This is a glimpse from the past, inspired from the stories of a couple elders from Hooper Bay: James Gump, and Neva Rivers who is about 80 years old. During the month of August, when they were young, they would go on a skin boat and travel from Hooper Bay to the area of where Chevak is now to gather the plentiful salmon berries.
Families both young and old would go pick the berries which would later on be used to make the Eskimo ice cream during the long cold winter months of Alaska. Traveling was tough during those times before outboard motors and modern technology, so they would paddle even to far away places bringing their whole families. They would be picking berries and fishing for white fish for a couple of weeks. When all the berry containers where filled they would go back, paddling, following the current and camping along the way. The trip by boat is probably about 30 - 40 miles through the winding Ninglivak River and crossing the bay to Hooper Bay. Both James and Neva tell their stories smiling as if they are going back once more to their childhood days when life was tough yet filled with happiness.
the artist with his piece
The boat is made with the jaw of the whale bone I found between the shores of Chevak and Hooper Bay. The base is from the vertebrae of the whale. The dolls in the boat are detailed human figures carved from the root of the driftwood. They all have a story, the old man has a sore back from being in the boat all day. The first man is grumpy –– he woke up wrong, not feeling good. All but one have ivory teeth carved into them. They have ivory eyes with baleen pupils. The hair in the dolls are rabbit fur and the woman's hair is Lisa's hair that she cut a couple of years ago. The woman in the piece is holding onto a small baby, the future berry picker. The parkas are rabbit fur with otter ruffs on all of them. Lisa did the sewing on the parkas. The paddles are driftwood and also the hands. A strip of seal skin is attached around the whale bone.
