From "Chickaloon Spirit" by Katherine Wade

My Grandparents were so important in my life.

I adored my Grandmother; she was my hero. When I grew up I wanted to be like her. I never thought then of being a mother. I just wanted to be a Grandmother - like her.

She seemed to be able to do almost everything to make everyone comfy and loved at the same time. She was very loyal to her family through good and bad times.

Both she and Grandpa used to say, "We love and treasure you kids so much. You children are very special. God sent you to us for we were very sad because we lost many of our children through illness. We also feel that you volunteered to come back from the spirit world to be with us. Therefore, we would like for you kids to be good to the best of your ability. Not that we would love you any less if you should make a big mistake. Instead of being proud of you, we will be very sad when we think of you. But if you try and always do the right things, you will make us feel good and proud that we taught you to know right from wrong, and people will say, 'My, she must have had smart Grandparents that loved her very much to have been taught such good manners and thoughfulness.'"

She used to trap little parka squirrels when she was up in the mountains and skin them and smoke their meat. They used to eat that, but I couldn't ever make myself eat it. She tanned their little hides, too. And made beautiful parkas out of them.

Once she made a nice parka for some creep. They call him Shorty. He wanted a parka made out of that parka squirrel so she caught a whole bunch of them, tanned them, and she sewed it together. She was going to charge him fifty dollars for the parka. He got mad and jumped up and down. He took it and said it was too much. He wouldn't pay for it. I think he never did pay for it. I think he had little man syndrome because he got mad and jump up and down and said that it cost too much, he wasn't going to pay that much to buy it.

Once in a while they'd get a fox, a beaver, a muskrat, sheep and bear hides and also goat. She used to tan those, too. They used the goat hide as is to line the bottom of a sled, to put a baby in, and used a lot of that as bedding. They also used it as a rug. It's stiff, so they just throw it on the floor, so when you get out of bed, you can put your feet on that warm goat hide.

They had caribou hide with the hair on it, too. They use it on the bottom of the sled, or use it for a mattress when they camp. When they dry it like that, it doesn't weigh very much, either, you can roll it up and carry it on top of your backpack.

When they camp, they take spruce boughs and in the summertime, use brush, and put the hides on top of that and you have a real good bed. In Boulder Cabin, it's a small cabin, when we get there, we'd throw out all the old spruce boughs and put in fresh ones and it smells so good in there. They'd do that in a tent, too, use fresh spruce boughs and willow. They can set a tent up in the snow, put spruce boughs in, throw goat or caribou hide on it and be warm as toast.

During the winter when there's snow on the ground, my Granddad went out in the forest to get the perfect wood for the job --building snowshoes or a sled or whatever-- while he got logs for firewood. Late fall, winter and spring, seems like he was always traveling in the forest with his snowshoes, hunting and burning dead trees so that we don't have forest fires.

From where we lived in Chickaloon, we could tell where he was by watching trees go up in flames. He would do that while there was snow on the ground, so the fire wouldn't spread. We could see him many miles away when he burned those trees. You could see a puff of smoke, and a little later there's another puff of smoke, as he's coming down the trail.

My Uncle, John Goodlataw, also did this. There was no telling them not to do that. It was one of their traditions, to keep the forest clean.

They also chopped down all the big rotten trees that had a lot of limbs that might break off when the winds start blowing. They break off sometimes when the wind's not blowing. The animals like to eat it, too, like rabbits, ptarmigan and moose, if there's moose around. They like to eat the limbs. One birch tree can feed the moose for a week. It's much safer to wander around the woods with no rotten limbs above your head.

With all that work, Chickaloon area was beautiful.

I loved and respected my grandparents very much, and they were not going to become fools just because of my foolishness. So I tried very hard to obey their rules. And they had many. We would spend the night with them, which, to us, was a great honor. They would tell us fairy tales in the evenings, and lectures in the early mornings about how to be a good person, and how to get along with people.

In our Indian culture, we have "Ya Ne Dah Ah" stories (long time ago stories) that teaches children how not to behave. These stories are so outrageous that no one in their right mind would want to be identified with those characters. Therefore, you have to try and understand what can happen when a person goes this route. They very seldom have to spank the children if they have been told these stories. I believe they covered every situation. And it's up to a smart Grandparent to teach the children.

As a child, they all meant a great deal to me. The first story they tell a child is about the owl and the brat. It keeps a child from crying unnecessarily.

The as they get older they are told other stories. They had a lot of stories. Some did not mean too much.

My Grandparents were pretty busy people so they told us the basic discipline stories so those are the ones I remember.

In our legend we were able to communicate with all the animals, in fact, they spoke our language, even the smallest of animals like a mouse and spiders. Spiders are Grandmothers, you should not kill them for no reason. When they come down right in front of you on their little web, usually means you're gonna get good luck. Talk to them and meditate, and ask them to help you get what you need.

Also, the mouse, give it some food 'cause they help our people way back long, long ago. But nowadays I kill them because they fell in my well and contaminated my water.

They said to be responsible for your family. My Grandparents would say, "If you see someone in heading for trouble, stop them if you can. Love each other like yourself. Always reaching out to help where you can. That would please your Creator, too."

I can still picture my Granddad, standing by his roaring wood stove, talking, hands in his back pockets, rocking back and forth.

To us, sometimes, he would tell about history of the past - things that could have been avoided, or done, while Grandmother cooked breakfast. Sometimes we had fried bread, oatmeal, pancakes with either high-bush cranberry or low-bush cranberry sauce to spread on them. Once in a while they would have syrup. We also, more than likely, got fried trout or spruce chicken to eat with it. Sometimes they would have fresh meat, like sheep, goat, or caribou. They served it like little steaks. Yum yummy!

After breakfast, we go outdoors for woodcutting and packing in the wood, and filling the wood box, then stacking the excess wood outside by the door.

Then, when we are done, it's time for a snack and a cup of hot tea.

Sometimes Grandmother would make jerky soup. She made it different ways. It was very tasty no matter how she made it.

Then we all go out to do something like carrying water from the creek. They had little lard pails with wire handles. I think they were three-pound cans. As we got older, we got six-pound cans that we carried down to California Creek. We fill them with water and carried them up the hill to Grandma's house.

Sometime Grandmother had to do laundry, so we had to do many trips down to the creek. I remember getting to tired and hot, I didn't think I could make another trip down that hill again.

Grandma would say, "You can do it. That is, if you want us to tell you Ya Na Dah Ah stories tonight." To my surprise, I did it and felt very good about it, too. It taught me persistence all through my life.

"Don't give up," my Grandmother would say. "You can do it. If you make up your mind to do something, you can do it. As long as you have two eyes, two arms, two legs, and you are not crippled or ill. Just think of some people that cannot get out of bed. They wish that they were healthy like you. They would do a lot of the things that you don't want to do because you are lazy. Our Creator don't like lazy folks. If you insist on laying in bed all the time, he will help you to lay in bed by making you ill. Being ill is not a very pleasant thing."

The they go into details of the different kinds of illnesses they have seen, and how those poor people wished they were able to do what everybody else was able to do. In the Olden Days, they tell the kids only one time to get up. And you had better hear them! If you did not jump out of bed right then, you found yourself out in the snow bank. If you do get up on the first call, you need to run out the door as fast as you can for there is a bad spirit with a sharp fork, waiting above the doorway for the lazy moping kid. You must not let him spear you. When a kid gets speared, he only gets to live six months to a year. You must get up and be happy. Go up on the hill and face toward the sunrise, and pray to Creator for everything, thanking him for your parents, sisters, brothers, Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents, for the weather and food. Prayed and everything so you're good for the day.

When you are done, you will feel very content and happy. We must always thank Him for everything we get. Be thankful and humble, but not to the point like being an old rag. You need to be strong but be respectful to everyone. Spiritually, you gotta be strong, too, in case somebody's upset, you gotta be strong. When somebody's upset, you can support them. When someone's upset, they gotta have someone to lean on. Always gotta be a leaning post.

They believed in getting all the chores done early. And they had many!

- Katherine Wade