Tommie Sheldon Jr.: Interview Outline: Section 6 Dog team mail carriers Tape Reference Number: H2002-09-03 Tommie Sheldon Jr. talks with Bill Schneider and Eileen Devinney in Kiana, Alaska on February 27, 2002.

Bill Schneider: Can you tell us about the dog team mail carriers?

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Okay. Mail carriers you say?

Bill Schneider: The people that used dog teams to carry mail.

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Okay. As I remember easily, one long dog team will come each month. We called him Ijiyaurak.

Bill Schneider: That's okay.

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: If I remember it, I'll ask around and find out his English name. Ijiyaurak. And they will be tying their dog team right down here every month only. And they'll spend the night with this guy, he's kind of rich, that guy up here, Utauyuuraq Hasway. So that mail carrier will be right here spending the night. And from there next day they will head for Kobuk, Shungnak, and Ambler (map). Ambler, Shungnak (map) and Kobuk (map). And from there I don't know where they go, but that's a long trip with the dog team. Heavy, deep snow. That's how they travel. It's -- it's a long wait.

Same thing with the summertime. "Steam-a-launch" we call it. Boat with engine. They carry one mail run each month.

Hazel Apok: When did they start changing to once a week?

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Oh, I was an old man when they start doing that. Once a month and pretty soon maybe every two weeks and every week. As I go along, they -- it's hard to remember. Time changes so fast. Yeah.

Today they give us telephone, they give us TV, electricity. When I become a board member for Economic Develop Planning Board, I fight for these good airport, good schools, water and sewer, lights, and everything we are -- we have, every time they say don't get tired of asking because it's nice for you to ask every time. That's what we've been doing. Now, we got it today.

Bill Schneider: Yeah. Do you remember how many dogs a dog team -- the mail carrier had?

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Over 10.

Bill Schneider: Over 10?

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Yeah. It's a long team. You've got to have that long -- long team. If you've got 6, 7 dogs, you won't go very far. They -- they need food, they need power to carry, pull. The longer the team is, the better for the long run.

Bill Schneider: And did he have fish cached along the way?

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: Well, I don't know that much, but they have like stops, like here in Kiana (map), Noorvik (map), and along the line, like I say, there will be people living year 'round. Supposing you have no kids and nobody to go to school from your family, they will be living up there when I was a boy. So they stopped there.

Hazel Apok: And those people, where they stopped too, would feed their -- his dogs.

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: They -- they help out. Yeah.

Hazel Apok: Yeah.

Tommie Sheldon, Jr.: They help out.

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