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gertie tom K’ènlū Mä¯n Northern Lake,  I’m going to tell you a story about the time we went up through K’ènlū1 [Northern Lake] pass. I’m telling what I remember about  when my mother, my dad, and my three sisters, who later died, were still living. We lived along Gyò Cho Chú [Big Salmon River] and in wintertime we would take off from there with a dog team. One time we went by dogsled to the place they call Shā2 [Fish Trap] and we camped overnight. We set out for Ddhäla [Little Mountain] and when we arrived there we made a really good camp. From there, people went hunting and killed moose, which they hauled in on a toboggan. Then the women made skins. People kept on killing moose. Some of the men freighted ahead with dogsled and in that way they kept on moving. From Ddhäla we walked up through the pass which goes through to K’ènlū. We went past Ddhäla. I was walking with my older sister [Ida]. The snow was really deep. You couldn’t walk around without snowshoes or the snow would go right up to your waist. We were just walking around on the mountain looking for porcupine when we saw something walking around over in the distance. We wondered, ‘‘What is it?’’ We thought it might be a bear walking around over there. Here it was a moose struggling in the deep snow. He could scarcely climb through the snow because it was so thick. We could hardly see it. We got frightened and took off. After we got back to the camp we told our mother about it. ‘‘What is it? We saw something big and black walking in the snow,’’ we said to her. Then the men went out after it. They saw by the tracks that it was a moose. gertie tom: northern lake, 1944  We had figured that it was a bear so we got scared and took off! After that we camped there for a long time. That’s the time I learned to make a skin. They gave me a skin and I made it. They gave my older sister one too and she also made a skin. We fleshed the skin, then we framed it, then we scraped it. When you scrape it that way the skin becomes soft. From there we kept on moving camp. [Whenever we stopped] we soaked the skin so it would be soft and easy to carry. When it is stiff it is hard to carry on a toboggan. We kept on camping in the mountains and we kept moving. Finally we all got to Ène Chú [North Fork of Big Salmon River]. There the men went out hunting for moose up K’ènlū pass. They killed lots of them. The moose don’t travel around much in wintertime because the snow is so deep. That’s the reason that even the bull moose were fat because they were staying one place when we were camped up that way. From that camping place we set out for K’ènlū. We walked up North Fork for quite a distance. We stopped and made camp at the place where the draw from K’ènlū Mä¯n creek runs into North Fork. My grandpa, Soo Bill, and Selkirk Billy came over toward us [to this side of the mountain] and met us right there. I guess my mother knew they were coming so we came up through the mountains to meet up with them right there. My grandpa, Soo Bill, his wife [Kitty], their children – – the whole family – – came over this way from Ross River by dog toboggan. They stayed with us. Selkirk Billy, his wife, and Clifford Billy too because they raised him and he was staying with them, they too stayed with us. After that, people killed lots of moose up in the pass through to K’ènlū. We all went up there and then men hunted moose. Just this side of K’ènlū Mä¯n we stopped and made camp and stayed there. Again, the men killed lots of cow moose and bull moose. The moose were really good and fat. After that the women made skins. By now it must have been April, and before long it was the end of April. When spring arrived we went along K’ènlu...

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