visible in the twilight.  Hans was right, there would be no ice forming on the lake tonight, or in the near future.  This was only the eighth of October, and I was not going anywhere.

I wandered into the clinic, and there I saw some material specifically for making splints.  Luckily the pieces were thin enough that they could be cut with a large pair of shears.  I measured the length of my arm and cut out two pieces that would fit.  There were several rolls of tape there too, and some rolls of bandaging material. 

Now with everything laid out on the counter, who was going to pull my arm and maneuver the bones back into place?  I took one of my dishtowels, and with some safety pins fixed a sling of sorts.  Then I cut the sleeve of the nice wool shirt I was wearing so my arm was exposed up to my elbow.  It was beginning to swell some already.  Planning my moves, I arranged all the materials on the bed so that I could reach everything easily, even the strips of tape, cut to the right lengths and their ends stuck onto the splint boards. 

I fastened the fingers of my left hand around the post of the iron bedstead, very securely.  Taking a big breath I pulled back, feeling my arm and wrist with my right hand.  It seemed to be straight, so I slapped the top splint on and caught the ends of the tape, securing them around my wrist.  The second splint on the underside gave me a little more trouble, but I managed it somehow.  I used more tape now to go around and around so I was fairly sure it would hold my bones in place. 

Bandages came next, and then I was ready to release my fingers and hand from the bedstead.  I tried on the sling to see how it would support my arm, and then I collapsed on the bed.  The pain was intense.  Sometime during the night, the cold awakened me and I discovered I had not taken my shoepacs off.  I managed to remedy that situation and found an additional blanket.  Even that did not help much.  It was a miserably long night.

Saturday afternoon I walked over to talk to Hans Severson.  He was an old timer in Alaska having come north in l898.  Mike Hatton was also in the store sitting by the cozy fire in the big stove.  Hans agreed with me that I should see a doctor.  Mike looked at my one-handed bandaging job and asked if I would mind if he helped me a little with it.  Foolish question.  He removed some of the extra bandages that I had wrapped around the arm and worked it over, making a nicer-looking job of it.  Hans called his wife in and asked her to make a better sling to support the arm. 

Mrs. Severson took one look at me and said I should be in bed.  She talked with her husband, Hans, using a language I did not understand.  Then she left the store and was gone for some time.  When she returned, she said a few words to Hans. 

Hans turned to me and said, “She has a room fixed for you.  We think you should stay with us tonight and tomorrow.” 

I was in no condition to argue with them about that.  Neither Hans nor Mike Hatton had any suggestions about how I could get into Anchorage to get medical help, but I felt I was in kind and understanding hands right where I was.

This was Saturday night.  There was no need for me to walk home, so I was glad to accept their invitation.  Hans showed me to a small room well furnished for a bedroom.  Almost immediately Hans returned with a tray and a large bowl of stew.  He said it was “New England Vegetable,” made of most of the common vegetables grown in a New England garden plus some good chunks of meat.  I was soon ready to drop off my shoepacs and call it a day.

It was a good thing I remembered my watch.  There was no clock in the room but my faithful watch said it was time for me to start another day.  I was in the act of tying my shoes when there was a tap-tap-tap on the door.  There was Hans with a steaming breakfast on the tray.

He said, “The wife was afraid you would walk off before your breakfast was ready.”  This was my first introduction to Alaska’s sourdough pancakes. 

Hans sat down and talked about some of the early days of the gold rush.  He had entered Alaska by ship up near what is now the Anchorage area, but long before there was a town of Anchorage.  After working at miscellaneous jobs, he found his way down to Bristol Bay and the fishing industry.  It was on one of his trips down along the north edge of Iliamna Lake that he found a snug harbor for boats and built his business and home.  He had remained there ever since.

Hans’ wife was from the Anchorage area, but she had no relatives in the village of Nondalton, a community about twenty miles north of Iliamna on Lake Clark, whose people were originally from the Anchorage area.

Our reminiscing was interrupted by the tinkle of a doorbell.  Hans had a customer at his door.  I thanked Hans for their warm hospitality.  Tying up the shoestrings on my shoepacs, I started on the two-mile hike for home.  I noticed immediately that the weather was several degrees colder than it had been Saturday morning.  Good, I thought.  Maybe it is colder in Anchorage.  If the pilot is waiting for ice on the lake, he will be happy with this weather.  Our major problem was that we had no radio connection to the outside world.

On my walk home I had an idea.  Stopping at the schoolhouse long enough to pick up a small ax, I cut an arm full of green boughs.  Returning to the lagoon, I laid out a large SOS on the ice.  I was hopeful that if a plane should fly over sometime, the pilot would get the message.  A few days later I did hear a plane.  I dashed outside to listen and look, but the plane was flying down the south shore of the lake.

On Monday morning, school started as usual.  The children from the village saw my arm in the sling but made no comment.  There was some whispering.  I had two older boys run up the flag.  I knew also, that ringing a bell was an important part of their Russian church services, so I pushed my luck a little farther and asked the two flag boys and a third boy if they would regularly come a little early to put up the flag and ring the bell. 

The bell ringing proved a big hit with the boys.  It was a big bell, twenty four to thirty inches in diameter, mounted in a fixed position about six feet off the ground.  The bell was rung by striking it with a large hammer.  For the first time the village kids acted as if the school were their own.  Having one arm in a sling no longer seemed a big handicap after the first few days.

My biggest problem was in my own kitchen.  How could I wash a dish without holding it with one hand and washing it with the other?  Since I was very young, I had stood on a chair and helped mother mix bread; it took two good hands to work the dough. 

Hans, over at the store, helped me with some of the kitchen problems.  He sold me a can opener that clamped to the worktable and was operated with a crank.  That was a big help because most of my cooking consisted of opening cans.  Then he introduced me to pilot bread, large round crackers that looked like soda crackers but were much thicker.  I brought a box home with me and after that I was a regular customer for pilot bread.

One Saturday morning I heard the tinkle, tinkle, of a small bell.  The sound was coming from the lake south of the school building.  I grabbed my coat and hastened over to the high bluff overlooking the lake.  There, just below me on the ice was a reindeer pulling a small sled.  On the sled sat a little old man calmly smoking his pipe as the reindeer trotted along.  The reindeer wore no harness except a collar with a line back to the sled.  In the years to come, I worked with thousands of reindeer, but this was the first and only one I saw one pulling a sled.  From my position on the bluff above him, I could see there were no lines controlling the deer.  I also checked the reindeer’s nose.  It was not red, so this must not have been Santa Claus!  

From my high viewpoint on the bluff, I had a new perspective on the lake.  Iliamna Lake was large, sixty miles across at this point.  Due to the subzero weather we had been having, the lake was one vast sheet of ice as far as the eye could see.  I assumed that the pilots must have known about this and expected a plance to arrive at any point.

Saturday afternoon was a good day.  I walked over to talk to Hans.  When I brought up the subject of Christmas decorations in his store, he said that the village (Newhalen is referred to as “the village”) celebrated the Russian Christmas on January 7th and that New Years always came on January 14th.  “The Russian Priest comes up from Egegik and spends the week in the village,” said Hans.  “They have a big time over in the village.  The people around here usually start celebrating about December 25th and don’t sober up until sometime after January l4th.  If I were in your place I would not worry myself much about Christmas,” he added.  Hans proved to be right.  On Thursday afternoon, I surprised the kids by announcing a Christmas vacation.

About ten o’clock the next morning, I heard a plane.  There were no dogs to sing as in Egegik, but I knew there was one coming.  I snatched up my packed suitcase, and made for Hans’s store.  I was almost there when the plane took off.  Waving my cap in the air and shouting did no good.  For three months, I had been waiting to get to a hospital, and he flew right over my head.  I could have cried. 

I looked back at my tracks in the snow.  It was almost two miles back home to the school building but only about one hundred yards on to Hans’s store.  I would go on with my suitcase and sit by the warm stove in the store.  Hans always had a cheery word for me.  This time he was really cheery. 

As soon as I opened the door he called to me, “He will be back soon.  He is only going down to Dillingham with some other passengers.  He knows you are here and waiting to get to the hospital in Anchorage.”  Oh, boy!  It was good that the ice was safe.  I was to make several more trips with the Star Airways and later on still more after they grew up to become the well-known Alaska Airways.

The trip into Anchorage was beautiful because of the wintry snow scenes.  During this flight I had a glimpse of Mt. McKinley for the first time.  The landing in Anchorage was all arranged for me.  A taxi was waiting, and it whisked me over to the hospital. 

A doctor was waiting by his office door as I entered.  He motioned me into the office and offered me a seat on his examining chair.  Turning to the nurse, dressed in white and standing by, he said, “Take that stuff off his arm and wash him up.”  Turning to me he asked, “Where do you live?”  When I told him, he went back into his office.

The nurse went to work immediately on my arm.  She showed no surprise at the amateur job of splinting and bandaging.  With one or two snips of the scissors, the soiled bandages and splints dropped into the trash barrel.  Then did my arm stink!  Phew!  Even the nurse had to back off a little.

When I told her that the accident happened on October 8th, she said, “Wow, you got here just in time!”

She proceeded to thoroughly clean my arm, as the doctor appeared in his office door to ask, “For whom do you work?”  He popped back into his office and I overheard him making a phone call.  I think he was checking up on my statement. 

Before long, a stranger, dressed in a business suit, came into the room.  The doctor introduced him as “Mr. Jones from the Office of Indian Affairs,” who had an office in Anchorage.  Mr. Jones spoke up and said, “I represent the Office of Indian Affairs in the Anchorage area.  Nondalton is within my district.”  (I thought to myself, “now they tell me.”)

Mr. Jones’s next question was, “What were you doing at the time of your injury?”

“I was assisting with moving some sacks of coal to the school from the lake shore, where they had been delivered last summer by boat.” I replied.

There was no response from Mr. Jones or the Doctor.  They both went back into the doctor’s office.  Soon the doctor came back again to say, “Mr. Jones recognizes the injury was caused in the line of official duty, and that he will take care of all paper work.”  I never saw or heard of Mr. Jones again.

Following the nurse’s work with soap and water, my arm smelled a little better but it did not feel much better.  The doctor got up his courage and came a little closer to feel the wrist. 

“We may be able to help it a little but it is badly crushed.  There may be some loss of articulation.  How long has it been this way?” he asked.

When I told him, he whistled a little and said, “Let’s see, tomorrow is Christmas, one more day will not make much difference.  Let’s do it the first thing after Christmas.  Have a Good Christmas.”  With that remark, he turned and left the room. 

The nurse came to my rescue.  “We will take care of you tonight, and tomorrow they are fixing everyone a super duper Christmas dinner.”  Her little bit of cheer helped, but one more day after three months seemed like a year added to my sentence.  However, Christmas was just what the nurse said it would be—a super duper dinner. 

The doctor was there beside me at 8:00 o’clock the next morning and so was the nurse.  After a few preliminaries, I recall hearing the doctor telling the nurse,  “He’s doing all right.”

When I woke up, there was a clean new bandage on my wrist.  Somewhere I heard the doctor talking to the nurse,  “Keep him around for four days, then I would like to see him again.”

The four days in Anchorage were like a vacation.  I was at liberty to see the town and had a place to stay at night.  I reported to the doctor on the fourth day. 

He said, “I want to do one more thing before you go home.  I want to cut that splint so it can be removed once or twice a week and the hand and wrist washed well.  I don’t want to work with any more smelly arms.”  With that, he wished me a good trip home.

A plane was scheduled to fly down to the Iliamna Lake area, and there was room for one more passenger.  The flight home was uneventful.  Hans Severson was there on the dock as the plane coasted in on its skis, and we went in and sat by the big stove for warmth. 

“Well how did it go?” he asked. 

I showed him my freshly bandaged arm.  “I am back to square one,” I said.  “This time I think I will make it.  The doctor said I was lucky to get to the hospital when I did.”  Then I asked how things over at the school were going. 

“They are celebrating over in the village,” said Hans, “and are so close to their Russian Christmas that there is not much use in starting school until after the 14th, their Russian New Year.” 

That suggestion was okay with me.  It would give me a chance to get back on my feet a little better.  I asked about the mail.  (Hans was also the local Postmaster.)  He said there was quite a stack from the first plane, but did not think I would be interested before I came back.  He brought out a paper sack full of mail.  I opened my suitcase and slipped the mail inside.  I had waited since October for some mail.  It could wait a little longer.

The kitchen was as cold as ice when I pushed the door open.  Fortunately, I had left material ready to start a fire before I left, and soon the place began to warm up nicely.  A cup of coffee was next in line.  Oops!  The water in the bucket was frozen solid.  I retrieved the spare bucket from under the sink and went up the path to the water pipe, which I expected to be frozen also.   

The pipe was running a full stream of water regardless of the weather.  A fresh cup of coffee, Campbell’s beef soup, and Pilot Bread was supper.  After supper I opened the bedroom door and threw back the blankets so the place would be warmed. 

Then I remembered the mail.  There was a stack of stuff from Juneau that could wait, and letters from my folks.  That could wait too.  There on the bottom of the pile was THE LETTER.  I recognized the handwriting at once.  I snatched it up and smelled the envelope.  Yes, it was true all right.  It was a letter from her. 

With trembling hands I opened it and read that Dorothy had gone to Seattle for Thanksgiving.  There she had looked up my mother, working at Seattle Pacific College.  Mom told her I had taken a job in Alaska and had gone north, late in September.  Mom told her my last letter had been written in Egegik, and that I was waiting for a plane to take me on to Iliamna Lake.  The letter had been addressed to me at “Iliamna Lake, Alaska.”  It was a wonder that the letter ever reached me with such an incomplete address. 

My light was on late that night as I composed a reply to Dorothy’s letter.  I was up early the next morning to take my letter over to the Post Office.  Hans had a twinkle in his eye when I handed him the letter.  I think he remembered the fragrant envelope recently given me.

The extra vacation days added by the Russian holidays were well spent in preparing for the kids when they returned.  With an inkpad and a set of alphabet letters about the size of the letters on the blocks, I printed up a set of flash cards, using good quality cardboard.  I was intending to introduce them to phonics.  On larger cards, I printed a vocabulary of simple words in common use in their village. 

I was all set for them when I rang the big bell announcing school.  I rang it a little longer than usual so every one for miles around would know we were open and ready for school.

The kids from the village came on the run and from around the point I saw the dogteam and sled heading my way.  When the children were assembled, I checked the roll and noted that three boys were missing.  All three had the same first name, Nickoli.  I then checked my roll book.  They each had a different last name.  I would ask Mary Severson about it at the first opportunity.  She knew a lot about the Aleuts from the village but never volunteered information unless asked. 

“They do things funny over in the village,” Mary later said.  “Whenever a baby is born, they name it after one of the saints in the church.  The church has lots of saints, and each one has a special day.  The Saints Day that the kid is named for becomes his or her birthday.  They all have a holiday on their birthday and can do anything they want.  This is St. Nicklos’s Day over in the village.” 

Well, who is being educated here, the kids or the teacher?  Who was I to change some of the long-standing customs of the village?  I’ll just have to do the best I can to educate those who come, I thought.

The days slipped by.  The only thing that changed was the weather.  Here in the middle of January, we began to have warm east winds.  I checked with Hans over at the store as to what was going on with the weather.  He didn’t seem surprised that it was raining instead of snowing in January. 

 “We always have these Chinook winds this time of year,” he said.  “Some people call it the ‘January thaw.’  It never helps anything.  You never know if you should wear your rubber boots or your cold-weather mukluks when going out on the trail.  Just wait until February.  You haven’t seen anything yet.  You will be glad you have the cold-weather mukluks handy.” 

Hans was right, again.  February came in with a wind right from the North Pole.  I felt sorry for the polar bears living up there.  The temperature dropped from a little below freezing to twenty below zero within a few hours.

I went into the schoolroom to start the fire, hoping no one would venture out in the wind and cold, and they didn’t.  For three days, I didn’t see anyone or anything, not even the trees on the point around which the dog team had come faithfully every school morning.

 During March, the attendance was not much better.  Eddie had a few traps out in an attempt to catch a fox.  He made the rounds of his trap line twice a week.  His trap line was close to the store where he lived so he could make the rounds after school. 

Many of the trappers from the village trapped in an area some distance away, so they established camps and took the family along.  Some of the winter trapping-camps were permanent log cabins.  When they took the families out to camp, it cut down my school enrollment.  This migratory type of living in which the children did not have an opportunity to attend school more than a few months out of the year surely made a big difference in their ability to compete with those who attended school more regularly.  I discussed this attendance problem with Hans once.

      “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.  “Wait until the last of March when the beaver season opens.  The entire village moves out.  And when that happens,” he continued, “I will need both Eddie and Mary to help me in the store, since the villagers wait until the day of their departure to stop by and purchase a month’s supply of items.  They always rush to make it to the beaver grounds in order to have their traps out by April first.”

April first did come at last and I recalled what Hans had told me about school attendance.  Before ringing the bell, I watched the point for the dogteam and sled, but there was no dogteam this morning.  I walked around behind the school building.  Perhaps there would be some kids from the village waiting there for the bell.  I continued to wait and watch until well after nine o’clock.  There were no shows. 

I sat on the front steps in the warm sunshine.  Could it be that my first year of teaching was finished?  As I sat there, wondering what I had accomplished the past few months, I looked down at my bandaged left arm and wrist.  If I had not achieved much, at least I had survived. 

Then I recalled that the doctor had told me to take the bandages and splints off on the last of March.  This was the day to which I had been looking forward to since the day after Christmas.  I jumped up, went into my kitchen, and fixed a basin of warm water and soap.  Following the clean up job, I found a shirt with a full-length sleeve for the left arm and the world looked brighter.

Returning to the schoolroom, I made out my monthly report for the month of March.  I did not know how to explain to the Juneau Office that I had an empty schoolroom, because practically every able bodied man with his wife and children had moved somewhere out into the hills to trap beaver. 

I walked over to the Post Office that afternoon to mail my report to the Juneau Office.  Hans and his two helpers, Eddie and Mary, were busy in the store.  Hans was at the cash register, writing in the little sales account books.  Payments would be made later when the beaver skins were brought in from the seasons’ catch. 

Mike Hatton was there too.  He said,  “My problem comes at the close of the season when they bring in their catch.  Each trapper is required to certify that he was the one who caught the animal.  The father has ten big skins, the mother has medium-sized skins, and the children each have caught only small beaver.  It is impossible to tell who really trapped each of the beavers.”

I watched the loaded sleds as they left the store headed for their respective trapping grounds.  Each family was eager to be on its way. 

I had an opportunity to talk to Hans at the cash register.  He said there had been a plane in that morning with mail and that he would be coming back that afternoon.  My monthly report would be on its way soon.  The plane also brought mail from Anchorage. 

“Mike will take over here soon and I will go through the mail bag.”  Before long, Hans handed me a handful of mail.  The school was probably the best customer for the Post Office.

I hurried back to the school to check through the mail.  There, in front of me, was the letter that I had been expecting and it had big news for me.  Dorothy said she would be waiting for me in Seattle when my school was out, or she would meet me in Anchorage or at any other place I named when her school was out. 

I sat right down and wrote a letter saying, “Let’s plan to meet in Seattle about the middle of June.” 

I didn’t take time to give any further details because I wanted to get my letter out on the plane coming through that afternoon.  I made record time returning to the Post Office and had my reply letter there for Hans to include in the outgoing mail. 

      By now I had been in Alaska long enough to learn something about making travel connections.  You have to start in time to make your wants known and then wait for weather conditions to be right.  You always ended up with WP (weather permitting).  June seemed a long way off but I was going to be there WP or not, even if I had to walk most of the way.

© 2002 by Ellis Arnold, Stanwood, WA   USA.  Website design by Jo Lewis