{"id":9605,"date":"2021-07-04T15:32:51","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T19:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=9605"},"modified":"2021-09-09T07:26:05","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T11:26:05","slug":"episode-381-memories-of-indigenous-people-the-alaska-incident-1960ill-considered-photograph-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=9605","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 381 MEMORIES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE: THE ALASKA INCIDENT 1960\u2026ILL CONSIDERED PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

<\/div>\n
\n
EPISODE 381    MEMORIES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:   THE ALASKA INCIDENT 1960\u2026ILL CONSIDERED PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
July 3, 2021<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE PICTURE BELOW\u2026A YUPIK COUPLE ON  THE EDGE OF THE BERING SEA<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Should I have taken the picture (Below) ?   I am not sure.   In the back of mY mind at the time I wondered if my actions<\/div>\n
were appropriate and  that thought has stayed with me for 60 years.    After much searching I found the picture<\/div>\n
and replicated it below.  The Yupiks were very friendly, perhaps a little inebriated\u2026perhaps not.  The Yupik people <\/div>\n
are Inuit.  Their territory covers the vast barren southwest corner of Alaska\u2026fronting on the Bering Sea north of<\/div>\n
the Aleutian Chain.   Dillingham, Alaska\u2026a salmon fishing and canning centre.  Called a City but really barely a town.<\/div>\n
Over one tenth of the population live below the poverty line.  Crime is high.  Those facts have not changed in the<\/div>\n
last 60 years.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In 1960, I was quite unaware of Dillingham.  I had never heard of a Yupik. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
 \u201cAlan, you will be going to Alaska<\/div>\n
on a Turam job\u2026wear some good clothes to impress our Humble Oil contractors\u2026searching for copper\u2026Our crew will<\/div>\n
be setting up diamond drill sites.  Big project, there will be two Sikorsky helicopters at the campsite.  Bottom line!<\/div>\n
You guys have make a good impression.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Time has passed, I can say more about the job now.     Dr. Paterson got us all Green Cards which meant we had skills that no one else in the United States had.<\/div>\n
Partly true.   Bill Morrison taught us all we needed to know about the Turam method of detecting mineral conductors deep under<\/div>\n
overburden.   Simple put, we were trained to use a motor generator and a mile of copper shielded cable to push an electrical<\/div>\n
current into the ground and take readings of that current on a grid.  If there was a conductor \u2026i.e. a great lump of chalcopyrite<\/div>\n
under the ground… then we could detect an \u2018anomaly\u2019 that just might be important.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Were we important people?   Specially trained? Who were we really?  Three of us were students at<\/div>\n
the University of Toronto\u2026Don VanEvery, Ian Rutherford and Alan Skeoch\u2026two maths and physics <\/div>\n
student and one history student. (What the hell was a history student doing here?  Good question.<\/div>\n
I preferred to keep that part of my background invisible.)   Bill Morrison was the Turam expert and<\/div>\n
I became his assistant.  Called \u2018field men\u2019\u2026i.e. no engineering degrees.  The brains of our team<\/div>\n
were Dr. John Stam, a true geophysicist, and Mike Chinnery, a recent geophysical grad from England.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Were we important people.  Felt that way even if it was a bluff.  One thing for sure was that we seemed<\/div>\n
  important people to the two Yupik residents sitting on a wooden stoop<\/div>\n
in a town that to me in 1960, was  unremarkable save for its salmon cannery and huge pile of beer bottles in the garbage dump.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
IMPORTANT PEOPLE!<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
For some strange reason be landed in Saskatoon en route to Anchorage, Alaska.  <\/div>\n
Even now so many years later this photo confirms our self importance.   Don VanEvery,<\/div>\n
Ian Rutherford and Mike Chinnery.   Geophysical prospectors.   Suits!!<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In the Ancharage airpot diner I ordered \u2018Milk Toast\u2019 for breakfast because it sounded sophisticated.<\/div>\n
Turned out to be baby food which gave the team a laugh.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Leaving Anchorage we boarded a smaller prop driven passenger plane\u2026a Fokker F 27. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
 \u201cWell , boys, we <\/div>\n
can now say we flew in a Fokker.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAre not all airplanes Fokkers at one tome or another.\u201d<\/div>\n
(laughter)<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We flew over the Alaskan <\/div>\n
Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes where the crust of the earth is thin and the seething cauldron of molten<\/div>\n
stone beneath us comes to the surface.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We flew westward for a couple of hours or more. Beneath us the land looked empty.   Then a strange thing<\/div>\n
happened.  At least in my memory it was strange.  A crew member came back and hand cranked down the the landing<\/div>\n
gear.  The F 27 could land on water as well as land.  Hand cranked?  Why?  had the hydraulics failed?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Ah, yes, the passenger terminal at Dillingham, Alaska, in 1960.  That could have been<\/div>\n
a farmers\u2019 drive shed back in Ontario but, here, in Dillingham it was the contact point with<\/div>\n
the outside world.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Mike Chinnery and Alan Skeoch have kept up the pomposity four U.ofT. blazers.  Ian and Don have relaxed.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We only stayed in Dillingham for an  hour or so.  Just enough time for us to meet the two Yupik people and a chance<\/div>\n
to see a Yupik  fish camp on the edge of the Bering Sea  where we had our fuel dump.<\/div>\n
The S 52\u2019s were revving up when I ran to the beach to get this photo.    Why were the hanging carcasses of<\/div>\n
split salmon not bright red?   Simple answer. Because they were covered with flies.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
At some point we met the Yupik man and wife.  At that point I took their picture.  Talk about aggorgance.<\/div>\n
\u2026self-importance\u2026rudeness\u2026holier than thou thinking.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Everything was moving so fast.   At the time I thought we would meet<\/div>\n
many indigenous people.   Wrong.  These two were the onlyYupiks we <\/div>\n
saw on the whole summer job.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Isn\u2019t that strange?   Why were the indigenous people so invisible?<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Then we spent the summer being ferried by helicopter here and there across the empty space of SW Alaska.  We never even spotted<\/div>\n
another Yupik.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Bill Morrison with the Turam console…<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Bill Morrison expected me to help him with his main love\u2026fishing.   We could fish while the midnight sun shone.<\/div>\n
Of course this is an exaggeration. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A barren land cut by occasional river valleys.  Thousands of years ago the Yupik people crossed here from Siberia.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
  ALASKA 1960:    There were 31 of us on the job\u202625 American diamond<\/div>\n
drillers and 6 Canadians using a Turam geophysical instrument to site drill sites in the great<\/div>\n
emptiness of south west Alaska\u2026north of the Aleutian Chain.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
What I do remember clearly is that three of us, Canadians, proudly sported our University of Toronto dress<\/div>\n
jackets.  Anglo Canadians with specialized knowledge. Proud and arrogrant we must have appeared. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We only had a few minutes in Dillingham before we <\/div>\n
were to be ferried by big Sikorsky helicopters to our tent campsite in the interior.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I did not think.   Sitting on the doorstep in the village were two indigenous people.  Likely Yupik.  A Man and his wife\u2026older\u2026<\/div>\n
perhaps in their 60\u2019s.   Both seemed either super friendly or somewhat inebriated.    Without asking I took their picture.  Think about that.  These two Inigenous<\/div>\n
Americans were  treated like I had been years earlier in a rock outcrop in northern Quebec\u2026subjects of photography.   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In this case, however, I was the photographer just like the priest and his carload on the Opemiska road.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
For the rest of the summer on the barren lands we never saw a native person.  Yet this was their home.<\/div>\n
None were part of our crews.  They were the only indigenous people we met.    WE flew in\u2026did our<\/div>\n
survey\u2026and flew out.  I never even asked their names.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Somewhere I have another picture.  Not proud of it.  When the Yupik man got up to shake my hand he<\/div>\n
fell flat on his face. I helped him to his feet and asked one of our crew to take picture of us.<\/div>\n
I was wearing my University of Toronto dress jacket.  He was wearing the clothes you see in the picture.<\/div>\n
Even then, back in late May 1960, I felt uncomfortable about that picture.   I had crossed a line. Violated<\/div>\n
a trust.  Exploited a situation.   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Today, in the bright lights of awareness of  others, I would not have  taken those pictures.<\/div>\n
What should I have done?   The same thing that most people would have done\u2026pretended<\/div>\n
these indigenous people did not exist.  Which is worse? <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
July 2021 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
  <\/div>\n
WHO ARE THE YUPIK PEOPLE?<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Population<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
The Central Alaskan Yup’ik people<\/a> are by far the most numerous of the various Alaska Native<\/a> groups. They speak the Central Alaskan Yup’ik language<\/a>, a member of the  Eskimo\u2013Aleut<\/a> family of languages.<\/div>\n
As of the 2002 U.S. Census, the Yupik population in the United States<\/a> numbered more than 24,000,[4]<\/a><\/sup> of whom more than 22,000 lived in Alaska, the vast majority in the seventy or so communities in the traditional Yup’ik <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 381    MEMORIES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:   THE ALASKA INCIDENT 1960\u2026ILL CONSIDERED PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN alan skeoch July 3, 2021 THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE PICTURE BELOW\u2026A YUPIK COUPLE ON  THE EDGE OF THE BERING SEA Should I have taken the picture (Below) ?   I am not sure.   In the back of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}