Leo Jackson: Interview Outline: Section 5 Snowmachines being introduced, using dogs, and working in the mining industry Tape Reference Number: H2002-09-09 Leo Jackson talks with Bill Schneider, Hazel Apok, and Eileen Devinney in Kiana, Alaska on February 28, 2002.

Hazel Apok: Weren't you one of the first people to bring a snow machine here? Was that --

Leo Jackson: My brother.

Hazel Apok: Your brother. Okay.

Leo Jackson: He had a five -- five and a half horse Polaris. It was a good machine. I liked that.

Hazel Apok: One of those old-fashioned kinds?

Leo Jackson: One of the first ones.

Hazel Apok: Very first?

Leo Jackson: I don't remember. But yeah, we went. I still got it by the old house down there.

Hazel Apok: Uh-huh.

Bill Schneider: It would be good to go get a picture of that.

Eileen Devinney: When it thaws out!

Hazel Apok: Yeah. I remember it so well because I had come home on some kind of break or something and your brother let me ride around. And first time I ever hold, you know, with my thumb, and my thumb was so sore for how many days because I never held that way before.

Leo Jackson: Oh, the throttle was on the side.

Hazel Apok: On the side? Oh, okay. Whatever it was I was --

Leo Jackson: The throttle was on the side.

Hazel Apok: Oh, okay.

Leo Jackson: Just a certain way. The gas tank was -- what was it, maybe a three quart. Goes a long ways, that tank, though.

Bill Schneider: But you -- you kept dogs for quite awhile, huh?

Leo Jackson: Well, from 1953 to '55, then I went to Fairbanks to go to work. I lose them all. My brother -- my brother-in-law always take my dogs away from me. He wants to raise -- I raised good dogs in them days. Good pups I raised. He always, take 'em away from me for raising.

Bill Schneider: Where did you work in Fairbanks?

Leo Jackson: I worked for the mining camp at the Fairbanks -- at Fairbanks Creek, and the other time I worked at the -- at the Dome Creek they call it. When the season was over, I got me a job out of town at Eielson Air Force Base, civil service.

Bill Schneider: Uh-hum.

Leo Jackson: Until I got sick. Pneumonia. Almost killed me.

Bill Schneider: Hmm.

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