Several years ago, I was a long-term substitute teacher in the Yup'ik Alaska village of Akiak when the generator broke down. It was February and the village had no heat and no lights. I crawled into my sleeping bag wearing my coat, a little worried about hyperthermia. The forecast called for a low of minus 30.
I was drifting in and out when I heard barking. Wolves were coming in for the dogs. Lights usually kept the wolf pack from entering the village, but the easy meal the dogs made was too hard for the wolves to resist now that the village was pitch black. Suddenly a shotgun blasted, followed by another. Yup'iks were not about to lose part of their dog teams to wolves.
I got up around 6 a.m. trudging through snow to the school to get ready for my class. The air was crisp to the point of being painful. Moonlight was illuminating my breath. I heard a chopping sound. I could make out an elderly woman to my left wearing everything she could find to stay warm as she chopped firewood for heat and cooking.
My replacement flew in that afternoon, and I showed him around the village. He thought he saw a caribou skin stretched out across the side of a cabin. It looked odd to me until we got closer. It was a wolf pelt. There was a Native woman in the doorway braving the cold for a smoke. She said a hunter had brought it in from the tundra a few days earlier. Another woman had taken it into her cabin, thawed and skinned it, and then tacked it up to dry.
When we walked away, my replacement asked if I ever planned to come back to Alaska. I always come back, I said. It is as close as I can ever get to how the Old West really was.
THE YUKON BECKONS ADVENTURERS
Bu hikaye True West dergisinin June 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye True West dergisinin June 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Where Did the Loot Go? - This is one of those find the money stories. And it's one that has attracted treasure hunters for more than 150 years.
Whatever happened to the $97,000 from the Reno Gang's last heist? Up to a dozen members of the Reno Gang stopped a Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis train at a watering station in southern Indiana. The outlaws had prior intelligence about its main load: express car safes held about $97,000 in government bonds and notes. In the process of the job, one of the crew was killed and two others hurt. The gang made a clean getaway with the loot.
Hero of Horsepower - Los Angeles lawman William Hammel tamed one of the West's wildest towns with hard work and horseless carriages.
Los Angeles lawman William Hammel tamed one of the West's wildest towns with hard work and horseless carriages.
From the Basin to the Plains
Discover Wyoming on a road trip to Cody, Casper and Cheyenne.
COLLECTING AMERICAN OUTLAWS
Wilbur Zink has preserved the Younger Gang's history in more ways than one.
Spencer's West
After the Civil War, savvy frontiersmen chose the Spencer repeating carbine.
Firearms With a Storied Past
Rock Island gavels off high profits from historic firearms.
She Means Business!
An energetic and ambitious woman has come to Lincoln, New Mexico, to restore the town's legendary Ellis Store.
Ride that Train!
HERITAGE RAILROADS KEEP THE OLD WEST ALIVE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES.
Saddle Up with a Western
Old West fiction and nonfiction are the perfect genres to fill your summer reading list.
RENEGADES OF THE RAILS
RAILROADS WERE OPEN SEASON FOR OKLAHOMA AND INDIAN TERRITORY OUTLAW GANGS.