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Hazel Apok: Interview Outline: Section 7
Using dogs in the old days to help with hard work and teaching children the basic survival skills
Tape Reference Number: H2002-09-13
Hazel spoke with Bill Burke in Fairbanks, Alaska on April 3, 2002. |
Hazel Apok: We -- we grew up with -- my -- my father had 20 dogs and my brother had 22 dogs. We had huge dog lots. We had to catch food for -- for our dogs. Prepare their own foods on top of our own -- you know, the foods that we eat. We used the dogs to travel to go gather more food. We don't have that anymore in our community. We -- we want to travel fast and get there quickly. We want to do things -- everything is a quick fix. Everybody wants instant satisfaction. You know. And somebody like me that remembers all the hard work, you know, just to survive in the past, we want our grandchildren to know. We want them to learn because our world is constantly changing and we want them to learn the basic survival skills that we grew up with. We want them to -- to learn how to hunt and fish and, you know, maybe go back to wood stoves or -- because of the high price of living out there. The fuel costs, the electricity. Everything costs money. And we don't have all -- a lot of jobs in our village to pay for these things.
So it's like an ever changing world that, you know, I know that the elders that I live with now want -- want our grandchildren to acquire these basic skills because we know soon we won't -- maybe we won't be able to afford fuel. And then we'll -- that way our kids -- our grandkids won't know how to heat their homes and how to survive. And I think that's a trend that we are going into now, and I hope to be a part of it.
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