Читать книгу Racing Toward Recovery. The Extraordinary Story of Alaska Musher Mike Williams Sr. онлайн

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Part of the excitement in the spring was going to fish camp with the family when the birds migrated. It took a lot of prep time to go to camp. I liked establishing the camp and getting settled in, just being there. You have your tent, your sleeping gear, your stove, your food like flour, sugar, coffee, tea, and the utensils like the cooking pot. Camp was about fifteen to twenty miles from home.

We would start to set up camp in March and there was plenty of snow on the ground so we went by dog team. Then, in early April we would set up the tent. In the spring we trapped for muskrat. That was our cash cow. It took thirty-two muskrat to make a coat and that’s what the fur buyers wanted. At the same time we hunted our migratory birds. We lived off the land in spring camp while we trapped.

Although we trapped furs and traded them for cash, essentially when I was growing up Akiak was a cashless society. We were basically living off the land. In the summer we could commercial fish closer to Bethel and turn in the fish for cash. Some people spent their summers working at canneries in Bristol Bay. And some guys would go to fight fires in the Interior for a summer job. They were smokejumpers.