A Bad Night
As a boy, I lived at reindeer camp with my family. During the summer, there wasn’t much to do upriver. And it got lonesome. So my family moved to the coast to hunt ducks and to fish for herring and tomcod. People then had to make a living by hunting and fishing. Finally, when there was no more ice, the herring came up to the beach. Everyone set their nets with boats and caught as many as they could. Then, all the women got busy cutting and storing herring. They did this so they would have plenty of dogfood in the winter.
One night when I was a boy, I remember the herring were jumping out of the sea and all over the beach. My friend Leslie and I stayed up that night playing. We decided to make a house, a small one out of driftwood. We split the wood, cut and shaped it like a house. We put on a door. We put grass on the floor. We took a coal-oil can, made it into a stove and burned wood in it. The stove was about 12 by 10 inches and would get really warm.
We felt good about our new house. The fire was going, and it was very warm. We put all our things in it—our clothes, blankets, grub. After watching the herring for awhile, we decided to go fishing. I got my father’s net. I told my friend, “Let’s set the net for herring with a kayak, my old man’s kayak.”
Now kayaks are not to take as you please. My dad would not want us to take his kayak. This was for our own good, so that we didn’t drown. But I wasn’t too good at listening, and I wanted to go fishing. Even though we were told not to, we pushed the kayak out. The tide was coming in. The fish were jumping. We were ready to set the net. We spread the net on the beach and got it all ready with the sinker and the floater separated.
Leslie was older. He told me, “You take care of the net on shore, and I’ll put out the anchor.”
I replied, “No, I’ll hold onto the net, and we’ll both get in the kayak back-to-back. Now you paddle while I hold the anchor. When the net straightens, I’ll throw out the anchor.”
He didn’t say anything for awhile. Finally, he agreed. I went in first and held on to the anchor. Out we went to straighten the net. But I held onto the anchor too long. It slid to my left, and our kayak tipped over.
The kayak was upside down. We were trapped under water. Both of us tried to get out at the same time, but we were stuck. We moved every which way. I was running out of air. I pressed hard against the kayak rim so Leslie could get out. He moved and got out. Then I got free also. I bumped the bottom hard with my head. I stood up. There was Leslie with the kayak between us. He smiled at me, so I smiled back at him.
Suddenly we saw that our house was on fire. The grass on the floor had caught fire from the stove. It was really burning! We pulled the kayak, full of water, up to the beach. We ran up to the house, but we couldn’t save it. Everything burned. We couldn’t do a thing.
So we went to the kayak and let the water out. We turned it upside down and cleaned it. Then we put it back where we got it. We folded up the net. We didn’t even get to set our net. We went back to where our house was. The sun was just coming up.
Leslie said, “My dad has a tarp we can sleep with. Let’s make a bed between two logs, and we can use it for a blanket.” I got the tarp. We built a fire, and we hung our clothes up to dry. Then we went to bed, and slept and slept…
My dad woke us up at 2:00 in the afternoon. “Don’t sleep too much. You have to eat.” We got up. We went to put on the clothes that we hung up. They should have dried by now. I looked for my pants. No pants. Only the poles were standing up. I looked and saw some ashes. I swished the ashes around and saw the bottom of my pants. I sure had bad luck that night!
My family’s tent was not too far away, across the tundra. I put on a shirt, underwear and boots. No pants. My pants had burned. My mother looked at me and asked, “Why don’t you have any pants on?”
“I was drying them, and they burned.”
She dug into the clothes sack and gave me a pair of pants. She didn’t scold me, even though she always scolds so hard. This time I needed scolding and I knew it.
By Wassilie Eakon of Unalakleet
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