Percy Jackson: Interview Outline: Section 6 His parents, going to school, and his hunting activities Tape Reference Number: H2002-09-14 Percy Jackson talks with Bill Schneider and Eileen Devinney in Kiana, Alaska on January 28, 2003.

Bill Schneider: Tell us about your father. He must have been quite a hunter.

Percy Jackson: Oh, he -- he was a reindeer herder when he first started.

Bill Schneider: Uh-hum. I --

Percy Jackson: That's the only way he could make money, reindeer herding.

Bill Schneider: How did he get into reindeer herding?

Percy Jackson: Because there was hardly any men to go after reindeers.

Bill Schneider: Uh-huh.

Percy Jackson: They got quite a few reindeers back when I was a kid. We just keep moving around when I was a kid, move our camps different places.

Eileen Devinney: Did you have a big family?

Percy Jackson: Yeah.

Bill Schneider: One of the things that's always interested me about reindeer herders is, is how the women had to keep up with the herds. How did your mom do?

Percy Jackson: She was doing good. I hardly remember it when I was in reindeer herd on the camps.

Bill Schneider: Yeah.

Percy Jackson: I was too young to remember.

Bill Schneider: I'm picking up a little bit of this noise here.

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum.

Bill Schneider: So you were too young to remember that?

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum.

Bill Schneider: And then you said you did some schooling, huh?

Percy Jackson: Yeah. Not too much, though. I just went up to 6th grade.

Bill Schneider: Is that here or in Noorvik?

Percy Jackson: Here.

Bill Schneider: Uh-hum.

Percy Jackson: They want to send me Outside, but I told them I would rather hunt. And start hunting. Toward Noatak. When I first start hunting I think I was about 17 year old. I was sorry why I quit schooling.

Bill Schneider: You were sorry?

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum.

Bill Schneider: Why is that?

Percy Jackson: Because I can't fill papers. But I know how to live out in the country.

Bill Schneider: Who taught you?

Percy Jackson: There was an old man with us those years. When I first start setting traps in fall time, in November, he took me out without bedding, 15 or 20 below, just with dogs and dog meat. I was kind of worried, I don't have no bedding. Finally, he found a place to camp, so we stopped there and make a camp. It was warm. It's not cold, even though it's 15 or 20 below, just sleep like that.

Eileen Devinney: Did you make a little shelter or --

Percy Jackson: Yeah. A little shelter, with trees.

Eileen Devinney: Uh-hum.

Percy Jackson: And put that big fire in the middle. That's the way we sleep. But when you go inside the snow, that's the warmest place to stay when you don't have beddings.

Eileen Devinney: Did you sleep right on the snow or did you --

Percy Jackson: Inside.

Eileen Devinney: -- sleep on branches?

Percy Jackson: Inside the snow. That's a warm place to stay.

Bill Schneider: What was that old man's name?

Percy Jackson: Richard Glover. We see his picture last night here, Frank Glover.

Bill Schneider: Frank or Richard?

Percy Jackson: Frank was here [meaning in the photographs]. The one I talk about is Richard. I think my dad's uncle.

Bill Schneider: What else did he teach you?

Percy Jackson: How to set traps and -- and in summertime, he showed me how to set a trap on marmots with rocks. Once you learn it, it is easy.

Bill Schneider: Is that like a deadfall?

Percy Jackson: Oh, make a little frame on bottom, make it flat, and put a rock on top, just like a trap, and put something in the middle there. When he touch that thing, that thing would fall down on that marmot. But if you make it shallow, that thing would come out.

Bill Schneider: Hmm.

Percy Jackson: Got to make it kind of deep so he won't push up. Them marmots are strong when they -- when you are trying to pull them. I think I'm the only one that knows how to set a rock trap now. Everybody else is gone. Even the Kobuk people, they never teach them about that. They want to learn right now, but we don't have time to go out.

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