an otter afternoon

i spent a couple hours this saturday afternoon with teggin, a yup'ik elder and accomplished ivory carver from togiak. his ivory works are known throughout alaska. anyways, he was busy skinning a land otter in his old house, next to his carving station.



as he was skinning, teggin told me some interesting stories of his young days as a dog musher. one winter, he left to bethel by dog team to enter a race there. the 100-mile (approximate) trip took him four days. first stop goodnews bay, second was quinhagak, third stop was eek, and the last leg he made it to bethel. as the story goes, he hadn't anticipated a long trip and his dogs had only one day to recupe. his dogs were fatigued, but he finished the race and left back to tog. i guess he got lost on the way and asked for directions in napaskiak, a few miles downriver from bethel. a local there invited teggin in for tea, they ate, and the local drew teggin a map on a piece of paper. studying the map in front of him, he followed the river, landmarks, and found his way back to tog. on his way, he said he shot some ptarmigan and fed his dogs. teggin said the return trip took him only two days.

teggin also had stories of hunting moose by dog team even before snowmachines arrived to the region and of chasing down fox by dog team. damn, his dogs must've been fast! foxes run pretty quick, but he said his team ran them down. i also asked him if he saw my dad during the bethel race. teggin said he saw him there and he was one of the top mushers. teggin also said he saw my mom with a couple little kids at the race. must've been vern, larry, rick, or....shit, it could've been anyone of my family. i just thought how i wished that i could've been with my family at my dad's race. buuuut, it would be probably years and years until i was born.



this is teggin nailing the pelt onto a piece of wood that stretches the hide. there are no nails involved to stretch the legs of the otter. just a little peg, some slits in the hide, and lot of yup'ik ingenuity.

it was cool to spend time with teggin and hear his stories. i thought how i should've spent more time this fall with teggin in his old house to hear more stories and learn some new things.

one last thing. while teggin was skinning the otter, i pulled out my blade thinking it would be sharp as heck and he would approve. he took my knife, looked at it, and said 'tav'aqaa,' which can be loosely translated to 'as if...' or 'i don't think so.' teggin put my benchmade to the test and it wasn't sharp enough, damnit! i learn new things everyday.