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Bertha Ulvi and Ruth Ridley, Interview 2
Bertha Ulvi, Ruth Ridley

Bertha Ulvi and Ruth Ridley were interviewed on July 20, 2022 by Marcy Okada of the National Park Service and Karen Brewster of the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks at the Charlie Juneby Tribal Hall in Eagle Village, Alaska. In this second part of a two part interview, Bertha and Ruth continue to talk about their lives at Eagle Village along the Yukon River. In particular, they discuss attending boarding school in Oregon, subsistence hunting, fishing and trapping activities, traditional plant use and traditional medicine, locations where they have practiced subsistence activities, and recent changes in the salmon population. Bertha also shares stories of taking care of their elderly mother and grandmother, and living on the trapline and hunting moose and caribou during the early years of her marriage.

Digital Asset Information

Archive #: Oral History 2021-03-07

Project: Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve
Date of Interview: Jul 20, 2022
Narrator(s): Bertha Ulvi, Ruth Ridley
Interviewer(s): Karen Brewster, Marcy Okada
Transcriber: Ruth Sensenig
Location of Interview:
Funding Partners:
National Park Service
Alternate Transcripts
There is no alternate transcript for this interview.
Slideshow
There is no slideshow for this person.

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Sections

Attending Chemawa boarding school in Oregon

Coming home to Eagle in the summer

Attending summer school, picking fruit in the fall to earn money

Receiving care packages, school rules about alcohol, and attending church and Christmas party

Doing chores as part of training, and feelings about attending boarding school

Treatment of students

Graduating, returning home, caring for mother, and getting married

Bertha caring for their mother and grandmother, and receiving traditional foods

Hunting and eating porcupine, and using quills

Skin sewing, and making sinew

Sharing moose and fish, and fishing

Bertha getting married, living on the trapline, and raising a family

Moose hunting

Maintaining and feeding a dogteam

Supplying a trapline with airplane food drops

Running a trapline and building a cabin at Champion Creek, and shooting a moose

Learning to shoot, how to hunt and butcher a moose

Caribou hunting

Traditional plant use, buying food from the store, and eating a lot of fish

Dealing with game wardens, and fishing for whitefish

Traditional plant use and medicines

Changes in berries, Taylor Highway construction, and old mail trail

Importance of subsistence foods

Traditionally used places

Change in the salmon population

Surviving tough times

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After clicking play, click a section of the transcript to navigate the audio or video clip.

Transcript

MARCY OKADA: It’s a new day. It’s July 20 (2022), and this is Marcy Okada with the National Park Service, Karen Brewster with UAF Oral History Program, and we have Bertha Ulvi, and we have Ruth Ridley with us today. And we’re gonna just continue on from yesterday with our interview.

So we were processing what you folks were saying yesterday, and we were thinking it might be good to continue, um, the discussion about when you first came back to Eagle Village. I know you didn’t come back here, Ruth. You went back to Fairbanks.

BERTHA ULVI: No, she did. KAREN BREWSTER: No, you came after -- BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, she -- MARCY OKADA: You did. You did come back. KAREN BREWSTER: You’re talking about after Chemawa. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. Sorry. I’m mistaken. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, after Chemawa, we -- we come home. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

MARCY OKADA: So we’d like to start with that time frame. Um, what was life coming back when you first came back from Chemawa? What was life like for you? Did you just feel different, you know, coming back from Outside and coming home?

RUTH RIDLEY: Everything seemed smaller, like even the roads, you know, in Fairbanks, ’cause out there there’s all that -- BERTHA ULVI: Free -- freeway.

RUTH RIDLEY: Freeway and all that to Portland and to Salem and like that. But when we came back -- and they always have a place for women, women’s place or something. Like, if we don’t -- if the plane doesn’t fly tomorrow, then we have to stay in that women’s place.

BERTHA ULVI: Hospitality. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: In Fairbanks? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: In Fairbanks? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, they had the hospitality house for us. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: So from here to there, we stay there 'til next day when we ready to go, uh? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: So that hospitality house was in Fairbanks? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you’d fly from here to Fairbanks, Fairbanks to Oregon? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: No, Seattle. KAREN BREWSTER: Seattle. RUTH RIDLEY: Seattle. KAREN BREWSTER: And then -- BERTHA ULVI: And then Craig. (? unclear) RUTH RIDLEY: And then rode the bus from Seattle to -- KAREN BREWSTER: To Salem? RUTH RIDLEY: To Chemawa.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Which was -- was Chemawa in Salem, Oregon? BERTHA ULVI: It’s five miles out of Salem, Oregon.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. So what was that like when you first went there? RUTH RIDLEY: Just cry. BERTHA ULVI: We just cry. We cried because we never left our village or our mom and dad. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then the food was different. Different kids, ’cause there were Eskimo and -- BERTHA ULVI: Navajo. RUTH RIDLEY: Navajo. BERTHA ULVI: Tlingits. RUTH RIDLEY: And they speak their language and stuff like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: And how old were you? Did you guys go together? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-mm. BERTHA ULVI: No, I went first with Adeline Potts, and her older sister, Sara Biederman. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. BERTHA ULVI: But she was Sara Juneby, too. And after that, she (referring to Ruth) came. Which was good. RUTH RIDLEY: Fourteen, like start of -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. High school? Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: High school.

KAREN BREWSTER: Bertha, when you went by yourself, or when you went before Ruth started coming, so it was the three of you? You, Ruth -- I mean, you, Adeline, and Sarah? Were there other kids from the village? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, there was, like, Danny. Danny David, and later on, there was Harry David, Jr., and Johnny Juneby. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, so they were -- we all palled -- after, you know, you get lonesome first. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: But after you get used to -- You know, you gotta do things that we never done before, like you gotta have details. You gotta do mopping or -- KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: You gotta have -- KAREN BREWSTER: Chores? BERTHA ULVI: Chores to do every morning before school. But after, we got used to it.

KAREN BREWSTER: And it was four years for high school? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: Not actually. When I went down there, Adeline and I, they sent us back to what level we were in, and we -- we stayed there quite a while, Adeline and I. But Sarah, she just -- I don’t think Sarah graduated. She just took off. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: And then we had one more girl from the Davids, but she had -- uh, what she had, Shirley? Like she -- they had to put her in API (Alaska Psychiatric Institute). KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok. BERTHA ULVI: They send her back because she was pretty sick. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: But we didn’t know what it is. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: 'Til right now, we don’t see Shirley. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: She got married. KAREN BREWSTER: She never came back? BERTHA ULVI: And she’s at Big Lake. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: But we -- and all her brothers, they like to talk to her, but I think her husband won’t let -- KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. BERTHA ULVI: Let her -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: -- on the phone.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you guys would come back in the summer time? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, summer time. RUTH RIDLEY: No, fall time. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, that mosquito bit me! KAREN BREWSTER: Uh-oh.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we come back in the spring, and then we here. RUTH RIDLEY: September. BERTHA ULVI: Helping Mom. Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: Or August something. BERTHA ULVI: August. But we just help around the village, and help my mom.

MARCY OKADA: Did you try to make your use of your time here? ’Cause you just had summers here, so fishing and getting -- BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. Yeah, like, we work at the store, too, uh? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: As a clerk. MARCY OKADA: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: Just to earn a little money. But not as much as people like Southeastern, they fish in the canneries. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: In cannery. BERTHA ULVI: They’re well-to-do students. But not us.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did you ever think about going there for the summer to work in a cannery or something instead of coming home? BERTHA ULVI: No. I want to come home. RUTH RIDLEY: They even -- like they have, like, summer -- summer school. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: So I stayed out there one -- KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: Not out there, but for the summer, and then come back in July or something 'til school start again, then you go back out there.

KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. So why did you decide to stay for summer school? RUTH RIDLEY: Because they do a lot of canoeing and camping out, and then they do summer, like summer jobs, like, at the school, you know. You could be a secretary or whatever. Or work in the bank part. The little student little bank. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Like that stuff, so.

BERTHA ULVI: But then on Saturdays, too, while you were there, after you go back in August, they always had us go out pick berries. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. BERTHA ULVI: And they pay us by the crates, so we earned money like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: And then they make us sandwich. We stay there all day. We picked those little blackberries, and then we picked peaches. MARCY OKADA: Hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Nuts, too.

MARCY OKADA: Hm. Did you like picking peaches and nuts? BERTHA ULVI: Yes, we liked eating it. You get up in the tree, he can’t see you so -- You know, you just eat lots of fresh. It just taste so good. But, you know, we come down with a bucket full of those, too. Yeah, we never seen anything like that in our life, so. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Oh, fruit trees? BERTHA ULVI: Something different, you know. We picked blueberries and stuff, but --

KAREN BREWSTER: But peaches? BERTHA ULVI: Peaches. And the blackberries, it's just a line of it down it, you know, and you just go and just pick as fast as you could. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: The more crate you pick, the more money you get. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, when we had -- when the school started in Chemawa, like Bert and all of them that go to school there left, but I was a new student, so there was no room at Mount Edgecumbe or Chemawa or Wrangell, I think. And then finally they wrote and said, "We have room for you in Chemawa." And they fix all the travel and everything. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And somebody even waits at the airport. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: To see you when you come into the airport. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: Or to the busline. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, there’s always chaperones with you. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: Like that, so -- And then, after I went to Chemawa one year, and then the next year, um, Mount Edgecumbe wrote to me and said, "We have room for you if you want to come to Mount Edgecumbe."

But I already went to Chemawa, and it was nice and sunny and flowers. And there were -- my sister, older sister, always said that Mount Edgecumbe was drizzly rain, you know. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: Like snow-rain, like that. So I said, "No, I think I’ll stay, keep going to Chemawa." So.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, I was wondering how it happened that you guys all went to Chemawa and not Edgecumbe or -- BERTHA ULVI: Well, there’s few of -- people like my older -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: -- sister. Charlie and Isaac Juneby. RUTH RIDLEY: Angela. BERTHA ULVI: Angela. You know, they went down there to -- RUTH RIDLEY: To Chemawa. BERTHA ULVI: No, to Edgecumbe. RUTH RIDLEY: I mean, Edgecumbe. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, Edgecumbe. And then --

RUTH RIDLEY: And like, Adeline John, she went to Wrangell. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. That how it got selected that all of you went to Chemawa? BERTHA ULVI: It was good, though. We hung around with each other. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: 'Til we find friends. Our own.

RUTH RIDLEY: It was good to come home ’cause Mom and them, they get all ready. Ducks all singed and cleaned, and then when we -- after the plane land and we go home, we have nice big pot of duck soup and some fry bread.

KAREN BREWSTER: Mom’s home cooking. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: But then, too, like if you’re down there, if we -- Once in a while, we get those little care package. They sent us, like, instant coffee, sugar. RUTH RIDLEY: Sugar.

BERTHA ULVI: Sometime Grandma -- sometimes Grandma sent us dried fish. Dried meat. And same with Venetie. They get and we share and then they share back with us. Sometime those girls get low-bush cranberries. I remember Rose -- Rose. Not Rose Field, Rose. Sandy. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

MARCY OKADA: So you hung out with other students from Venetie? RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah. Not only them. We got other -- RUTH RIDLEY: Arctic Village. MARCY OKADA: Arctic Village.

BERTHA ULVI: And we were friends with Navajos, too. MARCY OKADA: Oh, ok. BERTHA ULVI: They’re just like us, too. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: It was our little group. If anybody get smart with me, there’s other people would stand up for you. So that Navajos or whatever can get smart with you.

MARCY OKADA: But for the most part, people got along? RUTH RIDLEY: Yes. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. MARCY OKADA: It didn’t matter, Eskimo, Indian?

BERTHA ULVI: I know I had a boyfriend there, and they’re really strict about alcohol on the campus. MARCY OKADA: Mm.

BERTHA ULVI: And he -- one time he did alcohol, but he went to Salem for -- You know, we go out on Saturday. You get a job with people. They sent -- so we cleaned the house for 45 cents an hour. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: You start with that kind of card, but you doing good, you could -- we'd get up to 50 cents. But he got sent home. Lotta kids got sent home for drinking.

MARCY OKADA: Do you think that initially after you got used to Chemawa, was it all right? I mean, what were your overall experiences? Were the teachers nice at the time? BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yes. They’re all -- everybody’s nice.

RUTH RIDLEY: Like I told them, living out there in Oregon, it taught me how the other part of United States lived. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: So I never wished to go out to the States or anything after that. MARCY OKADA: Oh, you really liked --

RUTH RIDLEY: I liked staying in Alaska. MARCY OKADA: Why -- why is that? RUTH RIDLEY: Huh?

MARCY OKADA: Why is that? Why did you want to come back? In your mind?

RUTH RIDLEY: Because it’s, uh, there’s fewer people, and you could do things. And you can’t do everything out in the States. Those big cities, like Portland or Salem, like that, you can’t do anything.

We even had our -- we’re Episcopalians along the Yukon River. We even had bus come and pick us up for Sunday for church. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And like that.

BERTHA ULVI: In Salem, they had Episcopal church we go to.

KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. And they’d come and pick you up? BERTHA ULVI: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that’s nice. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: And then they feed us there.

RUTH RIDLEY: They even take us to have a Christmas party or something. We’d go to their Christmas party. They give us presents, and they know that we’re living way far away from home. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: But eating at the dining hall, too, you got to eat everything you got because that’s only meal. You get three meals a day, but you can’t just go back and nibble and stuff like that if you don’t have the money. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: So -- Because sometime, people don’t have money to buy snack. We got our own little store down the railroad track a little ways. We’ll go there. If we got money, you get snacks and stuff like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: But they gave you three meals a day? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: As part of your tuition? BERTHA ULVI: Yes. RUTH RIDLEY: Yep. BERTHA ULVI: Got chew that.

RUTH RIDLEY: And we had to, like, some of those chores, we said, like you could work in the kitchen and be peeling potatoes in the daytime, in the morning.

And then at night, you could be putting all that dishes and whatever away. And making toast for breakfast. (scraping sound from moving a chair) BERTHA ULVI: I’m sorry.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. Well, yeah, it sounds like they put you guys to work. You weren’t just students, you were workers.

BERTHA ULVI: Well, that’s training. As you go to school, they train. Like you do your laundry, you press your clothes, you hang ’em up good. If you don’t, sometime, you know, there’s six of us in the room like this with bunkbeds and stuff like that.

If you don’t do your clothes and just strewn stuff, everybody, if I had a clean dresser drawer and some of these others that’s not, all your clothes are pulled out of your dresser drawer, out of your, um, closets. Everything like that.

Then you gotta come back and, man, it’s a mess sometimes. So from there on, you know, you learn your lesson, so. (referring to electricity flicker trying to come back on) Hey. No?

KAREN BREWSTER: Electricity was trying, but not quite. It’s close.

MARCY OKADA: So you said it was training. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, you trained to take care of yourself. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. Do you --

BERTHA ULVI: Like, yeah, like I say about Danny David, he went down there. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: They press their own pants and stuff like that, those boys. They’re dressing nice down there, too. You got to take care of yourself. But they got washer and dryer.

MARCY OKADA: So you didn’t think it was a bad thing? BERTHA ULVI: Huh? MARCY OKADA: You didn’t think it was a bad thing, this -- the training?

BERTHA ULVI: No, I like it because -- because it train lot of peop -- lot of these boys to keep clean and stuff like that. But sometime now, I don’t know, but then.

KAREN BREWSTER: But, so yeah, how do you feel about that, having gone to boarding school? Was that --?

BERTHA ULVI: I like it. I like it because we all kinda -- other villages and stuff like that from Alaska, and then down the state, there from reservation and --

KAREN BREWSTER: And what about you, Ruth? RUTH RIDLEY: What? KAREN BREWSTER: Your feelings about having gone to boarding school?

RUTH RIDLEY: I feel good about it. It taught you different kind of food to eat and to take care of yourself. And you learn from higher -- you know, high school, different teachers.

And we even had some Navajo teachers, too, there at that school, and so. BERTHA ULVI: And they, lot of Navajo people working at the dormitories. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, you know, we had like, women work in the girls’ dormitory, making sure that our rooms were clean and all that. Or if we had any problem, we go talk to them and stuff. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: So it was pretty good.

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. Um, before we move off boarding schools, ’cause I know we want to get to life here, but, you know, nowadays, there’s a lot of criticism of boarding schools, and people had negative experiences and bad things happened.

Do you have any thoughts about that? BERTHA ULVI: Not Chemawa, I don’t think. RUTH RIDLEY: Hm-mm. BERTHA ULVI: Never.

But they talk about it in Edgecumbe and Sitka school and all that, but nothing like that. If anything happened like that, they know right away, and they’re sent home. Or whoever. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: I mean, I never, never heard anybody like that.

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, they said -- they always say about Mount Edgecumbe, they were like prejudiced and stuff like that, but we never had no people against each other. BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. RUTH RIDLEY: Or students, you know.

With teachers and students. It never -- Or no child molesting or anything like that. BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. I never seen it. I mean, girls --

RUTH RIDLEY: We had band and all that, and we learned band playing and singing.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, only one Navajo girl was pregnant, but she probably did that in her vill -- her town, came to school like that, but they sent her home. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: And right now they said, if somebody gets pregnant at Chemawa, they take them to Portland or somewhere and get a, um, what they call? BERTHA ULVI: Abortion. RUTH RIDLEY: Abortion. KAREN BREWSTER: I think they end the pregnancy, yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: But in those days, they just sent you home. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: You don’t stay around or if you drank or anything, you'd get sent home and stuff. But not anymore, I think.

BERTHA ULVI: Then like if you socialize out on the campus ground. You know, if you want to see your boyfriend, you could, but there’s always matrons around to, you know, "Not too close." Yeah, they -- they're like that, which I -- it was good, but it -- KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: But all the teachers, everybody is good. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

MARCY OKADA: So you had a good experience? BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh.

And like Christmas, oh man, we get big, different meals. Then, you know, like turkey and ham. KAREN BREWSTER: So you would stay down there at Christmas? You didn’t come home? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: No, we don’t --

RUTH RIDLEY: We didn’t have any -- that much money, our parents didn’t have. But some people like from Southeastern, those cannery workers. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And stuff, they come down to visit their kids and stuff like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

RUTH RIDLEY: For graduation and all that, but not us. We were not rich. But it didn’t hurt our feelings. BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. RUTH RIDLEY: We just went our merry way.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so when you gra -- what year did you graduate? BERTHA ULVI: I didn’t graduate. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, you didn’t?

BERTHA ULVI: Because of the time to -- remember we said about our dad got drowned in Fairbanks? KAREN BREWSTER: Mm, right. BERTHA ULVI: November. April they found him. And then we came home, but we went back out, eh?

We went back to school, and then when school was out, we came back. And that fall, just before I went back out, Mom was by herself. My oldest sister passed away. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: So she went back. Did you go back? RUTH RIDLEY: No. BERTHA ULVI: No. We stayed with Mom.

RUTH RIDLEY: I graduated in ’68, and that’s when they found Dad, in ’68. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, in ’68. RUTH RIDLEY: So, I graduated in ’68. KAREN BREWSTER: In ’68? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: And Bertha, you never graduated? BERTHA ULVI: No. No. I went to eleventh. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. BERTHA ULVI: And I just stayed with my mom.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so that, when you came back and stayed with your mom, that was also 1968? RUTH RIDLEY: Yep. BERTHA ULVI: ’69. I was supposed to graduate. KAREN BREWSTER: Right, but you stayed here in ’68 with your mom? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. So that’s what we were wondering is like, what life was like here, 1968 on?

RUTH RIDLEY: It was colder than heck with Bert (Bertha's nickname) and them, but I graduated in ’68, and then I went to Anchorage for something. Then I came back to Fairbanks. Then I met my husband, so I got married in November.

BERTHA ULVI: Here in Eagle, she got married. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. But then --

MARCY OKADA: How did you meet your husband? RUTH RIDLEY: Hm? MARCY OKADA: How did you meet your husband? RUTH RIDLEY: He was a cab driver, and he take me here and there. MARCY OKADA: In Fairbanks? RUTH RIDLEY: Huh? MARCY OKADA: In Fairbanks?

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. And he was -- he was not a funny cab driver that go after you or anything like that, so I always call him when I needed a cab. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: Then we got to know each other, and that was it. KAREN BREWSTER: And one thing led to another.

BERTHA ULVI: He used to work at -- up (North) Slope, too. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. After he had -- they start having kids, uh? KAREN BREWSTER: Pipeline days? RUTH RIDLEY: Uh-huh.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, pipeline days. He was up there. But I just stayed with Mom.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. And so what was life like here with you and your mom?

BERTHA ULVI: She did pretty good, but then not the first time -- we were out in state when Dad -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: -- got -- was missing, so she always had one of those little David boys stay with her, Norman. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: He was just a little guy then, but -- but all the other family were -- Harold was here, was he? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, Harold and my nephew that always come here, visit us.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did you guys do fish camp?

BERTHA ULVI: No. Those -- After that, we didn’t have fish camp because Grandma and Grandpa were too old, and Grandpa died, man, way back, I don’t know when.

I was the health aide in 1970, I think. 1970, my grandpa passed away. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: But Grandma, we had to take care of her, too. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: So both of us, like we took care of -- I mean, I took care of Grandma. I lived with her 'til she pass on.

And then my mom, they had to put her in -- in where she lived in Fairbanks, but then they said, "She gotta move to her own place." Because she get dialysis -- KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: -- 'Til she give up, and then she -- we brought her home. She died here. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, that’s good. She got to die at home.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, that’s what her wish. In here, we want to keep her on that dialysis machine. So they got mad at us down at the nurses’ quarter.

Mom wanted -- this is her last day. You come down and get her right now, they told us. That’s a time I didn’t like it, but uh.

KAREN BREWSTER: So yeah, it was you and your mom and your grandma. What were you doing for hunting and fishing and traditional food?

BERTHA ULVI: We didn’t do nothing. It’s just people that so nice give us stuff.

RUTH RIDLEY: And, you know, like my brother was here. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And his wife. She was from Fort Yukon, so he always hunted for us all the time. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. But he --

RUTH RIDLEY: We never went without wild game. BERTHA ULVI: But he pass away, too, so --

But like I say, they -- when Mom was here, you know, they always give Elders meat or fish and stuff like that. What they doing to us now. MARCY OKADA: Hm. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, like if something, they’ll give us meat first, then younger people. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: Like Ethel and I, we get quite a bit from downtown all the time.

MARCY OKADA: I know Don Woodruff shares porcupine with you, if he gets a porcupine. You guys still like eating porcupine, right? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: But he’s pretty sick now, did you know? MARCY OKADA: Yeah, I do. I -- but I interviewed him last summer. BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh. MARCY OKADA: But I, yeah. But, um.

BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah. He -- He's -- Him and his wife are real nice.

KAREN BREWSTER: So how did you get porcupine before --? Do you shoot ’em? BERTHA ULVI: You club them in the head. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: Or if you got .22, you shoot them in the head. MARCY OKADA: Huh. Then you -- you --?

BERTHA ULVI: Singe it. MARCY OKADA: Singe it.

BERTHA ULVI: But sometime we save the quills.

RUTH RIDLEY: We just recently just started using quill. We never knew about quill a long time ago. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, 'til you start seeing necklaces. RUTH RIDLEY: Going where they had cases of quill.

KAREN BREWSTER: Quills. Ah. So yeah, when you used to eat porcupine, you would just singe it, and that takes the quills -- ? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: -- off, and then you can skin it?

BERTHA ULVI: All the way down to the skin. And then you take a knife, and you scrape it 'til all the quills are out. It’s all burnt, you know. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. And then you --

BERTHA ULVI: But that’s what make it taste good. Lot of people, they just skin it, and it don’t taste good to us. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. But after you singe it, you skin it? RUTH RIDLEY: No. KAREN BREWSTER: No, you just -- BERTHA ULVI: No, you don’t skin it. You leave that burnt on there. That’s what make it taste good. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. And then you --

BERTHA ULVI: Then you gut it and cut it up and put it in the big pot and boil it. And you just eat it like that. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. And so now, if you’re going to use the quills, how do you take the quills out? RUTH RIDLEY: With a plier or also hit it with a towel. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: And they'll be stuck to the towel. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: And like that. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, so do people get porcupine very much anymore? BERTHA ULVI: No, because -- They see it lots on the highway, but they just let it go, while we’re hungry for porcupine.

KAREN BREWSTER: People don’t go out specifically hunting for porcupine? BERTHA ULVI: Oh, no. RUTH RIDLEY: Hm-mm.

KAREN BREWSTER: When you were kids, though, you guys kinda did, didn’t you?

BERTHA ULVI: Where we lived down Coal Creek, there’s always lots on the road. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: That’s how we got to like it so much, because like every night, my dad would get --

He’ll take us for a ride because we’re cooped up -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: -- in the camp where we stayed. And he give us ride at night.

Then this beaver pond, he take us there. We watch the beavers. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: What was he driving? BERTHA ULVI: A big orange dump truck. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: But they don’t use it in camp, because --

So we just put a big -- RUTH RIDLEY: Mattress. BERTHA ULVI: -- mattress in the back. And then that top, on top of it, we put blankets so my brother and -- we all stand up there and watch. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, fun. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun sometime.

RUTH RIDLEY: And inside was my mom and my -- BERTHA ULVI: Nephew. RUTH RIDLEY: -- little nephew. BERTHA ULVI: Harold. My dad.

RUTH RIDLEY: And I always said, "God really watch over us." Because, you know, like, my dad was not that professional driver, and man, they had like, turns like this -- KAREN BREWSTER: Switchy. RUTH RIDLEY: -- on those roads and some of those you come around the corner and it’s way straight down, you know. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: But we made it through all that with that dump truck.

MARCY OKADA: So you mentioned you never did bead work with porcupine quills. But now that you are using quills? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Is it fun to -- ? RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, yeah, it’s --

MARCY OKADA: You make earrings, or --? RUTH RIDLEY: Just earrings, and then necklace. MARCY OKADA: Ok. RUTH RIDLEY: Like that with beads.

KAREN BREWSTER: It’s interesting why you never used them before. RUTH RIDLEY: We didn’t know nothing about --

And then we always had little short needles. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm. RUTH RIDLEY: You need long needles for porcupine quill -- BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: -- if you want to make that long. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok. RUTH RIDLEY: Like that, so.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did -- when your mom and grandma did their skin sewing, did they use the sinew from the moose or caribou? BERTHA ULVI: Yes. Yes. My grandma knows how to do all that.

RUTH RIDLEY: But not Mom very much. BERTHA ULVI: She’s spoiled. RUTH RIDLEY: My grandma takes it apart and whatever and make the little, um -- BERTHA ULVI: Thread, like. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, and then after, she just put ’em -- And then tie it up so when she starts sewing, you just use that to moccasins and stuff like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Was it from the moose or the caribou? BERTHA ULVI: Moose. Not caribou, I don’t think.

Caribou, they just use the hide for like, boot strings. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: And they use it for hat, because it’s so thin. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: But my mom was spoiled. You know, she’s the last one of the kids that she got, so everything she does goes to Mom. MARCY OKADA: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: Like moose skin and all that. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you guys never learned how to make the sinew? BERTHA ULVI: Well, if -- you just dry, you just cut it out of the moose. I mean, I would know what to do. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: You know, if -- You dry it, and then after she soak it little bit, and you just take the one string and --

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, it comes apart. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, she put it in her mouth, and then she’ll go like this to it.

KAREN BREWSTER: Roll it, yeah, in her hands? BERTHA ULVI: Roll it out and then it'll --

KAREN BREWSTER: Is it from the backstrap of the moose? BERTHA ULVI: Some place. KAREN BREWSTER: Or the leg? BERTHA ULVI: Backstrap. Backstrap, I think.

RUTH RIDLEY: ’Cause it’s a long like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: So that can't be on the leg. KAREN BREWSTER: I don’t know. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, backstrap. Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Backstrap.

MARCY OKADA: So you said people were sharing with you ’cause your mom was sick. She was a widow.

And then, you came back and were helping her, but you said your brother was catching moose and providing, but people would always share, too. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

MARCY OKADA: Um, but at that point, the fish was being shared 'cause your grandparents weren’t fishing anymore? You said they were too old. BERTHA ULVI: No, they were getting too old.

MARCY OKADA: But people were providing fish, too?

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, and then my brother would put fish net in, instead of fish wheel like my grandma and grandpa did. He always put the fish net in. MARCY OKADA: Ok. RUTH RIDLEY: And then --

BERTHA ULVI: Her and I, we cut -- cut fish. Sometimes -- MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: You know, we didn’t have money, so we sell little fish to people. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: ’Cause we -- lot of people come from Tanacross and Northway, sometime, ’cause they don’t get salmon. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: So they come and buy dry fish and like that. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Then he’s gone, so -- My brother died when he was 28 years old with double pneumonia. MARCY OKADA: Oh.

KAREN BREWSTER: Mm. Did he have a particular place where he set his fish net? Like your grandparents had the fish wheel and the camp. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Down there. BERTHA ULVI: But --

RUTH RIDLEY: Just across there, there’s a big -- BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh. RUTH RIDLEY: There’s a bluff when you go down. You’ll see the bluff over there. KAREN BREWSTER: At Eagle? RUTH RIDLEY: Not Eagle Bluff. But just -- BERTHA ULVI: Between here and town. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. BERTHA ULVI: That straight stretch down there, you’ll look at --

RUTH RIDLEY: You’ll see that water is just strong through there. And that’s where they put that net. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah.

MARCY OKADA: Hm. Ok. So that was -- now we’re moving into the 1970’s, and you met your husband, right? (referring to Bertha) KAREN BREWSTER: Ex-husband. MARCY OKADA: Ex-husband.

KAREN BREWSTER: When did you meet him? BERTHA ULVI: Um -- RUTH RIDLEY: He worked for the Park Service. BERTHA ULVI: No. RUTH RIDLEY: Or he came up from California. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, they drifted down from Whitehorse or something. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: And they live up here at Boundary. And they always come to the village and they help old people and stuff like that. It was him and his brother, his sister-in-law. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: And other bunch of boys with him.

But yeah, I met him in the village, and then, I don’t know, my grandma said, "You’re not supposed to just shack up with somebody. You got to marry."

I shouldn’t listen to her. But too late now. But we got married in November 18. Then --

KAREN BREWSTER: What year? BERTHA ULVI: I don’t remember. In ’70 -- in the 70’s, I know. But Karma, she was born 1977. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: So it’s in -- It was around 1970-something like that. I was a health aide when -- KAREN BREWSTER: You were already a health aide?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. I met him when I go to work. He’s always stand there, invite me in for, you know, lunch and stuff like that. Yeah, we -- he was pretty nice guy.

I mean, he build me this little cabin down here for the kids. And then we were across the river on my big allotment. He built a cabin, but that was another mistake. He should have built a house on this side because after we broke up, I couldn’t -- so I just sold it to Sonja Sager. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. BERTHA ULVI: I sold her that land.

KAREN BREWSTER: So where was -- this is your allotment? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, across the river. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok. RUTH RIDLEY: Right behind where that island in town was right here. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And behind that.

KAREN BREWSTER: So was that in the Preserve, then? MARCY OKADA: No. KAREN BREWSTER: No? BERTHA ULVI: No.

KAREN BREWSTER: No. But did you used to go and spend a lot of time on that allotment, that cabin?

BERTHA ULVI: We did, when he was building it. We lived there for a summer. But there’s no way I could, I don’t have a boat. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: No way to go across and back, and I’m not -- so I -- and Sonja had a bunch of kids who -- she wanted to buy it, so I just sold it to her.

MARCY OKADA: So you met your husband, Karma was born. Um, you guys are doing -- checking traplines, and he’s hunting?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, I did trapline with him. He -- he got -- he fished quite a bit, too, those days, too. So he provided fish for the village.

MARCY OKADA: And hunting? BERTHA ULVI: Hunting, yeah. He did a lot of hunting for us. He get moose and stuff like that. Caribou.

MARCY OKADA: And he’d bring home, and then you -- you process it? BERTHA ULVI: Well -- MARCY OKADA: Or prepare it?

BERTHA ULVI: We had a cabin down at Buckeye, I said when he built that place, but I wasn’t set up, so like Mom, down there in the village, she had a big fish cache, so everything that we get goes there. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: Then we hang it and they always got fire underneath it for fish, meat, anything. 'Til after, and then they cut it up and just put it in the freezer. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: But he was good for all that. He done good things for us.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did he have a particular place he’d go look for moose or caribou? BERTHA ULVI: No, just like anybody else, out the highway. Out the highway where people hunt caribou.

KAREN BREWSTER: He didn’t go down the river?

BERTHA ULVI: Now he does, I guess, but I don’t know if they eat meat because she’s a what you call it, vegetarian? KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

But at the time, he would -- BERTHA ULVI: No -- KAREN BREWSTER: When you guys were together? BERTHA ULVI: -- he just go out the road. He dream about his moose one night, and he told me, "Bert, I got to go." I said, "Why?" "I dream I got a moose."

He went out early in the morning. That moose was up in the summit, coming up at him. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: He got it right there at the edge of the road. So he got -- his dream came true. KAREN BREWSTER: That moose was giving itself to him.

BERTHA ULVI: And then when my mom -- I said, "Mom, there's Dana--" I said, "Look behind his truck."

Sure enough, there was an antler. So, unloaded at Mom’s cache.

KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. You guys had a dogteam, right? BERTHA ULVI: Yes. We had -- we had quite -- we had, like eleven dogs. We take on trapline, too. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you had to fish -- he fished to feed the dogs?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. He fish every summer for them. Then when you gonna take -- take them out on trapline, you gotta load stuff down before -- downriver to Nation townsite where I told you. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: There’s a cabin there. It’s an old beat-up cabin, so we store all the fish, dried fish, in there. All the dog pots, everything goes.

MARCY OKADA: Did you like having a dogteam?

BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah. I mean, I rather have a dogteam those days than Snow-Go. He took a Snow-Go down. He went on trapline. He broke down like ten miles out. He had to walk all the way back.

You gotta have parts and all that. And the dogs will always bring you home. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: So I always told him, "Don’t go out there without dogs anymore."

RUTH RIDLEY: And there’s this guy that owns that store downtown. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: He has his own airplane. He flies.

And he always go out. Bert and Dana or whoever hire him, and he’ll drop stuff, like food and stuff, over them.

BERTHA ULVI: In five-gallon cans, you know. After you put food in there, you just tie it up with wire or stuff like that because it comes under the plane. And we put a big tarp out there. He come down and he drops all our food down.

KAREN BREWSTER: This was to -- MARCY OKADA: Supplies. KAREN BREWSTER: -- to resupply when you were out trapping? BERTHA ULVI: No. This is -- this is when -- only once for -- MARCY OKADA: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: Like -- like for instance, now. When we go out in October and go down river, and then we have to walk to the mine, eight miles up. But that one is when he bring our stuff, he'd land on the airport. That’s his place. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: His dad’s mining camp. So he always check around the camp when he comes in, you know, because -- but we keep it clean. We use up his wood.

Then in springtime when Dana go back down, he put some more wood out there that we use wintertime. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: So that going down river in October, is that something you do now? Or that’s what you did do?

BERTHA ULVI: October. I went down there when there was ice in the river. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: I didn’t like that, and it gets dark pretty fast, coming up you're in the ice.

But that’s a time I didn’t have to go with him, so I was kinda -- next day, he took off. There was a lot of ice in there, but he made it.

KAREN BREWSTER: So this was a while ago, you did that trip? Or you go every year?

BERTHA ULVI: Oh yeah, we didn’t actually go down there. We went out Summit. We had to walk back into the (inaudible) and then all the way down. Where I say that -- RUTH RIDLEY: Champion. KAREN BREWSTER: Champion?

BERTHA ULVI: Champion. Champion Creek. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, yeah, you guys used to -- BERTHA ULVI: Champion, yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: -- go trapping up there, yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we go down there, and it’s high, but we have to cross to the cabin, too, so -- He fix that cabin with Mike Potts and Bill Goebel and them. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. BERTHA ULVI: There’s three family go out there, and then his brother, Steve, is up Bear Creek.

RUTH RIDLEY: And one time you shot a moose out there. Tell them about that. ’Cause like they were out of -- getting out of food.

BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah. We didn’t get our -- Oh yeah, we were running out of food. And this big bull was just coming down -- down, uh, around the dry creekbed. I could hear its feet, and I got up.

And all the dogs were just quiet, but they don’t want to bark, but they whimpering. So I got my .30-.30, and I got all nervous. The first shot, I got him right in the butt. And then the next one right here in the neck. But he’s so -- it was such a tough moose.

So Dana heard me down -- down the beaver pond. He was just about to aim at the beaver for meat, and here -- he lost that and rushed back up.

So that night with gas lamp, we got that moose, gut it and stuff like that. We just left it there open until next day 'til Mike Potts came down. He heard the gunshot, too. They live four miles up the creek from us.

But it was such a tough meat. You could boil it, you fry it, and it’s still tough. MARCY OKADA: Mm. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: Old bull. Because -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. Tough old bull. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah.

MARCY OKADA: Hm. There’s no way to tenderize that? You can't just -- BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, you chop on it, everything. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: It must’ve got scared of the young bull, they said, and then, you know, how you toughen up your muscles and all that? MARCY OKADA: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: That’s what they always told me. That’s why the meat was so tough.

KAREN BREWSTER: So normally, you’re told to not hunt that kind of an old bull? BERTHA ULVI: I don’t know. I never --

I go hunting up on Summit with Karma, too, but we didn’t do good. But this year she got better gun.

MARCY OKADA: Hm. Your mom used a .30-.30 also, right? You said you shot that bull moose with a .30-.30? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. I --

MARCY OKADA: But your mom also shot that bear with a .30-.30. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. But, Mom? RUTH RIDLEY: No, my dad. MARCY OKADA: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, with a .30-.06. MARCY OKADA: Oh, .30-.06.

But your mom was a good shot with a .30-.30. BERTHA ULVI: Yes, my -- RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: With a .30-.30 down that creek where she got that moose. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, Mom got that one. But she’s good hunter, too, Mom.

MARCY OKADA: Did she teach you guys how to shoot? Your mom was a good hunter? RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, yeah, she’s a good shot. MARCY OKADA: Do you remember --? RUTH RIDLEY: She always shoot the geese out of the sky in the fall time. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh.

MARCY OKADA: Did she teach you guys to shoot? BERTHA ULVI: Well, we’re around her, so we know what to do now.

MARCY OKADA: Ok. But it was not like a lesson? BERTHA ULVI: No. RUTH RIDLEY: Huh-uh. MARCY OKADA: No practice?

BERTHA ULVI: You just watch -- RUTH RIDLEY: She never -- BERTHA ULVI: -- people and do what they do. MARCY OKADA: Ok. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, they -- BERTHA ULVI: They don’t --

RUTH RIDLEY: Taught us -- they never taught us. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: We had to watch and be quiet. We don’t say, "And what’s that for? And what’s that?" Of the parts of moose, you never say nothing. You just gotta watch them. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s how you learned how to cut up a moose and cut up fish and stuff? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. I didn’t know how to gut a moose when I got that big one. I would -- I’m so small, I could crawl in that big stomach.

And he (Dana) told me what to do, because that day, too, he was knocking the tree down, and that saw just got him, like right down this way. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, his fingers?

BERTHA ULVI: And it's one of those sharp Swede saw. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: Ooh.

BERTHA ULVI: It cut him, so he didn’t want to put it in the blood (of the moose being butchered), so -- So I had to do all that.

MARCY OKADA: Anything else you remember going after when you were with -- down that way? You guys got moose. BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah. And then -- MARCY OKADA: Porcupine, and --

BERTHA ULVI: And then we were just on tunas. I make my own bread, though, you know, on the stove. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. MARCY OKADA: Uh-huh.

BERTHA ULVI: We were just getting tired of tuna sandwich and tomato soup.

So one morning, he went out, and on the creek there was just caribou just laying there for him. He said, "I always pray a lot."

And, you know, we pray because we were raised with Dad being a lay reader and stuff like that. We pray for --

So that day, I -- he said all the caribou were laying down. Not even scared of the dogteam coming. But the dogs want to go to them. They -- but he stopped them. And he got three caribou that time.

And Karma was just small enough to sit. He made her a -- like a high chair. And put a board over. And all that time, I didn’t have a camera.

I just start cooking kidney, heart, and liver, everything. Three pans going, we all ate. But it’s -- Oh Karma, just going like this in the grease and all this. KAREN BREWSTER: All over her face.

BERTHA ULVI: Greasy face, and -- and Pete, nobody said nothing. We all just ate that. We were full.

KAREN BREWSTER: You guys stuffed yourself with caribou? BERTHA ULVI: Yes.

And then what make him -- I made him mad, I said, "We’re tired of this. Could we give this to the dogs?" He said, "No, you gonna eat that for lunch tomorrow." That tuna sandwich and tomato soup, I got tired of it.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that’s like, growing up, you ate salmon three meals a day, right? So caribou three meals a day?

BERTHA ULVI: Yep. Grandma knows lots of things, too. On the bank, there’s that wild onion. She always picked that, too. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: And she cooks that with the fish. She knows quite a bit of, like certain kinds of plants we --

But they -- Mom, did she have a garden down there, or us? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-mm. BERTHA ULVI: Nobody. So if you want something, you gotta go to the store, but we don’t.

RUTH RIDLEY: And we -- they didn’t -- never had no meat in the store, 'til later. So there was like, canned wieners, you know, like six or something in a can. MARCY OKADA: Vienna sausage.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then there was SPAM. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we liked that.

RUTH RIDLEY: And corned beef. That’s about it, huh, that --

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, you had said when you guys lived out, um, by Woodchopper, Coal Creek, that your mom would get food from the store with money from your dad’s paycheck.

BERTHA ULVI: From the camp, not from the store. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, the camps. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, the company had a lot of -- KAREN BREWSTER: The camp --

BERTHA ULVI: -- had a lot of food for the workers, so they provide my dad with food, too. He works for them, so.

KAREN BREWSTER: But they had to buy it?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. They had -- it comes out of his paycheck. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh.

KAREN BREWSTER: So, yeah, I would think that would’ve been expensive for your family. RUTH RIDLEY: Probably.

BERTHA ULVI: Those days, probably, but to right now, I don’t think of -- RUTH RIDLEY: Huh? BERTHA ULVI: Because like right now, everything’s so expensive.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, but expensive for that time? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, uh-huh.

KAREN BREWSTER: Compared to getting food from the land. And why your parents bought -- used the company food that they had to pay for? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Instead of going hunting and fishing?

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, so like when we were in that mining camp, that’s why we ate so much porcupine. And we loved porcupine, too. We never got tired of porcupine.

Not like fish. That fish camp, you just, after a while you get tired of fish. Even the dogs, their pot would be half full of, um -- BERTHA ULVI: Fish heads.

RUTH RIDLEY: Eggs. Fish eggs, you know, and they wouldn’t eat it because it’s just too much food. BERTHA ULVI: Too rich. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, the fish eggs are rich.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then we used to -- we go berry picking and get some berries, and then we take those little strips of stomach, like. And it’s little -- BERTHA ULVI: Fish weed. RUTH RIDLEY: And then -- BERTHA ULVI: Fish belly. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Salmon belly. KAREN BREWSTER: Salmon belly?

RUTH RIDLEY: While we were going to eat lunch at the berry patch, so they throw it in the, um, fire to cook it, brown it or whatever.

And then you eat it with the fresh berries, blueberries. It sure tasted good like that. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: But we ate fish head, and fish -- fish after fish.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you don’t know why your parents bought food instead of hunting more? ’Cause your dad was working and didn’t have time, or--?

BERTHA ULVI: No. Dad went to work at seven, don’t come back 'til, probably, like six at night. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: He goes quite a ways toward the river. That’s where the dredge was going to go. But now it just sits.

If you go to Coal Creek -- You been to Coal Creek? KAREN BREWSTER: No. Marcy has. MARCY OKADA: I have.

BERTHA ULVI: You see where the dredge is? That’s how far my dad -- my dad’s -- They call it stripping, you know, all that going ahead of the -- with that big TD24, big CAT he run. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: He got to knock all these trees down and then let the creek run down through there. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: That’s where they have like, you know, like those tailing piles full of water. That’s where some of the fish get caught.

That’s where we always get all of the fish out of there, too. Grayling. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. You mentioned that yesterday. BERTHA ULVI: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: But so -- BERTHA ULVI: Plentiful.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, I’m just surprised that you ate so much store-bought food. I mean, company food, instead of your traditional foods.

RUTH RIDLEY: We didn’t eat that much. BERTHA ULVI: Well. RUTH RIDLEY: Because -- KAREN BREWSTER: You didn’t, ok?

BERTHA ULVI: No, because too, this -- this -- like those days that they have game wardens, we were kinda -- they were kinda strict. RUTH RIDLEY: We didn’t have no game wardens.

BERTHA ULVI: They were kinda, when they -- Mom got that moose, remember? They were kinda hiding it from -- RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: From Dale Patty and all them because they -- KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: So what we did is just take a little piece, and Dad put it under the moss. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: To keep it cool in -- Around the creek area, it was cold. KAREN BREWSTER: Uh-huh. BERTHA ULVI: But she --

RUTH RIDLEY: And they made a little cache for that moose to hang. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. There was.

RUTH RIDLEY: And we go down there during the day and have it -- smoke it like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: But so the Pattys, they were -- didn’t really want people hunting is kinda what you’re saying? BERTHA ULVI: They didn’t say that. RUTH RIDLEY: Well, they --

BERTHA ULVI: They didn’t say that. They just -- it was just -- I don’t know if there was game warden those days, too.

KAREN BREWSTER: There probably was, at some point. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: But they didn’t come around.

KAREN BREWSTER: ’Cause this was the '50’s? Late '40’s, early 1950’s? BERTHA ULVI: Huh?

KAREN BREWSTER: What time period? It was after you were born, so the early 1950’s?

RUTH RIDLEY: When we were in Coal Creek, the last time we were in Coal Creek. BERTHA ULVI: I was like 13. RUTH RIDLEY: ’58.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we were grown up. We did things like go -- my brother and I go down the creek to go fishing and stuff.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. So there would have been game wardens by then. BERTHA ULVI: And she was like twelve years old. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Ten. She was -- we all got around.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. So there would’ve been game wardens in that time period. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: But I mean --

KAREN BREWSTER: They didn’t come around very often. RUTH RIDLEY: No. We didn’t see no Lucien. He always came around our fish camp down there. KAREN BREWSTER: Who was that?

RUTH RIDLEY: His name was Lucien. What was his real name? I mean, his whole name? BERTHA ULVI: I don’t. RUTH RIDLEY: Lucien.

KAREN BREWSTER: He was a game warden? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, he was a game warden. But he was mainly, uh, like checking salmon and stuff like that. He’d take samples out of all the salmon that Grandpa catch. I don’t know for what, but --

MARCY OKADA: Were your grandparents just focusing on salmon, or would they end up catching other, like, types of whitefish? BERTHA ULVI: Anything. They catch those, and Grandma bake it in the oven for us.

MARCY OKADA: Ok. Was that common to catch, or were --? you guys were just getting a lot of salmon and not that much whitefish or other types?

BERTHA ULVI: Sometimes the whitefish get caught in there (in the fish wheel), so. They liked that, too, but --

MARCY OKADA: Was it nice to eat a different type of fish after eating so much salmon? Like you were eating another -- BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, like grayling. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. You guys had.

KAREN BREWSTER: But on the -- besides the grayling you guys would fish, did you specifically go and try and find whitefish? BERTHA ULVI: No.

KAREN BREWSTER: It was just what ended up in the wheel? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, what end -- what we catch in the fish wheel or in the net.

RUTH RIDLEY: Remember that old man down there? That Charlie Steve?

As soon as the ice go out, and then the river clears of ice and all that, he always put a net in down past Grandma Sarah Malcolm.

'Member, he always get whitefish. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: Or sucker, like that. And he’d pass around to some people.

But that whitefish or sucker just had so much bones.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. I didn’t know they had suckerfish up here. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.

MARCY OKADA: I’d like to go back, you mentioned Grandma Eliza catching -- or picking wild onions. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.

MARCY OKADA: Do you remember any -- was she picking any other, like Eskimo potato, or any masu or --? BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. MARCY OKADA: Other plants?

BERTHA ULVI: Grandma showed us that "Treh." (Bear Root - Hedysarum alpinum, and also known as "Eskimo Potato.") RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Remember Treh? Yeah, that -- it’s like, uh.

RUTH RIDLEY: A whim -- or something. (hard to tell what she's saying).

BERTHA ULVI: It’s -- it’s got a plant, but underneath, she always just let us dig in there. And it’s like a turnip. Not turnip. You know those white, long -- white, long --

KAREN BREWSTER: Like radish? No. Like a turnip? BERTHA ULVI: Something like, it’s -- MARCY OKADA: With a root? BERTHA ULVI: -- just -- Uh-huh. Like a carrot, but it’s white. MARCY OKADA: Oh, ok.

BERTHA ULVI: And she’ll cut it up, and she’ll fry it in butter for us. Yeah, and we pick lots.

RUTH RIDLEY: But we like to just -- you could eat it raw. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, you could eat it raw, too. She --

RUTH RIDLEY: You kinda peel it, ’cause it got a skin or something, uh, dry.

BERTHA ULVI: But now, I kind of forgot little bit of -- She picked it around that school, huh? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: We walk a little ways from down in the old village. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Up -- up the trail. Like those days there’s no road. She always take us, and she pick -- we pick some with her. And then she’d go home and fix it up for us.

KAREN BREWSTER: What’s the word -- you use a Han --? BERTHA ULVI: I don’t know. KAREN BREWSTER: Did you have a Han word for it? BERTHA ULVI: Treh. RUTH RIDLEY: Treh. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we call it Treh. I don’t know what --

KAREN BREWSTER: I’m wondering if it’s like Troth, like the Troth Yeddha’ campus. UAF is the Troth Yeddha’. If it’s troth is a similar. That’s like Eskimo potato. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

RUTH RIDLEY: Could be. KAREN BREWSTER: I don’t know. BERTHA ULVI: I don’t --

KAREN BREWSTER: Did it have flowers? BERTHA ULVI: But it looks -- it’s shaped like a carrot that’s little --

RUTH RIDLEY: Didn’t it, that tree, didn’t it have like pink flowers or something? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. It had a little pink flowers and stuff like that.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then you dig down on there, and you could just find all those big roots, like I think. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: We get free trip to Dawson. KAREN BREWSTER: The Yukon Queen, huh? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: We told my mom that --

RUTH RIDLEY: It came down at 10 and then left at two, huh? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we cleaned before -- RUTH RIDLEY: Back up every day. BERTHA ULVI: -- tourists come on there.

KAREN BREWSTER: So that was a good thing, having that? BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yes. RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, everybody -- A lot of tourists, but it’s the highway that stopped it. There was a big bus that tipped over just on the other side of the summit. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm.

BERTHA ULVI: And it killed an old guy, so they stopped it. And they went to Seattle, I think, that -- KAREN BREWSTER: That boat?

So when was -- we were talking about plants, and I wanted to just finish that up. Besides the wild onion and the Treh. BERTHA ULVI: Treth. KAREN BREWSTER: Treh. Uh.

BERTHA ULVI: And then we -- we got Ch'ilaak'ay (Labrador Tea - Ledum palustre). We got Ch'ilaak'ay. We use that. It’s like Hudson Bay tea.

RUTH RIDLEY: I forgot what was the name of -- ’cause in that plant, you know, that Alaska plant or Alaska whatever -- vegetable and whatever. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: In that book. It’s about that thick. MARCY OKADA: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: And it has that Treh in there. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. Yeah. And so, those were --

BERTHA ULVI: And Labrador tea, we use that for tea. RUTH RIDLEY: And what else?

KAREN BREWSTER: Anything else that your grandma would pick? Anything for medicine? BERTHA ULVI: Well --

RUTH RIDLEY: And we would always use that, um, spruce gum for our gum. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

MARCY OKADA: I think up -- up the Yukon Flats, they call it "pitch." Spruce pitch. BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh. MARCY OKADA: The sap? RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Spruce gum. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, spruce gum. Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: What they call it? What did we call it? KAREN BREWSTER: Do you have a Han word for it? BERTHA ULVI: I -- Ts'oo ts'ee (sp?). Ts'oo is spruce tree. And then Ts'ee is gum. Ts'oo ts'ee. KAREN BREWSTER: Ts'oo ts'ee.

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, it’s kind of brownish. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, I know what it is. RUTH RIDLEY: Not that clear one. That clear one is too sticky. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: But there’s another thing we found out in through Dawson. Those ladies, they melt it down, and they put some kind of grease, they do something to it, and it’s like a -- it’s for -- RUTH RIDLEY: Salve. BERTHA ULVI: Salve, like. MARCY OKADA: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: For any kind of infection. Like, if you cut your hand and got infected, you put it on there, it’ll heal in three days. MARCY OKADA: Hm. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: So it’s good for a lot of things, too, like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Do they have, um, wormwood? Does that grow around here? BERTHA ULVI: What? KAREN BREWSTER: Wormwood? It’s a plant. Um, I don’t know, I wouldn’t -- I only know that.

RUTH RIDLEY: Maybe that’s what that, uh, Treh is?

KAREN BREWSTER: No, wormwood is a green plant. It’s not the root. Um, I need a plant book to show you the leaves.

And uh, the other one, coltsfoot is another. But yeah, I don’t know that you have either of those around here.

BERTHA ULVI: Then I -- we got the -- they give us -- RUTH RIDLEY: We got that -- BERTHA ULVI: We got that --

RUTH RIDLEY: Stinkweed. KAREN BREWSTER: Stinkweed. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: That's it. MARCY OKADA: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, that’s -- BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we got that kind, too.

RUTH RIDLEY: That’s good for -- BERTHA ULVI: That’s for cancer. RUTH RIDLEY: Cancer.

You just boil it, just the leaves for about ten minutes. MARCY OKADA: Hm. RUTH RIDLEY: And then you drink it all day. Two or three cups.

My sister, she had a lump in her breast, and then my aunt came down from Old Crow and said, um -- She told her about that.

And she picked some and boiled it, and Ethel drank it for one month and then went back to the doctor, and that lump was gone. There was nothing.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, stinkweed is what -- I couldn’t think of the name. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: We got -- we get quite a bit. RUTH RIDLEY: It’s like it’s along the river. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, down at the old village. We go down there, and we pick it. KAREN BREWSTER: Uh-huh.

RUTH RIDLEY: And you could -- We just pick it and then freeze it. BERTHA ULVI: Freeze it. RUTH RIDLEY: Like that, and then we take the leaves off for boiling.

KAREN BREWSTER: So when you were kids, did your grandma have you drink that liquid for things? Like for colds or anything? BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. RUTH RIDLEY: Hm-mm. BERTHA ULVI: No. KAREN BREWSTER: No.

MARCY OKADA: Did you use spruce tips? RUTH RIDLEY: We just used a lot of --

BERTHA ULVI: Spruce tips is another one. We just heard about it through Joanne (their niece, Joanne Beck, who is the Eagle Village Health Aide). MARCY OKADA: Oh. BERTHA ULVI: This lady from Dawson, she learned lots from her mom. Her name is, uh, Medoe (sp?). MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, her mom passed away, but she could just take you in the -- in the woods when we were up there. And she’ll tell us, what’s this good for.

And matter of fact, we all got a book, that plant book. MARCY OKADA: Ok. BERTHA ULVI: And I got one down my house, too. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: But it shows you, stinkweed. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, that’s where I got that plant. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: In it.

But she -- they sent her to some kind of school so that she could learn the different plants and stuff like that.

MARCY OKADA: There’s a lot of strawberries, little strawberries. Were those always around? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. Around here? MARCY OKADA: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah.

MARCY OKADA: Always? Ok. But nobody really picks those in large numbers? BERTHA ULVI: Well, there’s a lady down -- RUTH RIDLEY: They were so small.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, she always loved to just pick any kind of berries, and she’ll put it up, too. That -- her name is Helen. MARCY OKADA: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: I used to pick ’em just enough for my mom to make, um, strawberry shortcake with that. MARCY OKADA: Oh. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, they are very small. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Is this your first time here? MARCY OKADA: No. No, no. KAREN BREWSTER: My first time here. BERTHA ULVI: Oh. Ok. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: She work for Park Service. BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. But those strawberries, they always were small? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: It's just the way they are? They haven’t changed?

BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. They taste good, but who wants to pick? KAREN BREWSTER: But what --

RUTH RIDLEY: I know, like, some hippies or whatever they call them, come around, and they always, um, they want to use that little yellow plant that -- you know, they’re all over, little yellow, um.

BERTHA ULVI: Like daisies, or dandelion? RUTH RIDLEY: No, it’s small. Like little round things. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: You know, you could pick ’em out there. And they make tea out of it.

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, like chamomile? MARCY OKADA: Chamomile. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Chamomile. BERTHA ULVI: Oh, yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: That grows around here? BERTHA ULVI: Uh-huh. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: There’s a bunch everywhere. KAREN BREWSTER: Huh. RUTH RIDLEY: But we never --

KAREN BREWSTER: You never used it? RUTH RIDLEY: -- use it like that. BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm. RUTH RIDLEY: No. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. RUTH RIDLEY: The only thing, like --

BERTHA ULVI: And like spruce tips. Joanne always -- Joanne, she always pick it. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. She’s the health aide now? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

But you guys never did before? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-mm. BERTHA ULVI: No. MARCY OKADA: Huh.

BERTHA ULVI: And then, she always show us another plants that grows around the grave site. She said it’s good for something, too, but I don’t know. I don’t -- KAREN BREWSTER: Was there -- BERTHA ULVI: You don’t see very much of it.

KAREN BREWSTER: Was there ever wild rhubarb and sourdock that you guys would pick? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we used to. RUTH RIDLEY: We always --

BERTHA ULVI: Out the road. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, on the road? Okay. RUTH RIDLEY: Picked wild rhubarb. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

RUTH RIDLEY: And those little mushroom. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm. RUTH RIDLEY: Those round --

KAREN BREWSTER: Puffballs? No? BERTHA ULVI: No. It’s a white one. RUTH RIDLEY: What they called? BERTHA ULVI: Shaggy mane. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: We -- there’s lots here, too. I used to pick them and clean ’em. And you freeze ’em. But you fry it with butter, it’s good.

KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. Have you noticed a change in the berries when you go picking? Like there are more or less of them than there used to be? BERTHA ULVI: Less. KAREN BREWSTER: Less berries?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, when we go out blueberry picking, we have to just search here, where we pick before, and that’s nothing. But --

KAREN BREWSTER: And you -- most of your berrypicking is up at the summit?

When did the road get put in? (a little louder) When did they build the road? RUTH RIDLEY: 50-something.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, sometime in there. I don’t remember that one either. RUTH RIDLEY: They always said that it was being built during the time when we were at war. With who? And that’s why it’s all -- KAREN BREWSTER: Twisty? MARCY OKADA: Huh.

RUTH RIDLEY: They didn’t want to go straight. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: That those enemy might find us or something.

KAREN BREWSTER: 'Cause I was going to say, do you remember what the village was like before there was a road, but the road was already here.

RUTH RIDLEY: And, you know, if you go out, like towards the summit, you’ll see all those trails, like? And that’s the mail trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm.

RUTH RIDLEY: Where they had -- BERTHA ULVI: On that side -- RUTH RIDLEY: -- donkeys or something. BERTHA ULVI: -- as you drive it'd be on that side of the cliff, like mail trail that guy --

KAREN BREWSTER: So it used to be a trail, and then they made it a road? BERTHA ULVI: No. KAREN BREWSTER: No? RUTH RIDLEY: No.

BERTHA ULVI: You could see the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, I see. BERTHA ULVI: You’re on this road, and the trail will be on the other side in the willows. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. BERTHA ULVI: You could see. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: Why did they ever make a road?

BERTHA ULVI: I don’t know. I think that time, ’member they go to Tanacross? This people, our people, go there --? KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: -- for potlatch and big doings those days. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: And they used that lichen, maybe. I don’t know. See, we don’t know some stuff. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: And because there’s no elders to go to. KAREN BREWSTER: Well, I didn’t know if -- BERTHA ULVI: Like my mom taught us a lot.

RUTH RIDLEY: Unless the army, you know, the army -- BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: A long time ago, there was like 2200 people downtown.

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, yeah, at (Fort) Egbert. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: During the army days.

KAREN BREWSTER: But, the road is later than that. If the road was in the 1950’s --? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, like, do you have memories of the village before there was a road? Or did your parents talk and grandparents talk about it? RUTH RIDLEY: I just --

BERTHA ULVI: They had trail from downtown up to the village, I remember, yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm. I was wondering if -- how the road changed life here. If people ever talked about that? How it was different before there was a road? RUTH RIDLEY: I don’t know.

KAREN BREWSTER: Your parents never -- and grandparents never talked about it? BERTHA ULVI: Hm-mm.

Foot trail, probably, down through the -- down by the bank, huh? KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: They said it’s from the village to town. They make -- they stop, make tea, they said.

You know those old people, they walk to town. They can make tea on the way. But that’s -- that’s --

KAREN BREWSTER: Did they talk about if they liked having the Taylor Highway and the road? Was that a good thing? BERTHA ULVI: They don’t -- no, probably they -- KAREN BREWSTER: They never -- BERTHA ULVI: The ones that's so old, they pass on. We would only be --

RUTH RIDLEY: I don't know, what we would do without the Taylor Highway. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: I like that road being here.

KAREN BREWSTER: You like having a road? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. I rather go on that highway than the plane. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. Me, too.

BERTHA ULVI: You see more, and, I don’t know, I just love it.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. But I didn’t know if, yeah, your parents and grandparents ever talked about living here before the Taylor Highway?

BERTHA ULVI: Grandma did, but I don’t -- the others, they all pass on, because -- Like ol' Annie, Billy, and all them people like that, you know. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Like Walter Ben? All those. He was our preacher long time ago, but those people died way back.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you got to spend time with your grandma. Did she tell you stories? BERTHA ULVI: She tell us stories, but not like for the highway.

KAREN BREWSTER: What kind of stories did she tell you? BERTHA ULVI: Grandma be on this highway. Oh, she tells us, like, long time ago, where they go trapping. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, her sister came from Mayo. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: So she was always making a trip up there to Mayo with my mom and them. MARCY OKADA: By dogteam, or like, how did -- BERTHA ULVI: With me.

MARCY OKADA: How would they get to Mayo? BERTHA ULVI: With my car. MARCY OKADA: Oh, by car? BERTHA ULVI: I take -- I take Mom and Grandma up there. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: They visit. I leave Grandma up there, and Mom and I come back down. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: But we always got somebody with us. Like my brother. MARCY OKADA: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: Or some guy that could help me drive. It’s same distance like from here to Dawson, from Dawson to Mayo. It’s a nice little village.

KAREN BREWSTER: So, anything else? BERTHA ULVI: Mm, don’t know. KAREN BREWSTER: About your --?

MARCY OKADA: How -- how important are subsistence foods to you? How important are your Native foods? How important are they for you?

BERTHA ULVI: Well, I have to say, if I have it, we eat it. If you don’t have it, then it’s ok, too. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

BERTHA ULVI: Because, you know, sometime we can’t get what we -- like all last fall, like we said, nobody got caribou. Nobody. Not even downtown or here.

They went the other way, so, you know.

RUTH RIDLEY: ’Member they were roaming around in Fairbanks? That darn caribou. MARCY OKADA: Or yeah, off the Steese. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, Steese. They went down Steese Highway, they said.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. What about you, Ruth? How important is it to you to have your subsistence Native foods?

RUTH RIDLEY: Oh, like Bert said, if we got it, we got it. If we don’t, and you always, you know, put some little away, like little moose meat or caribou or whatever.

And some people from different, like, um, people that you know, like from Circle or Nenana, they would give you some wild food.

BERTHA ULVI: But we just don’t get too -- they’re so friendly on the fire when you go to villages. Right away, they dish out something, like in there, in Native food and stuff, and on the fire, you know, you get tired of ham.

RUTH RIDLEY: And going to boarding school probably taught us how to go without moose or caribou or fish. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Or like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Those pieces you save, do you use those for a special occasion? BERTHA ULVI: Sometime, yes. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, sometime.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, I save some stuff for like, this preacher going to come, you know. I always invite the doctor and nurse. I cook the moose meat or caribou meat.

Next time you come, maybe I invite you. If my leg get better. It’s hard to -- for me to, you know, I’m always here and there and all that, you know. But that doctor is coming. MARCY OKADA: Ok. KAREN BREWSTER: Good. BERTHA ULVI: 28th. KAREN BREWSTER: Good.

MARCY OKADA: For how long? BERTHA ULVI: He stays here -- Uh, he comes in like on the Monday. He go back on the Thursday. Like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Yeah, like, he’s three days here, and then fourth day, he take off.

MARCY OKADA: Is there housing? He just stays at the clinic?

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, he -- there’s a -- he stays in the clinic. Him and her. There’s a room he stays in, and then there’s a couch in the dental room.

Did you ever see our clinic? MARCY OKADA: Not yet, no. BERTHA ULVI: Man, you should see. It’s nice. MARCY OKADA: It’s new, isn’t it? BERTHA ULVI: It’s not brand new, but it’s -- MARCY OKADA: But almost. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, we try to keep it clean, too, when COVID, you know, like -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. MARCY OKADA: Ok.

KAREN BREWSTER: I have one last subsistence question to wrap this up about, you know, subsistence activities up and down on the Yukon River.

Anything else you guys want to talk about, places you used to go, and things you’d get there, hunting, fishing?

And if things have changed. That’s kind of two questions.

BERTHA ULVI: Well, like, Wood Island is on it, right? KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: So we -- whole bunch of us from the village, we go down there with my uncle, Matthew Malcolm. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. BERTHA ULVI: He’s blind, so he loves to do things like that. And we had a big camp at Wood Island.

And one morning they got a moose. But we stayed there, I think, and then the Park Service, that’s my ex-husband and his friend, were coming up, and they saw a grizzly not too far from us.

So they told us,"Pack up and get out." Because we got that moose there. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh.

BERTHA ULVI: So they -- this one guy, he just took all the moose meat and took off. And we -- what bad about it, he took off to Fairbanks and didn’t give us any meat. MARCY OKADA: Oh. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, no. BERTHA ULVI: Freddy. KAREN BREWSTER: That’s not good. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, Freddy did that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Now, did -- You just went there once, or you would always go there? BERTHA ULVI: Oh, no. I’ve been on the river quite a bit.

KAREN BREWSTER: No, no, no, but that Woody Island, was that a regular -- I mean Wood Island.

BERTHA ULVI: That’s where they went. I mean, they liked to go there and -- but I went other, you know, but you didn’t get anything. Maybe ducks. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

BERTHA ULVI: I went down to Nation town site with him. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah, and that 70-Mile out there is where people climb way up, and they could get sheep. They go sheep hunting down there. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then that Eagle Creek over there, and that Mission Creek down there by Eagle Bluff. KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: That’s where we go fishing in the springtime through the ice for grayling.

KAREN BREWSTER: And those would be in the creeks, not in the Yukon? RUTH RIDLEY: It’s right at the mouth of the Yu -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. RUTH RIDLEY: The creek. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: But falltime, too, just when -- before the ice, you could fish for grayling in there. In the Yukon River, too. RUTH RIDLEY: It’s clear. BERTHA ULVI: It’s clear, and you -- yeah, we catch a lot of grayling there.

KAREN BREWSTER: At that same Mission Creek spot? BERTHA ULVI: No. RUTH RIDLEY: No. BERTHA ULVI: No, just in front of the village down there. Used to be. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. The old village.

BERTHA ULVI: We don’t do that up here. And that’s why I don’t like this place. I joke! (laughs) I like my old village, you know, just like Ruth.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. You could see the river.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, and then when you get up, you look out your door, and people will be standing outside their house. Right here, they’re all in the brush, and you don’t see nobody. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

RUTH RIDLEY: And then you could see, like sometime there’s a moose swimming across, or you look out that beaver might be swimming up the river.

KAREN BREWSTER: And yeah, we haven’t really talked about the change in the salmon. Because there’s no salmon fishing right now on the Yukon. BERTHA ULVI: Yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: And your thoughts about how that salmon population has changed?

BERTHA ULVI: Because I think those guys that fish for them out in the ocean, they get so much. Karma told us, eh? RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

BERTHA ULVI: They get so much that they just throwing most of the fish out, and they just get certain kind they sell to different country or something like that.

And then, now when they’re coming up the river, they found whole bunch of salmon dead on the bank. They’re kind of studying that, see what’s killing all that fish.

KAREN BREWSTER: Have you guys run into lots of dead salmon?

BERTHA ULVI: No. This is just recently happening, Karma said. That’s why -- that’s why we’re not getting anything.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Yeah, I know the last couple years you haven’t been able to fish. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: But before that, when you were fis -- when people were fishing, did they notice a change in the fish? Either numbers or the health of the fish?

BERTHA ULVI: And the number in the fish, probably, because we didn’t know if fish are sick or anything like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

So the numbers were already starting to go down? BERTHA ULVI: Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, you mentioned your grandparents got so many fish in their fish wheel. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: And big ones.

BERTHA ULVI: And then when my husband and Bill Goebel were fishing, they were catching like 300 a day. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

BERTHA ULVI: And at evening, they catch same thing like that, but those are dog salmon. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. BERTHA ULVI: And there, that’s for dogs. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

BERTHA ULVI: And we eat it, too, because there’s nice red dog salmon, which is not as rich as the king salmon, but lots of people prefer them. RUTH RIDLEY: It's got good flavor. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: Yeah, they prefer dog salmon than king sometime.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. Well, and nowadays, if there aren’t going to be any kings, if you were allowed to catch dog salmon, would people catch them and eat them? BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: ’Cause it’s better than nothing?

BERTHA ULVI: Look at these, this fish over here. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, that’s from Bristol Bay, though, isn't it? BERTHA ULVI: Yeah. We -- KAREN BREWSTER: And you’ll eat those? BERTHA ULVI: We eat that, too. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: When they fix it back there. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: But they give me a whole box. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow. BERTHA ULVI: That I need to cut up.

I like to filet it, and then it’s -- you just throw it in the oven like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. Oh, you’re making me hungry.

BERTHA ULVI: Take some. KAREN BREWSTER: No, no. BERTHA ULVI: Take some home. KAREN BREWSTER: No, no. It’s your fish.

Anyway, that was my question. Thank you. Unless, Marcy? MARCY OKADA: Nope. I’m done.

KAREN BREWSTER: Have we talked you guys out? BERTHA ULVI: No. I mean, yeah. I don’t know, what --?

RUTH RIDLEY: We live pretty good all these years. And we know what to do when the going gets rough.

Like without fish, or without caribou or like that, so. MARCY OKADA: There’s always porcupine. RUTH RIDLEY: Well -- MARCY OKADA: If someone would just catch them.

RUTH RIDLEY: We haven’t gotten a porcupine right and left like we used to. MARCY OKADA: Yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you just said you know how to live without and make do if there aren’t. So what do you do? How do you survive? BERTHA ULVI: Just by --

RUTH RIDLEY: You go buy some beef tongue. (laughter) But you can’t even find any beef tongue. BERTHA ULVI: I know. We love beef tongue.

KAREN BREWSTER: People don’t eat tongue very much anymore. BERTHA ULVI: Why?

KAREN BREWSTER: You know, Native people do. Moose tongue and all that. But non-Natives, it’s not a -- I don’t think it’s as common anymore. BERTHA ULVI: Hm.

RUTH RIDLEY: But you can’t even find it in the stores anymore. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. It’s gone out of style. I don’t know.

MARCY OKADA: How do you prepare it? RUTH RIDLEY: We just boil it. BERTHA ULVI: Make soup. RUTH RIDLEY: And just make soup. MARCY OKADA: Ok. RUTH RIDLEY: And just peel the skin off. MARCY OKADA: Oh. RUTH RIDLEY: After, when you’re going to eat it, it's good.

BERTHA ULVI: But then there’s pork chops and all that, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: I was thinking moose heart is so good. RUTH RIDLEY: Yep.

BERTHA ULVI: But sometime when some people give you all that, they keep all the good stuff, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. But I was thinking, a cow heart. Beef heart might not be the same? BERTHA ULVI: I don’t know. I never taste it.

KAREN BREWSTER: I don’t know that you could buy that, either. Probably not. I think that goes into hotdogs and things.

RUTH RIDLEY: I know that hot dogs, you read on there, it's got everything in it, huh? KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

BERTHA ULVI: And I love it. I love it like, me and Bodie, my little dog. I do. And they have 'em. Somebody had cooked me some.

MARCY OKADA: Well, thank you. RUTH RIDLEY: Mm-hm. KAREN BREWSTER: It’s lunch time. We must be hungry. We’re talking about food.

Well, thank you guys so very much for all your time. RUTH RIDLEY: Yeah. BERTHA ULVI: Mm-hm.