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Bertha Ulvi

Bertha Ulvi is a Han Athabascan elder from Eagle Village, Alaska who was born in 1944 to Louise and Josie (Susie) Paul. Her mother's parents were Eliza and Joe Malcolm of Eagle Village, and her dad’s parents were Elizabeth and Paul Josie of Old Crow, Yukon Territory, Canada. She grew up in Eagle Village and living at Snare Creek and the Coal Creek mining camp where her father was working. They lived a traditional subsistence lifestyle based on fishing, hunting, trapping and berry picking in the region. She spent many summers with her grandparents, where Han and Gwich'in were the only languages spoken. Her sisters are Ethel Beck and Ruth Ridley. Bertha attended primary school in Eagle, went to Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon for high school, and returned to Eagle Village where she worked for many years as a community health aide. In the 1970s, she married Dana Ulvi, who came to the area from the Lower 48 looking for a simple life of living off the land and who later worked for the National Park Service. Together they lived in remote cabins, followed a seasonal subsistence lifestyle of fishing, hunting, and gathering, ran a trapline, and raised their children. They later divorced.

Storyteller Language Profile Interview with Bertha Ulvi, Ethel Beck, and Karma Ulvi (Doyon Foundation, March 29, 2022)

Date of Birth:

Aug 7, 1944

Bertha Ulvi appears in the following new Jukebox projects:

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve

Interview Title	Abstract	Archive #: Oral History	Project	Date of Interview
Bertha Ulvi and Ruth Ridley, Interview 1	Bertha Ulvi and Ruth Ridley were interviewed on July 19, 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 first part of a two part interview, Bertha and Ruth talk about growing up out on Snare Creek and at the Coal Creek mining camp where their father was working. They talk about living a subsistence lifestyle, being supported by the mining company, spending summers at their grandparent's fish camp, fishing for grayling, their father's moose hunting, berry picking, and eating traditional foods like porcupine. They also talk about knowing their Native language, attending school, and the challenges of learning English and leaving the village. They also discuss their later years when when Bertha was a community health aide and lived on a trapline with her husband, waterfowl and ptarmigan hunting, traditional skills, traditional medicine, and other locations in the area where they have practiced subsistence activities.	2021-03-06	Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve	Jul 19, 2022
Bertha Ulvi and Ruth Ridley, Interview 2	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.	2021-03-07	Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve	Jul 20, 2022