BARBARA CELLARIUS: This is Barbara Cellarius with Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and I'm here with Gillam Joe. And we're in Gillam’s home in Chistochina. And it's April 21, 2016.

And I'm especially interested to talk -- in talking to you today, Gillam, about your work with the hunting guides, but also interested in hearing about your life a little more generally.

So could you talk -- start by talking about who your parents and grandparents were?

GILLAM JOE: I was raised up by Bell Joe and Maggie Joe. Originally, my dad is Huston Sanford and my mom’s name, Susie (Justin). And they're all pass away.

And Bell Joe and Maggie raised me up. And they raised me up. They were the old-timers, you know, and they raised me up old-timer way on how to respect animals and stuff like that. Or how to hunt, fish, trap. I learned all that while living with them. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Now when --

GILLAM JOE: And when I went to -- I become a hunter when I was nine, I think, I learn to hunt.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So I -- I forgot to ask when and where you were born.

GILLAM JOE: I was born in Chisana. I came down to Chistochina in 1952. That's when Bell Joe and Maggie took me.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And how old were you then? When were you born? GILLAM JOE: '46. BARBARA CELLARIUS: You were born in -- ? GILLAM JOE: 1946.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. So how old were you when you went to live with Bell and Maggie? GILLAM JOE: Probably when I was about four. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay. GILLAM JOE: Five, somewhere in there. 'Cause ’52, how old would I be from ’46 to ’52? BARBARA CELLARIUS: More like, yeah, five or six.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And I went to school here and I went to school in Gakona. I went to Catholic school in Glennallen. And I didn’t finish high school. I just finished grade school.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. So sixth grade?

GILLAM JOE: I went to Catholic school in four to six, I think. And the rest, I finish up here. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Here being Chistochina? GILLAM JOE: Chistochina, yeah. That’s when they create some school. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: And then I -- I -- I hunt, trap, fish with my dad, Bell Joe. He take me out in the woods when I was -- I don’t know thirteen, fourteen. He left me there and he says, "See -- see how you do, you know." And he says, "You think you can stay here?" I says, "Yeah." And when the night come, I can hear all the boogie men out there.

But I, you know, I had to learn tough way, the hard way. But I learned.

He told me I need to catch beaver, and I didn’t catch beaver. It didn’t work. He came back and showed me where I went wrong. He teach me as I go, and he said, "See." Started catching them, you know.

He come back from work. He go up there and left me there one night, next day he came back with his snowmachine, and he says, "Well -- " He teach me as I go. Teach me where I go wrong, you know. I learn all that.

When I got old enough to do other things, I do it myself. And I do good. I think I killed a moose when I was eleven, I think, maybe.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Your first moose? GILLAM JOE: My first moose, yeah and --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Was there anything special?

GILLAM JOE: Everybody helped me. Well, I had to give that moose away. It's a legend like. First kill you got to give it all away for good luck.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Do you give it -- is there anyone particular you give it to?

GILLAM JOE: You have to give it to relative -- older elders and they -- they bless you that way. And then I -- I did mostly all that and then I passed.

And I did a lot of fishing with them. Fish camp. They have fish camp. They got moose camp. They got winter -- winter is -- they stay here winter, but they go in trapping area, too. When they create snowmachine, they all do it from right here.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So when -- when did people start having snowmachines?

GILLAM JOE: Snowmachine? Gee, I don’t know. Whenever first Arctic Cat came up with a chain on it. I don’t know and --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. You don’t remember how old you were?

GILLAM JOE: I don’t remember, but he -- he worked for the state, yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So Bell had -- besides living -- doing the subsistence lifestyle, so it sounds like he -- he had a job?

GILLAM JOE: He got a state job, truck driver and laborer. Snowplow, all that winter job, summer job. He worked year round and then still have time to take me out and show me everything.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And how about Maggie, did she do --

GILLAM JOE: Maggie, we -- we go out muskrat trapping. We go out hunting falltime. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. What did she -- GILLAM JOE: I got to help her.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: What did she hunt?

GILLAM JOE: She hunt just like -- like other people. Moose, caribou. And she show me how to preserve it, how to -- how to cut it, how to put it away. Same way with fish, you know. They show me how to cut it, put it, preserve it. In them days, we don't have no refrigerator, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. So what did you do?

GILLAM JOE: In summertime, she tell me -- when she buy some groceries and we don’t have refrigerator, she tell me dig down in the ground. There's a lot of permafrost then. And you hit permafrost and we put a board over it and we put all the stuff in there. Keep it chill. And then a lot of the other stuff, we just cut and dry so it'd be dry, you know, and then --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Keeps that way.

GILLAM JOE: But the food, we keep in the ground. That way we have for breakfast and stuff like that. But preserve stuff like that we got fish rack. We put our fish rack on top. And then I learn all that.

And then I went to work Chistochina Lodge down there, when this lady was down there named Elizabeth Hickathier. I was working around the lodge there.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So what kinds of things were you doing for the lodge?

GILLAM JOE: Oh, just gas pump, cleaning up, paint, you know. BARBARA CELLARIUS: General kinds of things? GILLAM JOE: General kinds of things, yeah. And then --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And how old were you when you went to work for the lodge?

GILLAM JOE: It was just low pay because I wasn’t old enough to get on Social Security yet. But that’s where Carol Neeley signed me up for Social Security. And then --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: But about how old were you?

GILLAM JOE: I think it was '64 when I was ready to go up. I went back to Chisana. '64 when I went. She had a boyfriend who was dating from Chisana. Bud Hickathier. He came land here and took stuff back. BARBARA CELLARIUS: What was his name again? GILLAM JOE: Bud Hickathier. That's Terry Overly's stepfather. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: And then they went up. She says, "Where you from?" I says, "Chisana." And she says, "Where you born?" "Chisana," I told her. She said, "Would you like to go back up there and work with us? And then we have some hunters in fall time. We'll pay you four hundred a month, you know."

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Four hundred dollars?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, and in hunting time. And he said, "We'll teach you how to become a guide, you know." I'm already a hunter. I'm already all that. I already know that, you know, but the only thing I need to know are bear, sheep. And I know how to respect the bear, too. And when I got up there, I met Terry Overly. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: I met him before, but I really hadn’t --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: You hadn’t spent so much time with him?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, and I asked him where he originally was from? He said California, but all her family -- all his family is from -- Where does Chickasaw Indian come from? Towards --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Southeast? GILLAM JOE: Chickasaw Indian, what he is. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: And -- and we work together for a long time. Everything look the same when I left when I was a kid. When I left there -- BARBARA CELLARIUS: In Chisana?

GILLAM JOE: -- people were dying off with tuberculosis disease. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right.

GILLAM JOE: And there was some few miner people that still there. When I came out of there when I was a kid, I don’t remember but I stayed in Nabesna for two years. I stayed at Pickerel Lake for all winter and then I stayed in Nabesna for two years. And then Hustie (Huston Sanford) drive me down here in ’52. That's when Bell and Maggie took me. And then I raised up mostly down here. And I went back to Chisana.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And that was ’64?

GILLAM JOE: '64. And Terry was already up there. He was up there. He went up there in ’59 or ’60.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Now was he -- was he a guide then or was it his -- ?

GILLAM JOE: He was just a teenager, too. He was working then. Bud Hickathier was teaching him.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay, so you were working with the same guide?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, me and him worked -- we were put together and then from there on we were kind of raised up together. You know, like brothers, and we did a lot of things. We did -- and we start to hunt, you know.

Hunting season come and I didn’t know how to cape then, you know. I had to learn how to cape.

I went out with Bud for a while and then I went out with another guide. Terry went out. Terry is a little older than I am, you know. He's about three -- four years older than I am. When he got to 19, he was a guide. Or eighteen or something like that and then he become a guide.

And then I went -- we went out hunting together lot of time. And then I learn about sheep and I learn about how to cape. But I was already a moose hunter and caribou hunter, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So this was when -- where you learned to hunt sheep and bear? That was something new for you?

GILLAM JOE: Hunting is not new. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right, but hunting those animals?

GILLAM JOE: But animal like riding a horse, go up there look for sheep and bear. Moose is a little easier for me then. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right.

GILLAM JOE: 'Cause I already did moose and caribou. And bear, kind of little kind of afraid it, because I always supposed to carry a backup gun and I didn’t have one. But Terry gave me one in case I needed a backup. And he taught me a lot. I go out with Bud. I go out with Terry. I kind of learn as I go.

And they had a horse there, a young horse, and there was a mare, and never been rode before. And he went and rode around for a while -- on it for awhile, and he says, "You ever ride a horse?" I says, "No." He says, "Well, there's a horse never rode and you never ride horse. You guys get together, see who broke who."

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And what happened?

GILLAM JOE: I -- I rode him. I broke -- I fought him and I got bucked off every single day. Down the trail, up the trail, down the creek, in the creek, but I keep on going back on. He said, "Just climb back on." And that fall, I thought, "Hey, I got it broken. And he's not dropping me off yet." And then a yellow jacket stung her and I flew in the air and flew right off.

But after that, I was a horseman there. He said, "You learn fast." He said, "You know, you’re a good hunter." He tell me. And I said, "Yeah, I had an old-timer teach me," I told him. He said and I learned how to cape. I learned fast, you know. And then Elizabeth and Bud told Terry, he said, "He's way better than you are." And Terry is pretty good, too, you know. But I learn from the old-timers. I gave them the credit, you know, the old-timers that teach me.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: For learning how to hunt? GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And they -- they learn how to survive. They tell me their stories how -- you heard people talk about 'engii (Ahtna), huh? BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: And they would tell me about those things you got to respect them, otherwise they'll shy away from you.

You can be a number one guide and you try talk about them, you will never get them, you know. You'll have problem with them. So I respect a lot of these 'engii. So -- I become a guide in Chisana.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So were you like registered with the state as a guide?

GILLAM JOE: When I become old enough to get license I had assistant guide license. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay. GILLAM JOE: And then I went guiding for Pioneer Outfitters for a long time. And I stayed there. I told -- I told my family, I said, "I feel like I came home the longer I stay up there." I stayed up there through the winters, summers. I come out and visit them once in a while.

And then I come out to go summer job sometime, too. I do firefighting. And then as I go, I -- I work for seismograph, oil company, and stuff like that.

And I became pretty good -- pretty good guide, too. He told me, I said, "You’re a good -- you’re really good. I think you’re number one." I had a lot of hunters. If they don’t get anything, they're going home happy anyway, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: They had a good experience?

GILLAM JOE: Usually, it's their problem, you know. They -- they -- they start getting picky. And then they get picky and then they end up with nothing, but I try to treat them real good. Give them good hunt. And on the end, I told them, you know, it's too bad we didn’t get any. Maybe we could have got the first one, you know, and then, you know --

But some -- some -- some hunters, you cannot please. You cannot satisfy them. You can do your best you can, and you can’t satisfy them. I see that even when I work North Slope. Put the best meal out there and they still complain.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So you worked up on the Slope, too?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, ’84 I went up. ’84 I gave up guiding. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay, so that --

GILLAM JOE: My leg. ’77 when I lost my leg. I tried to guide, but climb the mountain. I got a sheep for a hunter on one leg. I mean, I had -- but it was hard for me to come down. Come back down. I can go up easy, but coming down it was hard.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Too hard, yeah. GILLAM JOE: It was hard to come back down.

Then anyway, this guy wrote an article on the sheep hunt we had. He's from Wyoming and he wrote a article about one leg sheep hunter.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Do you have a copy of it?

GILLAM JOE: No, I did, but I don’t where it is. BARBARA CELLARIUS: You lost it?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And then I gave it up. No, ’83 I gave it up. ’84 I went food service training. And -- but I go back up every -- every once in a while I go back up. And then one time I just ended up North Slope. I stayed there, yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And how many years?

GILLAM JOE: I stayed there for almost eight years. Yeah. I -- I -- I came back ’91 back to Anchorage. And then I told my doctor, I says, "I’m having problem with my leg." And he says, he’d look at it. He says, "There's a problem with your leg. We have to re-break the bone and see if we can grow the stump two and a half inches more. That way it'll hold on better."

He said, "In six months, nine months, you can go back to work." And when the nine months went by, this company called me and he says we can’t hold nothing open. We had to get you another job -- take another person that job.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, okay.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. So they disabled me. The doctor said okay, we were wrong. They disabled me, and I says, "You know, you guys told me this." And so the doctor signed paper and disabled me. I said, "I think I can go back to work." They fix my leg back up. They grew the leg two and a half inches. Take nine months to grow that long. Take nine months to get the bone hard. Altogether it takes two years. I said, "It take two years." They said, "We make mistakes, too, you know."

And anyway, they made it so good now where I can go back to work. I couldn’t go back to work. I mean, it's hard to get back on after that. So I came back here in the village. And they says well, you got nothing to do, become a board member. So now I'm a board member.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: For the council -- village council?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And then here I become a board member and then I'm stuck here now, you know.

Anyway, my hunting is -- my guiding is I learn from the Pioneer Outfitter mostly. And then I went to work for -- I want to try a different company. I told Pioneer Outfitters I want to try a different company. So I went to Bud Conkle. They got horses, too. And that was at Snag River. I got 40 inch ram there and big moose. And I got some pictures somewhere. I have to show you that one.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, that would be nice.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And -- and then I got done with them that one year and I got back and then I -- Oh, I tried Ron Hayes, too, over here. I took his horse across Copper River.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Did you make it? GILLAM JOE: Yeah, I took all six of them across. And by myself.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Falltime?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, before hunting season. I took them up on the hill. And he's, "Okay, I want you to get that little Cat engine for me, you know." I went over there and dismantled the Cat engine for him and I pack it to that little airport over there on the hill.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Over across the river?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And then he said, "I'll pay you certain term if you guide for me." And when it become that time, he said, "I can’t pay you that much." "Okay, take me home," I said. So he brought me back, and then he said teach this kid how to take care of horses. So I told him, "Well, it's hard. You can’t teach somebody that. You got to learn that -- you got to learn yourself." So I came back here and I went back to Chisana right after.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Working for Pioneer Outfitters again? GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And I -- I kind of switch around a little bit. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Move around, yeah.

GILLAM JOE: I usually go back to Pioneer Outfitter and they take me anytime, you know. They're kind of is family deal.

And then next -- next year, and I thought -- oh, we brought the horses back.

They lost them all in the Copper River. They had too big a rope tied. They tied saddle to saddle. I tied mine to tail to tail and a skinny rope. When one horse roll over, it'll break the rope. It won’t take you all.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Doesn’t take them all down?

GILLAM JOE: And they brought them back and then the kid made it out, but they lost all the horses. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Lost the horses.

GILLAM JOE: They start rolling. It was kind of sad. And he says -- he blamed me for it. And I says, "Well, that’s too bad. You didn’t pay -- you didn’t come up with your payment," I say. He said, "I lost all six horses." I said, "Well, I can’t help you. You -- you -- you told me you was going to pay this much. All of a sudden you change your mind and you're going to pay him." I says, "Pioneer Outfitters pays me top money. $250 a day for guide." So that was the word and I went -- I told Pioneer Outfitters, I says, "I'm going to try one season with Ken Bunch." I went with Ken Bunch. You've heard of Ken Bunch, huh?

BARBARA CELLARIUS: I think so.

GILLAM JOE: I work with Lee Holen, too, over Cobb Lake. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right. GILLAM JOE: Black Mountain. Packer. I was a packer.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: You were a packer. So what -- what different kinds of things -- It sounds like you've done a bunch of different jobs working with the hunting guides.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, I worked -- 'cause I want to know --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: You want to understand the business? GILLAM JOE: I want to understand about the whole business, you know. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: At that time, after I was done with Ken Bunch I didn’t like his area so I quit that. And then I -- I work for Ellis for once. BARBARA CELLARIUS: For who?

GILLAM JOE: A short seas -- Bill Ellis. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Bill Ellis, okay.

GILLAM JOE: Airplane hunt. I didn’t care too much for airplane hunt, but packing is not my thing. Horses is my thing. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay, so you--

GILLAM JOE: I liked Bud Conkle and Pioneer Outfitters. I worked with Ken Bunch -- not Ken Bunch, Mc -- what that Chisana, that pioneer -- up above? What was his name? The one that want to sell that place? My grandpa’s land, my grandpa’s house. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, McNutt (Raymon "Mac" McNutt).

GILLAM JOE: McNutt. I worked with him one -- one hunting season. And he was ripping me off, so I quit, you know, and back to Pioneer Outfitter. So --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: When you say he was ripping you off, what did he do?

GILLAM JOE: He's telling me he's gonna pay this much and he didn’t and he says, "Oh, you know, just so, so, so, so and --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Didn’t pay what he said he would?

GILLAM JOE: I -- I'm kinda like a professional. I'm good, you know. He knows I’m good. And he said -- he start changing the wages, so I said, "No." He says, "I don’t like your kind of deal." So I left. He went through a lot of -- a lot of guides, you know.

Anyway, after I got done with all that outfit that I worked with, I figure only two outfitters true and best hunt. There's Pioneer Outfitters and Bud Conkle. The rest plane hunters and all that, they waste a lot of meat, you know. I pack one hind leg out for that one guy at Cobb Lake. I mean, by that Black Mountain.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So, Lee Holen? GILLAM JOE: Lee Holen. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: I pack one leg and it was big, you know, and then he said that’s good enough. Told me and ran -- Left the rest out there.

And then I work for this guy I took horse for, Ron Hayes. That's a real crooked guy, too, you know. He says, "Well, just grab your meat and then grab the horn and come back." And I didn’t like his deal.

So then same way with Ken Bunch, you know. They fly all over the place to hunt and we land in that lake, that Blue Lake. We got one sheep out of there. I said, "I'll go back afterwards." He said, "No, let’s go." Climb in the plane and left. You know, I don’t like it, but I can’t do anything but I work with them, you know, you have to see what the system was.

But the two -- the two outfit that takes everything out of there is Bud Conkle and Overly, right now. And, you know, that’s good stuff. That kind of hurt me, you know.

And then when I gave up guiding and I don’t guide anymore, subsistence hunt is the thing I go. And I pick up meat to preserve it and fill up this and I’m done.

But hunting is very special thing for kids to learn, I think. To learn how to survive out on them. And a lot of these outfitters, some are good, some are -- just don’t care.

So I don’t -- you know, airplane hunt is one I'm against that. Like down here, they fly across the river over there and get away with it. I sit there and this one guy was sitting there. He says, they were trying to look at my land over there. He said, you were sitting there a guy came out with a sheep, grabbed the sheep horns, threw the sheep horn in it, and there was no meat. He says, "How come? Where is the meat? They probably left it out there. They should watch it all the time, you know. You guys (National Park Service). 'Cause sometime one plane come in and -- that -- that kid that fly around here all the time, what is his name? Yellow plane?

BARBARA CELLARIUS: I don’t know the plane colors.

GILLAM JOE: He's a guide, too. Down at the corner. BARBARA CELLARIUS: McMann? GILLAM JOE: Who? BARBARA CELLARIUS: McMann? No.

GILLAM JOE: No, no. McNik? Chuck. His name Chuck? BARBARA CELLARIUS: Well, and -- and Johnny. GILLAM JOE: McMann. Yeah, he’s -- he's good.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Down at Gakona.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, he’s -- he's got -- he fly. He land on floatplane down there. This lake here.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: I’m not sure where he lands.

GILLAM JOE: I met him this fall. But he make agreement with us. And some of them they just do it because, you know, he use this area. He use that lake up there.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So what kind of agreement?

GILLAM JOE: He write letter to us say that he wants hunting on the Ahtna land, Chistochina land. You know, in order to bring all the meat out and give it to the elders.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay. So that the agreement is he -- he could use the land and he would bring -- bring the meat back to the village?

GILLAM JOE: And he gets permit from Ahtna and Chistochina permit. And, but there's other people that flies in here, doesn’t do that. They just sneak in, go fly over there, and the guy comes back from Anchorage pick him up and then they disappear.

So it's just that my hunting, my guiding, I learn as I go. You know, I learn -- I learn from the old-timers first and just worked right in -- in the guiding. I worked with old people up there at Chisana. They had outfit, they teach me how to work with horses.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So you worked with the horses? You talked about packing.

GILLAM JOE: I like horses. I teach -- I learned how to pack horse, teach horse, all up in Chisana with Terry Overly's stepfather, Bud Hickathier.

And then he thought I was good. He says, "You learn fast." He says, "You're a good hunter, too, you know." I said, "I learned from the good people."

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And were there other things you did? So you worked with the horses? You talked about packing the meat. You talked about working with the hunters. Were there other pieces of the guiding business?

GILLAM JOE: I worked with the hunters a lot and I -- I listen to them. And sometime you have to do, you know, almost wipe their butt, I think, you know. But they just --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: They need a lot of --

GILLAM JOE: A lot attention for that. And then they want to know a lot of things. I tell 'em what I know, you know.

Like this one hunter from New York, he said, "I hear a lot about mukluk." He says, "What is warmer, mukluk or snowshoe?" And I had to take him into Terry Overly’s lodge where his museum is. A snowshoe hanging on the wall. I told him this is snowshoe. And he had a mukluk that my mom made for him. I said, "This is mukluk. This is warmer, not this one." He looked at me and he just laughed. Okay. Yeah, some guys from way down in the states, New York, you know, they read a lot of these stories, books and magazines, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So they were interested in learning more about life here?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And other things, some of them -- this one guy came in. There was no phone. There was no communication. You fly in. You fly out, you know. It's like -- it's too open for him. He come from small office. What you call them people? They can’t breathe. They -- they can’t do anything. They -- Anyway, he paid for his hunt and left. Freak him out, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Being out in the open?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. It’s -- it's -- some people pay a lot of money to come up and they realize they can’t do it. A woman came up, too. They took 'em sheep hunting or another guide took 'em sheep huntin'. I think it was Debbie then. And he said, he pointed at the sheep. They tell her pull the trigger, pull the trigger. It's going to walk away. And looked at it, look at it. "I can’t do it," she said. She put it down. Put her gun down. Took her camera, took a picture of it, and then finally sheep walk away. She says, "How do these people all hunt? I can’t shoot that sheep. It's, you know -- he's too pretty." It's, you know -- they rather shoot cameras than shoot the sheep.

They're interesting people. I mean, that way. But that's the way they are, I think, you know. They're just -- a lot of different kind of people that come up from the Lower 48. And I took a lot of them out.

And the last hunt before I went to the North Slope that's how I got job. Pipeline. It was a guy from Denver. He was vice president of an oil company. And after -- he asked me, "What are you doing after you huntin'?" I says, "Oh, I go out home. I go home and look for job." And I came home. I was staying home one day and my dad says phone call. I answered. It was a guy from Anchorage, Amoco Oil Company. "Gillam," he said, "some guy from Denver is the vice president wants you to go to work for seismograph looking for oil." "When?" "In two days."

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Did you go? GILLAM JOE: Yeah, that's how I got started. BARBARA CELLARIUS: That's how you got that job? GILLAM JOE: Yeah. BARBARA CELLARIUS: That new career.

GILLAM JOE: New career. And then I asked, "Who was this guy?" He says, "You got him a big sheep?" I says, "Yeah. Your guy got a moose. I didn’t get him bear. So -- " "He -- he call up here. He want ask you to put you in and go to work. And actually we're supposed to go as line, you know, but we're just taking you straight through." I got airplane ticket and everything and went right to work. Jump in the helicopter, fly to where the worksite is. That's pretty good, huh?

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: You're going with some people like that. I took -- I took a lawyer out. I took a judge. I took a policeman, you know. Undercover agent. He got a little badge, you know. I took a priest. We have church every Sunday. I’m the only one there. He was out on this hill. And then I took a lot of rich people out. I get big tip. I make more tip money than my wages.

And this one lady keep on coming back a couple years. Is just getting older. She said, "I don’t know if I make it this year." But I took -- I had my artificial leg and I said -- I told her, "I only can hunt moose or caribou." I mean, moose. Caribou wasn’t open then. She came back couple of years and then I said -- first we got a moose and the second year she just come back just for nothing, I guess. I don’t know. "Unless it's a world record, then I'll shoot it," she said. And we ride around and she's shooting camera, shooting camera and just -- she's rich, you know, she didn’t care. And Terry said, "I don’t think she'll be back because she's pretty sick." You know, something like that. So I -- I took a lot of rich people out.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Mostly from the US or did you take people from -- GILLAM JOE: From the Lower 48. From the Lower 48.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: -- from other countries ever or mostly Lower 48? GILLAM JOE: Lower 48. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Lower 48.

GILLAM JOE: I took -- McNutt, I took a German on a hunt. BARBARA CELLARIUS: But mostly from the Lower 48? GILLAM JOE: Mostly from the Lower 48, yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And did you mostly work with hunting guides in the Wrangell’s or did you go to other parts of Alaska?

GILLAM JOE: This is the only part I hunt, this -- this area around here. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Just here in the Wrangell’s.

GILLAM JOE: Down Chitina, Northway way, and along the Wrangell. I hunt all the way to Whitehorse almost. That area. And then that guy over there, Rahoi, is that his name? BARBARA CELLARIUS: Urban Rahoi.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. When I was over there, he wasn’t there. Me and Bud took a boat over there, or rubber raft. He wasn’t there then. That was in -- maybe in ’67, ’68, somewhere. And then he's trying to say he's been there a long time. And then -- Well, that's the way with all the crooked guides, you know. They -- they trying to stretch things. But I went back over there and look for that raft, that rubber raft where we hide it. It wasn’t there so --

And a lot of plane come in there and hunt. And they land in that North Fork from Chisana to White River. There's a lake there. They land there, too.

And they were going after that one sheep, one airplane hunter. I went over there. I was already on top, and then the hunter didn’t want to shoot. So I said, "Let's just walk around." And that sheep took off, went down the hill, went across other side, and then that airplane hunter's walking up there. They spotted me. And they could see where they turned around and went back.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So were you with -- you were with -- with horses?

GILLAM JOE: I was with horses, yeah. I had my horse tied and brushing this side. And then I walk up on the hill, and we look at the sheep, but he didn’t want it. It wasn’t big enough. But it was legal there, so --

Yeah, I run into that guy at White River, too. I ran into him. What is his name now? In White River. Old guy?

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Yeah, I’m not -- GILLAM JOE: I'm trying to think of his name. I ran into him. And he said he landed, shot sheep -- shot caribou.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So another guide? GILLAM JOE: Another guide from White River. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: And he said, "What you doing here?" And I says, "I was born in Chisana and I can hunt anywhere I want to," I told him. He said, "Get off the horse and I can kick your butt." And I was just ready to get off and the hunter said, "You don’t need to do that. You can probably work him over good." He said, "Let's just ride away." And then I said, I told him, I says, "You -- you broke the law. You landed and you hunt same day." And then he says, "You Indians, you shouldn’t be around here. You should be down Fourth Avenue," he told me. But I'd like to run into him again, tell him where I'm at. But I run into some people like that. But anyway, my hunting --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Sounds like you had a lot of interesting experiences.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, I did. I kind of real careful, especially when you're out in the woods, run into somebody like that. Ah, gee, I'm trying to think of their names now. You guys go over and check on him sometime. His son is over there.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Is that Vaden? GILLAM JOE: Vaden, yeah. Doug Vaden. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, his son, they're all over there. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Hm-mm.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. He's still alive, kickin’ I hear.

But my hunting is -- I retire. And I went back to Chisana and Terry tell me, "Why don’t you tell 'em huntin story? Occupy those hunters." We sit there and talk, talk, talk, and they just throw words at me. And he says, "Why don’t you come back? Why don’t you go out guiding with us?" And I says, "Well, I don’t have a license anymore." I -- I went to -- to -- what they call the other license, yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So I know that -- isn't there something between – GILLAM JOE: It's kind of like a registered.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Maybe that's what it is? Maybe it's registered guide and then master guide is the highest one? GILLAM JOE: I went from assistant to -- I'm trying to think. BARBARA CELLARIUS: The next one up?

GILLAM JOE: Next one up like an acting -- take a hunter out by myself and I can go and --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: I think that might be registered guide.

GILLAM JOE: Assistant guide can go with me or Terry or -- BARBARA CELLARIUS: With somebody else? GILLAM JOE: Yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: But you could go out on your own?

GILLAM JOE: I can go out on my own and stuff like that and then --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And is that -- that the license you had when you retired?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. I -- I -- I gave it up ’83. And it was too hard for me. I couldn’t do it, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Did you hurt your leg in an accident? GILLAM JOE: I got shot here in the village. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, okay.

GILLAM JOE: It was kind of like a alcohol involved. It was like -- I think -- We were all drinking that day and a guy bought a new gun, and looked at it. And the other guy was looking at it and we were in the backyard shooting, shooting target.

I shouldn't walk out there and visit them. you know. I went out there and I was standing here and the guy was standing here and the other guy is standing here. They were talking about guns. And I was standing there and that -- that barrel came down. The actual barrel was this long. He thought he'd shot it all off.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, he thought it was empty.

GILLAM JOE: He thought it was empty and while he was talking he pulled the trigger. Boom.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Just playing around with it.

GILLAM JOE: And right down to the shin in my bone here. Right down by the ankle. And that was it, man. It took me 11 hours to get to the hospital. I could've died, bled to death. BARBARA CELLARIUS: That's a long time. GILLAM JOE: Yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So I wanted to ask how your work as a hunting guide related to your subsistence activities.

GILLAM JOE: Huntin' and subsistence, some things I okay with like -- I think they should stop killing little animals, like little moose, 'cause we're getting thinned out, you know.

There're a lot of moose on the mountain. There's a lot of big horn out there, but all the road hunter here you cannot get no big animal. And I don’t have much against it, but I think they should slow down a little bit, you know. And maybe move it up a little bit like 40 inch. You’d at least -- your little one will never grow up no more.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: But in terms of -- in terms of your activities?

GILLAM JOE: I -- I don’t mind funeral hunt, I mean just -- just single animals. Funeral hunt is okay, but --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Like for a potlatch? GILLAM JOE: Subsistence, yeah, subsistence hunt when it's open, just hunters everywhere killing anything, you know, that's legal. Any moose, any bull moose. They're just the one that they should move it up a little bit.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: You'd like to see a harvest rest -- an antler restriction?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah, 'cause even a little horn sticking out like this is not, you know -- I think they should let it grow up a little bit. I think they're two years old, right, when they leave their mother? They leave their mother two years old and then they go up three and then they grow horn and they start growing horn.

I think they should wait 'til they're about four years old. 'Cause then they're a little bigger then, but we’re killing them off like any bull. I only get one bull. I mean, every year I never get one. I end up somebody give me some, you know. I have a lot of friends that hunt. They go -- but they have to get 50 inch. And they bring me hind leg or ribs or something.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Bring you something, yeah.

GILLAM JOE: Uh-huh. And then the Native -- I got friend, but he died. I probably won’t get any more meat. Dan Adams from Tetlin. And usually I get --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: He would bring you some?

GILLAM JOE: I gave him some fish and he give me moose, yeah. We trade. I thought that was pretty good. I can find somebody that way it would be good, you know.

Subsistence is more -- I think we should learn more about it, plan more about it. And even the bird hunt, you know. Duck hunt. I think that we shouldn’t have it in May. Gather the eggs and, you know, they don’t come back. I don’t know why they open it in May. But myself, I don’t know I'm not much no duck hunter, but my mom and dad told me about duck fall hunt. Best time to hunt duck, you know. And then springtime we can make sure when you take your eggs, leave one or two, no --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Don’t take them all?

GILLAM JOE: You're going to touching it this, take it all. Don’t touch the grass part, 'cause they'll never come back.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Be very careful when you -- when you do collect the eggs?

GILLAM JOE: Uh-huh. And they eat them like eggs, just like chicken eggs, yeah.

And usually my dad told me how to hunt certain kind of ducks. We came up to this one lake, he says, "That's why I brought this cloths." He said, "We're right behind a tree." And he put the cloths on a stick and he went like this. And the duck, certain duck, come towards it. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Interesting.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And then there's fish. He tell me about fish. We went up kind of Mentasta area and I said, "What are those fish doing? Why are they hitting?" And he says, "You don’t know that?" "No." He said, they're pumping kind of like this, "They're loosening up their eggs." And they're banging each other. They're just -- They're loosening up the eggs so they can come out.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Interesting.

GILLAM JOE: I'm giving away my story now.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So I had a couple of other questions about the -- the sport hunting and the -- the hunting guides. You talked about working with a lot of different guides. GILLAM JOE: Uh-huh.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Master guides. Were there other Alaska Natives who were working as hunting guides then?

GILLAM JOE: There were -- one I know is Lemmie Charley guide for Bud Conkle. And Freddie Nicolai over here, he guide for Lee. And Danny Thomas from Northway hunted with Pioneer Outfitter. And just few Native I know, but I try to think.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So there were some, but maybe not a lot?

GILLAM JOE: Lena Charley was with Bud Conkle. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Yeah, I have -- I've interviewed Lena.

GILLAM JOE: Hm, okay. And Bell Joe used to guide for Don DeHart. Wilson (Justin) guide for his dad, his stepdad. And Calvin -- (Calvin Justin, Wilson's brother, also guided for their step-dad, Lee Hancock) BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right.

GILLAM JOE: And -- and what his name? Daniel Nicolai work for some guy on the coast. Some time he guide up here for Lee (Hancock), but he guide for some people on the coast for bear hunt. And -- and Johnny Nicolai he guide for --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Yeah, I've heard about him. Was he -- He was out in Chisana? GILLAM JOE: He used to travel to Chisana. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: With Huston Sanford, used to travel from Whitehorse down the Goodpastor. I see their name when -- when I walk. Old cabin.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And was Johnny Nicolai -- was he guiding in Chisana or was he guiding more over here? GILLAM JOE: More over here. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay.

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. And Lou Anderton had gotten out and was doing that. Maybe he did with them. You know, that was way before my time. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay, yeah.

GILLAM JOE: But I don’t know, you know. Maybe they did, I don’t know. I never hear him mention it.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay. So it wasn’t just you. There were other people, too?

GILLAM JOE: Pioneer Outfitter had a lot of different people. From -- from Wasilla. I don’t know the -- I -- I forget all their names.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So there were -- were there -- were the others -- other guides that were working were -- that you were working with that were they mostly non-Native or a mixture?

GILLAM JOE: It's mixed, but a lot of just people. Like Ralph Sanford used to guide for Ken Bunch. He died -- he died though. Ralph died, you know, a long time ago. He's the one who shot me. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, okay.

GILLAM JOE: But down Copper and the whole, I know some people down there guide. I think one of the Lincoln boys guides with somebody in Chitina.

Of course, a lot of people ask me, "You're up guiding again?" And I says, "Yeah." Because a lot of people from all over know that I’m a guide.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Hm-hm. Well, it sounds like you were doing it for quite a long time.

GILLAM JOE: Well, I did it a long time. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Many years.

GILLAM JOE: Uh-huh. I did it almost like over forty years, guide. '83 was my last guide license. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Right. So you said ’64 to ’83. GILLAM JOE: Uh-huh.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: And I wanted to ask, so the park was created in 1980, did that have -- seem to impact the guiding business?

GILLAM JOE: I think so, yeah. BARBARA CELLARIUS: How?

GILLAM JOE: Park service -- it kind of made it hard for us to, you know, as -- they had to go -- the guiding people had to go all through the regulation with you guys.

And the last story I told about from park -- for -- oh, I forget which one of -- maybe it was Fish & Game. I said, I think that the park service move back to all the glacier. We can control our own land. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, change -- GILLAM JOE: Our own land.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Changing kind of where the boundaries are.

GILLAM JOE: Where the boundary is. Because I went to AFN (Alaska Federation of Natives) and the -- the big boss, your boss, is the big one.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Like the -- the director of the park service? GILLAM JOE: Director, yeah. He was there. I would like to meet him, but -- BARBARA CELLARIUS: Or the regional director? GILLAM JOE: Too many -- too many people line up with him already. All over.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: When was that? GILLAM JOE: Last fall at the AFN Convention. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, maybe it was the regional director?

GILLAM JOE: And I would like to meet him and I would like to meet with Don Young. I see, what’s her name? What’s her name now? BARBARA CELLARIUS: Murkowski?

GILLAM JOE: Murkowski, yeah. I thought she was tall. I say, "She's not tall." It look like on the TV -- on the TV it looks like she's real tall. BARBARA CELLARIUS: In the pictures, in the pictures, yeah. Sometimes that happens.

I wanted to ask, since you've been either involved with or watching the guiding business for a long time, how has it changed in the time since you started guiding, would you say?

GILLAM JOE: Well, some of the hunters I'm against. Some I don’t. I don’t mind Pioneer Outfitters 'cause I raised up there. I don’t mind Ellis because I know what they're doing. If Bud Conkle was still alive, I won’t mind, too, because he follows the law. Lee Hancock, he was good, too.

All these other airplane hunters, I don’t care for. Who are destroying meat, you know. And just going where they want to go. I don’t care for them, but these are only two outfitters I know up there.

Those people that I would support. Ellis, I know them for a long time. Yeah, I know that old man. The kids were small when I was there, but they respect me pretty good, you know. They know who I am.

And Terry Overly is my -- he's my brother. We live together almost all the time, and he's a Chickasaw Indian just like I am. He supposed to get enrollment here, but I hear park service give him a hard time. And then I talk to him not long ago and I told him call a lawyer, get a lawyer. Or go to the Indian Village because we can enroll him and go to AFN Convention and bring it up with other Natives. Is that my phone?

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Is that your phone? Do you want it? GILLAM JOE: Yeah. Let me see. Oh, no, no. I just -- I'm not going to answer it. Just unplug it. Okay.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Okay, now we're back on.

GILLAM JOE: Those two outfitters, I have a lot of respect for. But these other outfitters that runs airplane, I have no respect for them at all. If they respect us -- Well, there's one down here that I care for, too. What is his name now, Chuck? BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: McMann, yeah. 'Cause he deal with us. He tell us what's going on. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. Comes and talks to you and -- ?

GILLAM JOE: Come and tell us -- Every year, he tell where he's going to be and what he's going to do. And that's -- that’s good, you know. We're glad to deal with him, 'cause that's the way it should be. We're not shutting everything off from anybody. Everybody's got to make money somehow or make a living, you know.

And if they respect the animal, that's okay, that's good. And then use it certain way. He bring it down here and give it to the Native elders, that’s great. You know he's got family to feed, too. So, I don't have -- others is out of my book, you know, I just -- But I'm not a guide anymore so I still can complain though.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Yeah. And I just had a couple more questions. Since you've been out on the landscape for a really long time, have you observed changes in the animal populations in your lifetime? GILLAM JOE: Oh, yeah, yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Can you talk a little about that?

GILLAM JOE: I kind of worry about the caribou. They're -- they're moving different direction. They're moving around more different area than they're supposed to, you know. This year they're all down here. They're all around here. They're not up this way. They're all over this way now.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So more down south than up north?

GILLAM JOE: Yeah. You don’t see them up there. They're all crossing down here and maybe next fall they'll come back and cross this way. I don’t know. This is -- They're different now. I don’t know, maybe the weather pattern is changing them or --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So not so much their numbers, but where they go has changed?

GILLAM JOE: It's just like the ducks. They come back early and so there's some of them are sittin' on the ice. It's the weather is changing them, too.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh. This year or other years?

GILLAM JOE: I’ve seen swans two -- two weeks ago. It's kind of early, you know. It's just -- they think it's warm already. Lake open. No, lake's not even open yet.

And the -- the rabbit cycle is gone here. They're all up Tetlin, I think that's where all the rabbits are at. And moose population is down, I think. You know, there's too many hunters. You need -- And more bear. Lots of bear everywhere now.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Both brown bears or black bears? GILLAM JOE: Black bear, grizzly bear around and they're -- BARBARA CELLARIUS: Both kinds? GILLAM JOE: There're a lot of it around here, yeah, because nobody kill it, you know.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Have you seen any this spring? GILLAM JOE: Yeah, there was two right down by Larry’s house, you know. And two -- two down there where that -- coming down the hill at Mile 22. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, yeah.

GILLAM JOE: And there's one black bear down there close to my fishwheel, that pull over, that campground. But they’re out. They're all out.

I told the kids when they're walking around here, 'cause the bear -- I guess they attacked one of them down there, camera man. He just come after him. I said -- I told those kids around here, I said, "Springtime bear real hungry. They're real hungry. And they look at you, there’s dinner for them." I says, "You got to be real careful. You got to look. When you walk down that, look in the woods, watch all the time. You see them, back off and get away. Don’t run. 'Cause if you run, they'll come after you."

It's -- that's just the way it is, you know. The wolf are coming closer. They're walking around out here. When the caribou run, wolf run, too. You know they go with them. The caribou -- the moose don’t like caribou. They stay away from caribou. They're just going to really take off different direction and getting out of their way.

Another thing that my dad teach me about caribou is caribou can survive three, four days. Blowing up like this. He tell me, "Caribou is not like moose. Moose, it explode up, and then overnight no good." He said, "You still can use it," he said, "but caribou stay fresh for three, four days before you can cut 'em up."

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, you mean after you've hunted them? GILLAM JOE: Yeah, I mean road kill and like that. You know, all blowed up. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Oh, okay. Hm-mm.

GILLAM JOE: I see Fish & Game do away with a lot of them because overnight it's no good. But I never tell them the secret. I never tell them what I know. Other people say, "Oh, I'll take it to dog," you know. But I took one down there they gave me. It was there for two days. I told them I got one. I cut it open and I told them, "Look, this thing's fresh, see. It never go in -- into the meat yet."

So that's what you need to learn about caribou. If it was killed by something or truck or something, it's still good for a few more days. I didn’t know that. He told me that. And another thing I didn’t know about is freezer burn. Freezer burn, like salmon. BARBARA CELLARIUS: Uh-huh.

GILLAM JOE: You take it out, put it in cold water for two days, it soaks all the oxygen back in. Turn all red again. I didn’t know that either. Put lots of ice in there and just -- Guy from Tyonek, ocean fisher, tell me. He says, "These people that throw away all those freezer burn, you can just do this," he tell me.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Interesting. GILLAM JOE: Yeah. Very good.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So any other -- ?

GILLAM JOE: I think I -- There's a lot of stories but, you know, I -- there's --

BARBARA CELLARIUS: Well, mostly I wanted to talk to you about the working with the hunters today. GILLAM JOE: Yeah.

BARBARA CELLARIUS: So we can do another story another time. Other stories another time. So thank you very much. Appreciate your willingness to talk to me today. GILLAM JOE: Yeah, yeah.