Distant Time Stories As Told By My Grandfather—The Owl

The Owl

Told By Titus Bedes and Recorded by Fdel ©1935

The Owl was identified By Eliza Jones as the Great Horned Owl.

Owl was married to a woman. They had twelve children. Owl could not support them all. Everything he caught was just enough for himself. He could not feed his wife and children. They were all hungry. Sometimes he would catch twelve Spruce chickens in one day and eat them all himself. Sometimes he would give only the gizzard to his wife. She got sore.

He went off for some time. The wife caught a brown bear in its den. She killed it. She studied it.

“I’ll fix that old man with how much he could eat!”

She brought snowshoes and tied them for a chairback (back rest). She made thirty pounds of lard from that bear. She roasted all the tallow. She made the Owl eat it. After he got through, he drank up all the grease. The Owl got sick. He couldn’t walk any more. That’s why his eyes turned to yellow.

Notes:

Attla’s story (1989:191-211), “The Woodpecker Who Starved His Wife,” deals with a similar theme of wife abuse but in much greater and more subtle detail. Whereas the Owl’s wife was independent enough to kill a bear by herself, the Woodpecker’s wife, in her complete subjection to her husband, should be taken as a horrible example of over—submissiveness, because she was unable to take from his sled the food she needed for survival, until her brothers appeared. But Dena women, alone in the camp with an unloving, mean husband, are known to have been driven to suicide by hanging.

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Cited From: Tales From the Dena–Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk, & Yukon Rivers, edited by Frederica de Laguna, Illustrated by Dale DeArmond, and Published by University of Washington Press, ©1995.

Dale De Armond’s Biography

Tales From the Dena Book

Animals lacked souls (nukk`ubedze) like those of men, having apparently lost them along with their ability to assume human form, according to Koyukon belief. They had only their yega, but these spirits served as their protectors and enforced the taboos and rituals which should be observed when the animals were killed. Jette` (1911) discussed whether there were both individual yega for each individual animal, and/or a yega for the whole species or class like fish. This second kind of yega would be like the Bosses or Masters of Game of other tribes. Failure to treat the slain animal with proper respect might mean that the hunger could never kill another of its kind, for the creatures would hold aloof from him. In other cases, the offender, or some member of his family, would suffer fits or seizures. Killing for no reason, wasting any part of the animal, or laughing at it, are punished. The Dena did not like to talk about these matters, Jette` reported, for fear that the yega might hear and be displeased.

Men out hunting sing their hunting songs, different ones for different kinds of animals, which they believe please the yega of the animal. One old Nulato man in 1936—1937 gave Sullivan a caribou song. Since the Canada jay or camp robber was always around when they killed a caribou, the native sang the jay song to elicit the help of its yega in hunting. Later they would reward the bird with scraps.

The Ingalik also hand animal songs, short magical spells that would lure the animals to the hunters. These songs were supposed to be the ones sung by the animals themselves in their own kashims, and were learned by humans before animals and men became separate beings. In theory, a song could now be acquired only to purchase (plus instructions) from a person, usually a relative too old to use or need it. The Ingalik had such songs, usually spoken spells, for almost everything, from eclipses to luck in general, or to kill. A song was represented by or associated with an amulet. The Animals’ Ceremony, the longest and most liked ceremony of the Ingalik, was intended to lure animals, birds, and fish to the village by performing the same ceremonies that these animals or their spirits performed in their own kashims under the mountains.

The most important animals, demanded special treatment by the Koyukon, are the four predators: the bear (black and cinnamon alike), wolf, wolverine, and lynx, and their yegas are to be dreaded. A. M. Clark (1970) reported that the Koyukuk Indians believed that these four animals had souls like those of human beings. Jette` mentioned important furbearers that are likewise treated with special care after death. In general, the proper names of these animals must not be used, but they may be referred to by circumlocutions. Their flesh and bones must not be given to dogs, and the bones or other discarded parts must be disposed of in special ways: burned in the cases of most land animals, or put back in the water for fish and beaver. Animal remains must never be left where people might walk over them, or dogs gnaw them, so the important parts of some species are cached in trees.

When a bear is killed, its eyeballs are slit and its paws cut off, so that its spirit cannot see or run away. Then men eat the head and paws at a special feast, which the women do not attend. The flesh of bears is forbidden to women, except that old women are now permitted to eat the hindquarters of the black bear. No use at all is made of a bear skin by the Upper Koyukuk River people. It is hung up near where it had been killed for the chickadees to peck at. The Yukon Dena men can use it, but the women are forbidden to wear or sleep on bear fur, and women must never mention the bear’s true name. For this reason, the men never sing the bear song where the women can hear it. They keep even the existence of the song a secret from them. Bears, however, understand human speech and, inconsequence, an Indian planning to hunt one must never voice his intentions. (Although our sources are silent on this point, I had wondered whether Dena (Koyukon and Ingalik) women, like women in other tribes, can also talk to a bear if they encounter one, and successfully plead not to be harmed, the belief and practice now confirmed by Miranda Wright.)

The Koyukon say a woman must be chaste and busily employed while her husband is hunting beaver, and when he brings home his catch no one in the house may sleep until it is skinned. When a wolverine is killed, the animal is reverently carried back to camp with the cries, “The great one is coming! The Chief has arrived~” The carcass is laid on a blanket in the hunter’s house, and the finest food is offered to it by each family in camp; there are songs and stories about it, and the people feast on the offerings—as at a potlatch for a dead person. The Upper Dena, who no longer carried out these observances in Jette’s time, would simply burn the whole carcass after taking the pelt. The same was done for the wolf, although a fish was always put in the animal’s mouth, as was done for all carnivores. Places where these animals were cremated were taboo, especially to women, and one who had walked near such a spot became lame.

The larger meat animals, caribou and moose, and fish also, must be treated with respect. The first king salmon caught by the Koyukon was laid out on some fresh clean willow leaves; everyone in camp sprinkled it with fresh water from a willow branch, saying “Draw up your canoe here! To attract more fish. Everyone ate a piece of the salmon, and the women wore cords of twisted willow bark about the neck and wrists.

The Ingalik observed a similar feast for the first salmon, and for the wolverine, and a ceremonial skinning of the wolf when these animals were killed, but curiously enough they lacked a bear ceremony, although this is all but universal among circumpolar peoples of the northern forests in Eurasia and North America (Hallowell, 1926).

In general, the Indians were careful not to leave any bits of animal flesh, skins, bones tufts of hair, or even blood around camp where someone might step on them. In our excavations we found very few animal or bird bones that had not been made into tools, or were not partially shaped with that intention. People were also careful to bundle up their own hair combings, nail parings, the afterbirth, and even old clothes and they cached these in trees outside the village to avoid contamination. Especially dangerous to the hunting success of a man was contact with a menstruant or pubescent girl, and for this reason the latter was secluded in a corner of the house for a full year, (shortened if necessary), while the menstruating woman, like the new mother, also avoided contact with a man and his possessions.

Eventually, as the rules for honoring the dead game were relaxed, the Koyukon limited their precautions to freshly killed games, about which presumably the yega still lingered, while the flesh and bones of animals or fish a few days old could safely be given to dogs. Women, who formerly were excluded from eating certain parts, were now free to do so, although in 1935 many of the older rules were still being observed.

Cited From: Tales from the Dena, Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk, and Yukon Rivers, Edited by Frederica de Laguna, and Illustrated by Dale DeArmond, published by the University of Washington Press, ©1995.

Tales From the Dena Book

Spirits and Human Souls

“In the beginning all animals were man,” the Indian will say, for in the stories of Distant Time the characters combined both human and animal features, sometimes shifting from one to the other. Characteristics that appeared to be human usually became animals or birds at the conclusion of the story. Of greater importance was the belief that animals in Distant Time could speak. There are still animals that can understand Athabaskan (Athabascan)—that is why one avoids the use of their name in connection with hunting—but they have lost the power of changing their shapes, and of speaking. An exception to the last is the horned owl, whose hooting predicts the weather, and who speaks in excellent Athabaskan (Athabascan) to warm the shamans, (medicine men and women) of impending catastrophe, which the latter then use their powers to avert.

The world of the Dena and other Alaskan Athabaskans (Athabascans) tribes is an animate one. In an animate universe, there is really nothing like blind chance or impersonal forces; events occur because some Being has acted. As might be expected, the world is full of such beings—they are the spirits, and because they are ‘fierce and cruel’, men have to propitiate them, and bargain for their help. In Koyukon thought, among the most powerful beings are the Spirits of Cold, of Heat, and of the Wind, and these are responsible, of course, for the seasonal weather which so controls Dena lie as well as death. The most dreaded of the major spirits is the Ten`a-ranide (denaagheneede, Denaranida), the ‘Thing for Man”, that is ‘the thing that kills people.’ It is also known under other names, as the “Spreader of Disease” or the “Evil Spirit.”

Among the lesser spirits are those associated with living beings. It was the general belief among the Koyukon that humans have two kinds of ‘spirits’ or ‘souls.’ The primary soul, which animates and remains in the human body until death, is the nokabbedza or nokobedza or nukk`ubedze (noq`obidza). The outer or secondary spirit is the yega, ‘picture’ or ‘shadow.’ Man has a yega, but so do animals, plants and even some (all) inanimate objects; but only man has the nukkubedze. The Disease—Spreader, “Ten`a-ranide (Dena-ranida) kills by sending ‘earth sickness’ in the form of a phantom that prowls the settlement at night. It is assisted by innumerable less malignant spirits nekedzaltara, nek`etsaaldaaghe, visible only to shamans as monstrous animal forms that are also abroad in the dark. That is why people are loath to venture outdoors at night. Almost all the performances of the shamans are directed against the Disease-Spreader or one of the lesser assistant demons, for these spirits cause death by eating human souls. The human shadow sour or spirit (yega) can be eaten, or lost through fright, and the person does not die immediately, but when the soul (nukk`ubeze) is devoured, the person dies. Such a death comes to every person. All are victims of the monstrous appetites of evil spirits.

The Ingalik Athabascans give the name yega to souls and spirits, also to the shadow. The Giyeg is the evil spirits that kills men by separating the victims the victim’s yega from his body and then eats his corpse. All human beings are so eaten. The Giyeg sends disease simply by thinking about his intended victims. This is just as if he were setting traps to catch them, and they will die in a day or two, to be cooked and eaten, unless the Giyeg can be distracted. Other spirits help Giyeg to trap human beings. While the person is alive, his yeg or shadow is called his denayeg (person’s spirit); the yeg of a living animal, like bear, would be called its ‘bear-yeg.’ The Giyeg is both singular and plural: It (They) send(s) disease, and is (are) attracted by noise; therefore, people try to be quiet, especially at night. The Giyeg send(s) dreams, and that is when the denayeg leaves the human body to wander during sleep. The cannibal women in the myths are said to be manifestations of Giyeg, and bad medicine men are his assistants, killing people they dislike for Giyeg to eat. The medicine man dies only when another practitioner with a stronger denayeg overcomes his and gives it to the Giyeg. The word for spirit is clearly the same in these related Alaskan languages:

. The word for spirit is clearly the same in these related Alaskan Athabascan languages:

Yega (Koyukon)

Yeg (Ingalik)

Yegi (Ahtna)

Yeik, Yeigi (Tlingit).

The Fate of the Human Soul

Yet the human soul (nukk`ubedze) is immortal, according to the Koyukon. It lingers by the body and the grave, then journeys up the Yukon or Kuskokwim River to the afterworld, where it waits to be reincarnated in a human child. Such a soul is called Na-redenilna, (naaghedeneelne, naredenilna)—“those who are becoming again,’ and the afterworld where they wait is exactly where the town of Dawson was built! The souls of shamans also go up the Yukon or Kuskokwim when they die, but they travel in a tunnel under the river and go to a separate place to wait. A few may be reincarnated in the form of the animal which they assume when making their shamanic journeys, but most return as human babies. Jette` wrote that this human ‘inner soul’ so longed for reincarnation that it might enter the body of its clan animal (caribou, bear, or fish), while waiting for a human baby to become available, and then it might have to battle other souls, also wanting to be reincarnated.

In these afterworlds, the souls continue the kind of occupations they would pursue if alive. They hunt, but the animals they kill are of species unknown to us, as can be seen from the bones which the ghosts neglected to burn. These are the fossil Pleistocene remains, “Bones of the Underground Game,” that we find in the frozen silts. Thus, on the south bank of the Yukon, about thirty miles below Tanana, near the boneyards or Palisades, Jette` noted a great collection of mammoth tusks and other fossil bones, which the Indians called “the cutbank of the Na-radenilna”—‘souls awaiting reincarnation.’ The bank there has since caved away.

The human soul is not only immortal but sexless, according to the Koyukon, so that the soul of a man may return in the body of a girl. People may recognize the returned soul by birthmarks or character traits retained from its former incarnation. Reincarnation may or may not be connected with giving the name of a long—dead relative to the new baby.

The Ingalik believe that a person has three parts: a body, a soul (or shadow denayeg), and breath or speech, the last becoming a kind of ghost that inhabits the graveyard after death. The soul might go to one of four afterworlds, depending on the manner of death, but it is uncertain whether the denayeg was ever reincarnated, for each baby was said to receive its own new soul.

Death and Funeral Ceremonies

Death, and the ceremonies associated with it, forms the central social and religious events in the lives of the natives.

All the Dena believed that the soul (ghost) of the recently deceased is dangerous to those who have been close to it in life, for it may try to take a relative or friend with it on the journey to the Land of the Dead. For this reason, the Koyukon used to carry a dying person outdoors, and, after the death, would build a fire in front of the door, or would ring the dwelling with a line of charcoal, barriers which the ghost could not cross. Next morning, while the women and children in the settlement stayed indoors, the men would try to ‘run the ghost out of town’ and start it on its way upriver. While the close relatives and members of the deceased’s clan mourned, members of another clan took charge of the body, washing and dressing it in the clothing saved for that purpose. Grease was put on the hands of the corpse before they were encased in mitten to prevent the ghost from seizing another soul. It is reported that the Dena individual who was dying would claim that he or she had been warned by an omen, and accepting the inevitable, would even cheerfully anticipate lying in a fine coffin and wearing new clothing, articles which caring relatives would place where the invalid could see them.

The Koyukon formerly bundled up the body and put it up in a tree or on an elevated platform. Sometimes it was placed, erect, inside a number of poles stacked up to form a tipi—like or cask—like receptacle. Only where no trees were available would the body have been left on the ground. For ten days or so, food would be given to the death by burning it in a fire at the grave, until the deceased was judged to have become accustomed to the food of the ghosts.

The Ingalik of Anvik and the people of Holikachaket put food and water beside the body while it was still in the house. They did not take the body out until the shaman had given the signal, for they wanted the ghost trapped inside, not free to roam. A four—day funeral was held in the kashim (community hall), where the corpse was propped up to witness the dancing and singing in its honor. Food and water were placed beside the dead, and renewed frequently, but it was some old person who consumed them. These down—river Indians put the bodies in wooden coffins, and further offerings of food were made while the coffin was still on the rack awaiting burial. In former days a slow fire was kept smoldering below the rack to dry the corpse. Later, the coffin, sometimes double—planked and, for an important man, painted with images of thee animals he had hunted, was place in a grave house or on an elevated stage. The poor, lacking coffins, were simply interred, wrapped in bed skins or matting. Those who died violent deaths (by suicide or war) were cremated.

The Tanana, like the Ahtna and the Tanaina, cremated the dead, and later disposed of the bones and ashes in trees, or in the ground.

Among all the tribes, people who had been in close association or physical contact with the deceased had to observe rites of purification before they could resume normal life. These were often more stringent for the widow than for the widower. Mourning might last a full year before she remarried.

After contact with whites, all these people began to inter their dead in cemeteries. The missionaries, of course, encouraged inhumation. Usually a little house would later be built over the grave, and sometimes the individual grave plot was enclosed by a fence. Articles used in transporting the body or in digging the grave, and objects that the deceased had used or treasured were often left at the grave. In the 1890s at Anvik, grave goods were ‘killed’ (broken, pierced by a stake), so the deceased could use them.

The best possession of the deceased, along with many additional gifts, would be distributed, months later, by the relatives or clanmates at the potlatch to those who had worked on the body or the grave. This is the Feast for the Dead, given by the community every year or two to memorialize those who have died since the last celebration. Formerly held in midwinter, it is still observed in March or April in Nulato and Kaltag as a truly religious ceremony. It is certainly the most important one for the Dena, for through it the Native cultural identity and values are reaffirmed, and the bonds of society are strengthened. While it may have been something of an interclan ceremony in the past, it now has become clearly an intervillage one.

Since many guests come from other settlements, and this ceremony cannot be held until the hosts have accumulated sufficient wealth and food, it may not take place till more than a year after the funeral. For example, in 1907 at Kokrines on the Yukon above Ruby, one man alone is estimated to have given away goods worth $1,600, and at Kaltag one man gave complete sets of fur clothing to seventeen persons at one feast. Therefore, two settlements, like Anvik and Shageluk, or Nulato and Kaltag, or even Nulato and the Eskimo of Unalakleet, might host a ceremony in alternative years. The host village, and especially the person who ‘dress’ the special guests gain prestige through their generosity.

The function of the Feast for the Dead is to memorialize the recently deceased and to supply the spirits of the dead with food, clothing, and trade goods. These they receive when the living, who have worked on their graves and who now represent them, enjoy the actual gifts and food given to them as payment for their services. Always one or more of the relatives of the deceased will ‘dress’ in a complete suit of winter clothing those who have been most helpful at the time of the death or funeral. These are the special guests, who in their own personal become symbolically the dead being memorialized. The rites also allow the grieving relatives to express fully their sorrow during the week—long singing of special eulogies composed for the dead, and of similar songs from previous occasions. Each relative of those memorialized is supposed to compose his or her own eulogy for the whole group to sing, but those unskilled may have another ‘out the song in his or her mouth’; as many as thirty songs have been composed for one celebration. To these mourning songs, sung by a chorus of men, the women dance in place, their movements symbolizing the catching of tears in the kerchiefs they hold in both hands. It is said that this dancing and singing make the dead ‘walk again on the earth’ thereby hastening their reincarnation. The ceremony finally enables the mourners to put their grief behind them in the last joyous night of feasting, dancing, and gift giving.

This final part of the ceremony is called the “Stick Dance” (heeyo, hi`o), being named for the decorated pole or stick that is carried through the village and set up in the center of a large house or in the kashim. While the pole is being danced though the village, those in the hall sing the twelve sacred “Stick Dance Songs.” These must be rendered in the correct order and are forbidden on any other occasion. When the pole is installed, the entire assembly begins to dance around it clockwise, to the rhythmic repetition of the syllables “hee-yo,” with musical variations. Such dancing continues in festive mood throughout the night and well into the next day, when the pole is taken outside and broken. At one point, the gifts to be distributed, including bolts of cloth, are brought in, all tied together to form a long garland, and all dance this around the pole. Finally, the exhausted dancers reach a trance—like inner peace. The last evening, after an elaborate and bountiful feast, called a potlatch by the Koyukon, with plenty of leftovers to be taken home, the surrogates for the deceased put on the beautiful new furs with which they have been dressed from head to toe. They are careful to pull the hoods of their parkas over their faces, so that they will not look at anyone and thereby take that person’s soul into the next world. Others who helped with the funeral, or have come from a distance, receive special gifts, but everyone attending gets a small present, like a handkerchief, as a souvenir of the Stick Dance, or as a blessing. The new winter furs and the other gifts are left in the porch of the kashim overnight so that the spirits of the dead may take possession of them. The next morning before the visitors leave, the new dressed persons walk about introducing themselves by the names of those whom they have represented, shaking hands with their relatives and friends, symbolizing the last good—byes of the dead.

For the Lower Koyukon, the decorated pole was the symbol of the Feast for the Dead. Farther up the Yukon, at Kokrines, for example, there was no pole and the ceremony would be held within a large area enclosed by a fence (nootseel, nutsil). The feast was not eaten there, but the food was distributed to each family to be eaten at home, after some bits had been put in the fire for the deceased. Singing, dancing, and distributions of gifts seemed to have been much like those at Nulato. In former times, among the Koyukon, young widows may make a brief appearance, stark naked, to indicate that they were ready to remarry. Also in the past, there used to be races, games, and wrestling matches out of the door, now the Upper Koyukon play cards indoors.

At Anvik, still farther down the Yukon, the dead were also remembered by the Ingalik at the Partner’s Potlatch, and especially at the Potlatch for the Dead. This ceremony, sponsored by a single rich man for a relative who had died, was given to honor guests, among whom the most important was a man selected from another village (treated symbolically as the Village of the Dead), who acted as a stand—in or representative of the deceased. Thus, the new garments given to him supposedly went to the dead person, and the food offered to the guests was ritually offered to the dead but was actually consumed by the guests and the old people. On the last night, the Hot Dance might be performed; this is the Ingalik equivalent of the Nulato Stick Dance (heeyo), but it also included the Eskimo game of “Putting out the Lights” permitting sexual play.

The souls of the deceased were now satisfied by these feasts, and would stay in the Land of the Dead until reincarnated. The ghosts of shamans, and of those for whom no heeyo had been held, might still linger about the village, to do good or harm as they chose.

Because the upriver direction is associated with death, cemeteries are usually located on the upstream side of the village, and no one willingly traveled upstream for several days after a death, for fear that his own soul would be taken away by that of the deceased. I believe that when a village was moved because of misfortunes it was usually relocated downstream from its earlier site, although still later the original village site might be reoccupied, or an upstream location settled.

The Shadow Soul or Spirit

The spirit, or yega (yeege`, yiga`), shadow soul, of each Koyukon and of each animal is a protector, in the sense that it would avenge the injury or death of its ward. The Dena, however, debated philosophically whether the white people possessed yegas, because if they did not, they could be killed with impunity, provided no one knew about it. Other Dena believed that the white people, especially Russians and Creoles, were the Indians’ actual ancestors returned from the Land of the Dead; therefore they were simply returned souls and had no yegas, all of which came to the same thing.

According to Jette` (1911), if a person with a yega were killed, the yega’s inevitable revenge could be avoided only by cutting open the victim’s body and eating a bit of his liver or fat. Jette’ goes on to explain that this was apparently what was done when the Koyukon Indians murdered the Russian, Ivan Belegin, on their way to attack their Native enemies at Nulato in 1851. Dall’s account of this act (1870), however, Jette` criticized as exaggerated, probably because the witness did not understand it. A similar belief and practice in the case of manslaughter were described to me by the Copper River Ahtna. It was not an instance of gustatory cannibalism, but a gruesome precaution. For many days after this terrible act, the Ahtna killer would have to live apart, observing stringent taboos and rituals. But he usually came to a bad end, anyway, going crazy before he died. The Peel River Kutchin also practiced such ceremonial cannibalism after slaying one’s first victim, and this was corroborated by the Crow River Kutchin, in both cases, as among the Dena and Ahtna, to prevent a serious illness, described as involving convulsions. This belief and practice may possibly have been more widespread among the ancient Alaskan Athabaskans (Athabascans) than has been recorded. An Ingalik warrior may eat the eye of an enemy he has killed, in order to obtain the latter’s power, but this is a different affair.

Cited From: Tales from the Dena–Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk, and Yukon Rivers, Edited by Frederica de Laguna, and Illustrated by Dale DeArmond.Published by University of Washington Press, ©1995.

Tales From the Dena Book

Upper Kuskokwim Dialect

owl, gray = tsech`isgwt`

owl, hawk = diloy`dudaya

owl, horned = nich`odzighe

owl, short–eared = noldis

owl, snowy = yismo

owl, unidentified = ch`iltsoya

Snowy Owl

snowy owl = Nyctea scandiaca

true owls = Strigidae

Other Names: Some other names for the Snowy Owl are Arctic Owl, Great White Owl, Ghost Owl, Ermine Owl, Tundra Ghost, Ookpik (Yupik Eskimo Translation), Scandinavian Nightbird, White Terror of the North, and Highland Tundra Owl.

Description: 24″ (61 cm). Wingspan = 55″ (1.4 cm). A big and round–headed owl, from pure white to white with dark spotting. Female is larger and darker than the male. The Snowy Owl is a large, diurnal white Owl that has a rounded head, yellow eyes and black bill. The feet are heavily feathered. A distinctive white Owl, their overall plumage is variably barred or speckled with thin, black, horizontal bars or spots. Females and juveniles are more heavily marked than males – adult males may be almost pure white, although they have up to three tail bands. Adult females are distinctly barred throughout, and have from four to six tail bands. Immatures are very heavily barred throughout, and dark spotting may codominate or dominate the overall plumage. Intensity of dark spotting varies with the sex of the immatures, females being the darkest. Juveniles are uniformly brown with scattered white tips of down.

Voice: The Snowy Owl is virtually silent during nonbreeding seasons. Usually silent; a hoarse croak and a shrill whistle are head on the breeding grounds. During the breeding season males have a loud, booming “hoo, hoo” given as a territorial advertisement or mating call. Females rarely hoot. Its attack call is a guttural “krufff-guh-guh-guk”. When excited it may emit a loud “hooo-uh, hooo-uh, hooo-uh, wuh-wuh-wuh”. Other sounds are dog-like barks, rattling cackles, shrieks, hissing, and bill-snapping. Nestlings “cheep” up to 2 weeks of age, then hiss and squeal.

Habitat: Open country: tundra, dunes, marshes, fields and plains. The Snowy Owl is a bird of Arctic tundra or open grasslands and fields. They rarely venture into forested areas. During southward movements they appear along lakeshores, marine coastlines, marshes, and even roost on buildings in cities and towns. In the Arctic, they normally roost on pingaluks (rises in the tundra) and breed from low valley floors up to mountain slopes and plateaus over 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) in elevation. When wintering in the Arctic, they frequent wind-swept tundra with little snow or ice accumulation. At more southern latitudes they typically frequents agricultural areas.

Nesting: 5 – 8 white eggs on open tundra with a lining of feathers, mosses, and lichens.

Snowy Owl distribution (Dark Green – Summer Range, Blue – Winter Range)

Range: Circumpolar. Breeds in American, in the Aleutians, arctic Alaska, and Canada; winters irregularly south to California, Texas, Missouri, and the Carolinas.

North America – Snowy Owls breed in the western Aleutian Islands, and from northern Alaska, northern Yukon, and Prince Patrick and northern Ellesmere islands south to coastal western Alaska, northern Mackenzie, southern Keewatin, extreme northeastern Manitoba, Southampton and Belcher islands, northern Quebec and northern Labrador. The Snowy Owl is highly nomadic.

During periods of lemming and vole population crashes in the Arctic, or excessive cold and snow in winter, mass movements of Snowy Owls occur into southern Canada and northern United States. These invasions occur every 3 to 5 years, but are highly irregular. Adult females stay furthest north while immature males move furthest south during these incursions. In some years small numbers may reach as far south as central California, southern Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, central and southeastern Texas, the Gulf States and Georgia.

Biography: This great white owl is a beautiful sight as it perches upright on a fence post or flies over a marsh. Strictly a bird of open country, it is practically never seen in a tree; it sits on the ground, a rooftop, or other exposed resting place. In the Far North where it breeds, it depends largely on the lemming supply for food. Lemmings undergo periodic population changes, due to population explosion and subsequent epidemics, and when their numbers decrease the owls must migrate southward to avoid starvation. In our latitudes the owls prey on rabbits, arctic hares, snowshoe hares, and other games, or even on dead fish on ocean beaches. In large refuse dumps they prey on Norway rats. Snowy Owls are mainly dependent on lemmings and voles throughout most of their Arctic and wintering range. When these prey are scarce they are an opportunistic feeder and will take a wide range of small mammals and birds. Some mammal prey include mice, hares, muskrats, marmots, squirrels, rabbits, prairie dogs, rats, moles, and entrapped furbearers. Birds include ptarmigan, ducks, geese, shorebirds, Ring-necked Pheasants, grouse, American coots, grebes, gulls, songbirds, and Short-eared Owls. Snowy Owls will also take fish and carrion.

Most hunting is done in the “sit and wait” style, swiveling the head as much as 270 degrees scanning for prey. These Owls are highly diurnal, although they may hunt at night as well. Prey are captured on the ground, in the air, or snatched off the surface of water bodies.

When taking snowshoe hares, a Snowy Owl will sink its talons into the back and backflap until the hare is exhausted. The Owl will then breaks its neck with its beak. Snowy Owls will often raid traplines for trapped animals and bait, and will learn to follow traplines regularly. They also snatch fish with their talons. Small prey up to small hares are swallowed whole, while larger prey are carried away and torn into large chunks. Small young are fed boneless and furless pieces. Large prey are carried of in the Owl’s talons, with prey like lemmings being carried in the beak.

Some nesting Owls switch from lemmings and voles to young ptarmigan when they become available. Snowy Owls do not hunt near their nests, so other birds, such as Snow Geese, often nest nearby to take advantage of the Owls driving off predators such as foxes.

Snowy Owls produce large, rough-looking cylindrical pellets with numerous bones, feathers, and fur showing. They are usually expelled at traditional roosting sites and large numbers of pellets can be found in one spot. When large prey are eaten in small pieces with little roughage, pellets will not be produced.

Snowy Owls have a direct, strong, and steady flight with deliberate, powerful downstrokes and quick upstrokes. They make short flights, close to the ground, from perch to perch, and usually perches on the ground or a low post. During hot weather, they can thermoregulate by panting and spreading their wings.

Breeding: Courtship behavior can begin in midwinter through to March and April, well away from breeding areas. Males will fly in undulating, moth-like flight when females are visible. On the ground males will bow, fluff feathers, and strut around with wings spread and dragging on the ground. Males kill and display prey in caches to impress females, often feeding the female. The Snowy Owl nests almost exclusively on the ground, where the female makes a shallow scrape with her talons on top of an elevated rise, mound, or boulder. Abandoned eagle nests and gravel bars are used occasionally. Nests may be lined with scraps of vegetation and Owl feathers. Nest sites must be near good hunting areas, be snow-free, and command a view of surroundings. There is little breeding site-faithfulness between years or mates in some areas, but in other areas, a pair of Owls may nest in the same spot for several years. Territories around nests range from 1½ to 6½ square kilometers (0.6 to 2½ square miles), and overlap with other pairs.

Breeding occurs in May, clutch and brood sizes are heavily dependent on food supply. Snowy Owls may not nest at all during years of low lemming numbers. Clutch sizes normally range from 5 to 8 white eggs but may be as many as 14 eggs during high lemming years. They are laid at approximately 2 day intervals. The female incubates while the male brings her food and guards the nest. Eggs hatch in 32-34 days at two day intervals, leading to large age differences in nests with large clutch sizes. Young are covered in white down. Young begin to leave the nest after about 25 days, well before they can fly. They are fledged at 50 to 60 days. Both parents feed and tend the young, and are fiercely protective and may attack intruders up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the nest! Nestling Owls require about 2 lemmings/day and a family of Snowy Owls may eat as many as 1,500 lemmings before the young disperse. Snowy Owls are single brooded and likely do not lay replacement clutches if their first clutch is lost. Almost 100% nesting success can be achieved during good vole years.

Numbers fluctuate wildly, usually in concert with lemming and vole numbers. For Example, Banks Island may have 15,000 to 20,000 Snowy Owls during good lemming years and only 2,000 during low lemming years with densities ranging from 1 Owl per 2.6 square kilometers (1 Owl per square mile) in good lemming years to 1 Owl per 26 square kilometers (1 Owl per 10 square miles) in low lemming years.

Mortality: Snowy Owls can live at least 9½ years in the wild and 35 years in captivity. Natural enemies are few – Arctic foxes and wolves prey upon them on their tundra breeding grounds, while skuas and jaegers may take eggs or chicks.

Cited From: The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds — Eastern Region. Written by John Bull and John Farrand, Jr., of the American Museum of Natural History, visual key by Susan Rayfield. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., p. 500-501.

Cited From: The Turtle Tracks Organization.

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds – Eastern Region Book Link

The Raven and the Owl

Believe it or not, but in Distant Times the Raven and the Owl were both white as snow. One day they met on the tundra, and raven said:

“Aren’t you tried of being so white, Owl? I know I am. Why don’t we each paint the other a different color?”

“All right,” the owl replied. “We can try and see what comes of it, I suppose.”

The Raven was pleased.

“Good! Good!” he cried. “Let us begin. You paint me first and then I’ll paint you.”

“Oh no,” said the owl. It was you who suggested it, so it’s you that has to begin.”

“Very well,” Raven agreed.

He scraped some of the burnt–out fat from a  lamp, and using that and a large feather plucked out from his own tail, set to painting the owl. He took great care doing it and drew gray spots of every size on each feather, larger ones on the owl’s wings and smaller ones on her breast and back.

“Oh, how beautiful I’ve made you, owl!” cried he when he had finished. “Just look at yourself.”

The owl looks at herself and could not get her fill of looking. “Yes indeed!” she said at last, please. “These spots are lovely. And now let me do the same for you. By the time I get through with you’ll be so handsome you won’t know your own self.”

The Raven turned his head towards the sun, squinted his eyes and froze on the spot. He was very eager for the owl to make a good job of painting him.

The owl set about it with great zeal. It took her some time to get done, and when she had, she looked the Raven over. Then glancing from him to herself, she found that the Raven was now brighter and more beautiful than she. Angered that this should be so, she came up close to him, poured what was left of the fat she had been using over him and flew away.

The Raven rubbed his eyes, and that he was now quite black all over, cried: “Oh, you sharp–clawed Owl, oh, you keen–eyed Owl, what have you done! You have made me blacker than soot, blacker than night!”

That is the end of my tale, and from that day on never has a Raven been seen that was not black.

Cited From: The Turtle Tracks Organization.

Sea Urchin

Can’t afford ‘virgin sturgeon’ caviar? Never mind. If you live near any of Alaska’s 33,904 miles of shoreline, you probably have access to a goodie that some say is more delicious than the finest caviar–the eggs of the sea urchin, a creature that is abundant in the shallow waters of most of Alaska’s sea coasts.

And so if you must feed a caviar taste with a cabbage–soup pocketbook, better find out when the sea urchins in your area are carrying full egg sacs. Along both the east and west coasts of the United States, the best gathering time appears to be midsummer through the end of the year. In south–eastern, the usual spawning time is April.

Preparation Tips

The ‘caviar’ are the only edible part of the sea urchin, both both male and female gonads are edible. However, the brighter the orange color–as in the female–the better the taste is thought to be. Gathering the roe is rather like shucking a very hard-shelled, hard–cooked chicken egg–easy enough if you have a hammer. Turn the sea urchin on its back, crack the test (the protective skeleton) in several places, pull off the lower part along with the viscera, loosen the egg sac from each of its five points and scoop it out with your finger.

Eat the roe raw, spread on bread or crackers and sprinkled with lemon. Unfortunately, the eggs from one individual will go about as far toward providing a meal as one hen would do feeding daily breakfast to a family of 10. It takes several sea urchins to produce a cupful (240 mL) of roe. But if you’ve priced sturgeon roe recently, you won’t find the effort. A cupful can go a long way.

Agugnas (Sea Urchins)

Sea urchins are gathered among the seaweeds whenever there is a low tide. They are opened with a thin stone or a knife. The eggs from the sea urchin are scooped out with the thumb and eaten raw. The sea urchins with light color are the ones which are good eating. Those which have a dark color are not very good to eat. They are said to be skinny.

Cited From: Nilgugim Qalgadangis–Atkan Food Recipe reprinted from Aleutian Wind, written by Moses Dirks and Lydia Dirks, 1979.

Cited From: Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans, published by Alaska Northwest Books, 1983.

Barbequed Urchin

Sea urchins are round spiny creatures that look like red, green or purple pin cushions. They live on rocks or kelp in tide pools or shallow waters near the low tide mark. All sea urchins are edible. Their bright orange eggs are considered a delicacy and eaten raw…or you can throw the whole urchin into your campfire, cook it until the spines burn, then crack it open.

Cited From: Alaska Tidelines, Volume II, Number 8, May 1980.

Cited From: Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans, published by Alaska Northwest Books, 1983.

Urchin Sea Eggs

Gather the sea urchins in the spring of the year. Scrape out the yellow part from the inside of the shell and serve it raw.

Cited From: Aleut Cookbook, Saint Paul Island

Cited From: Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans, published by Alaska Northwest Books, 1983.

Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans

Wikipedia on Sea Urchins

Todd Jason Baker Artwork

Raven Steals Daylight

When the world was created, everything was in darkness. All the daylight was kept in one little box. That one little box was hidden in Seagull’s house, and Seagull kept it all to himself.

Now, Raven, who was Seagull’s brother, thought that this just wasn’t fair. It was so dark and cold without any daylight. If only he could get that box. But how? Raven sat down and thought and thought.

Aha!! He had it — a plan, a great plan.

That night, when the tide was low, Raven went down to the beach and picked up some sea urchins. A sea urchin has a hard shell with little sharp spines all over it. After he had eaten these sea urchins, he quietly tip–toed up to Seagull’s house. Quietly he spread the sharp spiny shells all around the door step, then quickly he crept back home.

The next morning, Raven strolled over to see his younger brother. Seagull was in bed. His feet were all swollen. Poor Seagull.

“Oh my! What happened to you?” cried Raven.

“Did you gather some sea urchins last night?” asked Seagull.

“Why yes I did,” replied Raven, looking surprised.

“Well I guess those children of yours went and dropped their shells all around my front steps. I stepped on them and now look at my feet, just full of thorns.”

“Let me have a look. Put your feet up here,” said Raven. Seagull lifted up his feet.

“Now how do you expect me to see in this darkness? Open up your daylight box a little, Seagull.”

Seagull opened up his box a tiny, tiny bit.

Raven had a knife and kept jabbing Seagull with it, in the wrong place.

“Owie! Owie! Ouch!” yelled Seagull.

“Well, if you give me a little more light I could see what I was doing. Give me more light!” complained Raven.

Seagull opened the box a bit more.

Raven kept pricking and jabbing Seagull’s foot with his knife.

“Oh please, Raven, leave my feet alone. You can’t take the thorns out. You’re killing me.”

Seagull brought the box closer.

Quick as lightning, Raven threw off the lid, and then…

the daylight escaped, and spread all over the room. Then outside it went, spreading it’s lovely warm glow wider and wider till daylight spread all over the world.

Seagull saw his beautiful daylight escaping him, and he began to cry and cry. And he is still crying for his daylight today.

Just listen sometime, and you can hear him too.

Cited From: The Turtle Tracks Organization

“…We say some grouse and ptarmigan (spruce chickens) in the Kamishak area. Since they relied on camouflage for protection, they would allow us to approach them quite closely. Consequently, we found them an easy food supply. After a storm, they would often lie under the fluffy snow invisible to the eye. As we would drive along the trials with our dog team, they would often startle us by popping out of the snowdrifts in a flurry of white flakes, flying right over the bow of our sled. The Natives often rigged nets between trees to catch these birds. Then they would startle the birds with loud noises so they would fly into the nets…”

Iva Senft, as told to Mary J. Barry, “Camp Cookery, Trail Tonics and Indian Infants” , published in Alaska Sportsman®, July 1964.

Game Birds in the Field

The basic rules for handling birds once they’ve been killed are the same as for any wild game: bleed and gut, allow air to circulate in the body cavity, cool the meat quickly and thoroughly and keep it cold and dry till it’s cooked.

Big game hunters follow the rules without to much exception, probably because all other action for the day is pretty effectively halted when there is an enormous carcass to be dealt with somehow. The bird hunter can and often does just keep on shooting, counting on cold weather to ‘take care of the meat.’

A casual attitude toward field dressing any warm–blooded, or cold–blooded creature, small or big, risks spoiling the taste if not the safety of the meat.

Gutting & Dressing

After the kill, bleed birds as soon as possible by breaking their necks or cutting their throats and letting the heads hang downward until bleeding stops. Gut them while they are still warm.

To gut, pluck a strip clean of feathers from the end of the breastbone to the vent. Make a shallow incision around the vent to cut an opening large enough to poke your fingers through to remove entrails. Cut only through the skin and thin layer of meat. Be careful not to cut into the intestines. Reach into the opening with two or three fingers–as far up toward the neck as you can–rotate your hand to loosen all the organs and bring the innards out in one motion. Remove and save the giblets–heart, liver and gizzard–being careful not to rupture the gallbladder which is attached to the liver. Cut the flashy ends off the gizzard, open it out and discard the material in the center. Wipe off the giblets and wrap them in waxed paper. Store them in a cool place.

If the crop did not come out with entrails, make a slit on the back of the neck and remove it. While you’re at it, this is a good time to figure out how you might cook this bird. Take a look at the contents of the crop. If it’s grain or some other vegetarian substance, you’re in luck. If fish, well, try out one of the hints for ‘fish feeders’ directions that follow below.

At this time also excise the preen gland, a small double–lobed button affair on the back of the tail. You may have to lift some feathers to find it.

Like the scent hocks on deer and the similar glands on small game, the preen gland secretes an oil that may give an off taste to the meat. So cut well around it and remove it without puncturing.

The gland is full of ‘hairdressing’, or, in this case, feather dressing, which the bird picks at with its beak and then spreads along its feathers to make them shine. We are reminded of a George Orwell story about waiters in the fancy restaurants of Paris who ran their fingers through their carefully pomaded hair, then wipe the oil around the rims of plates to give them an elegant glisten just at serving time. Cut the preen gland.

Next thoroughly wipe the inside of the bird with a clean cloth, paper towel or grass. Unless you’re ready to cook it do not wash the bird, and instead, do what you can to keep it dry since water spreads bacteria that may cause spoiling. Above all, keep the bird cool. Do not wrap tightly in plastic or other material. Cheesecloth is a good meat wrapper to keep meat clean as possible in the field, whether it’s skinned birds or large animals.

In the Kitchen

Back at camp or at home, eviscerated ducks may be hung in a cool shaded place, a breezeway is ideal, for three or four days. Leave the feathers on to keep off dust, flies and insects or protect with cheesecloth coverings. Giblets, however, should be refrigerated and used or preserved, freezing is easiest, within a day or two. If nothing else, use them to start a camp soup.

Plucking

Birds still warm from their own body heat are easiest to pluck. If you have a refrigerator at hand to protect the meat once it’s bare–or the weather is consistently cool enough; that is, not rising above 40°F (4°C)–you can proceed with plucking immediately after eviscerating…or even before.

Next best is to have the birds well chilled but not frozen. Pluck ducks and geese dry, not scalded. Paraffin makes the job easier but isn’t essential.

To pluck ducks and geese take small pinches of feathers and pull them out–always pulling in the same direction they grow to avoid tearing the skin. Then roll your hand against the skin to remove the down and pinfeathers. Remove the large guard feathers by twisting them gently but firmly. On small birds, you can save yourself the bother of pulling the large feathers by cutting the wings off at the first joint. Then make a taper of rolled brown paper, light it and singe off the down.

On geese there may be as much as 2 inches (5 cm) of down to pluck once the guard feathers have been removed. Simply peel it off, using a rolling motion of the hand.

SAVE clean dry breast and back feathers for pillow stuffing or for repair jobs to down–filled jackets and sleeping bags. And don’t forget the kids. Large goose quills make fun writing instruments.

IF You Have Paraffin

The procedure is, again, to have the birds well chilled but not frozen. Pull out the heavy back, tail and wing feathers. Cut off the wings at the first joint. Two pounds (1 kg) of paraffin is enough to process four ducks. Melt it in a tall, narrow container–tall enough that the entire bird can be dipped at once. Hot paraffin can cause the worst imaginable burns. Exercise all due caution with tipsy pots, open flames, curious children and yourself.. Holding the bird by its feet, dip it all at once into the paraffin and then immediately plunge it into ice water to harden the paraffin; the outside air will do if it’s cold. Peel off wax and feathers together. To reuse the paraffin, melt it down and strain out the feathers.

Some hunters don’t bother with plucking anything but large ducks and geese. Small ducks and upland birds are often skinned. But, if you want to roast these small birds with the skin on, there’s another way of making the plucking somewhat easier. Heat water in a deep pot–not boiling, just hot. A temperature of 150°F (65°C) will do. Boiling is 212°F or 100°C). Dip the bird in and out of the water several times until the feathers will pull away easily. Then let the bird drip dry for a few minutes and pluck the rest. Remaining down may be singed off.

For another ingenious style of plucking, see Kenneth Hughes recipe, “Duck In The Mud” following below.

Whatever the method, check the carcass of your bare bird and trim away shot holes or wounds that may have spread flavor from the entrails. Leg and back seem to pick up off–flavors more easily than does breast meat.

Duck In The Mud Recipe

While you are having breakfast at camp, build up a good campfire in a hollow. Your duck or goose is eviscerated, so wipe it inside and out with a cloth. Rub the inside thoroughly with salt and a little pepper. Stuff the cavity with an apple, an onion or both. Fold the feathers to cover all openings and plaster the whole thing with a coat of clay mud (sand or loam will not do) about an inch (2.5 cm) thick. Place the bird in the bottom of your fire among the ashes and cover it well with wood. Go hunting all day, and when you return for dinner, be prepared for the best duck or goose you ever tasted. Dig it out of the ashes, it should still be hot, and break off the clay. The feathers come with it.

Cited From: The Alaskan Camp Cook, by Kenneth Hughes of Haines, Alaska.

Skinning

Small birds–ptarmigan, grouse, and other upland birds especially–it is sometimes advisable to skin at the outset if you have a place to keep the meat protected and cool. Skinning is a whole lot quicker than plucking, doesn’t seem to harm the flavor of these small birds and may even improve it.

To skin birds, remove the wings close to the body. Cut off the foot at the joint just above it. Slit the skin under the tail and pull it back over the legs and up the body toward the neck. Then break the breast away from the back and cut the legs off close to the back. Save the heart, liver, gizzard, breast and legs and throw away the back, wings and entrails. Wipe the saved pieces thoroughly, don’t wash until cooking time, wrap them in waxed paper and keep in a cool place.

Cooking Game Birds

There are nearly as many controversies about the way to cook game birds as there are about other game meats. Most of them are the direct result of having to work with at different times. Cooks tend to make too many hard and fast rules. That it took a bottle of vinegar and a box of baking soda to make one old bird edible does not mean that’s the way to cook the bird henceforth. Here are some hints to help you be the judge of quality and how to accommodate it.

How Does A Hunter Bag The Best Eating Birds

“The best bet,” says one old–timer, “know what you’re shooting and don’t shoot fish birds. Concentrate on the seed and grass eaters. Among ducks that means pintails, mallards, teal, widgeon and so on. If you get a mistake bird–golden eye, merganser, old squaw–breast it and marinate in vinegar–water solution for a couple of hours before cooking normally.” Some other suggestions for ‘fish feeders’ are given below.

To Age Or Not To Age

Aging is the process of hanging killed game in various stages of dress, at least gutted and wiped clean, in a cool place for a period of several days to tenderize and improve the flavor of the meat. Most people agree that is an essential step for game animal meats–moose, caribou and the like.

About birds and the need for aging there is considerable conflict. Which birds should or shouldn’t be aged, how long, how they’re dressed are all subject to dozens of individual adjustments.

The English recommend bleeding birds immediately after the kill but not drawing or plucking them until just before cooking. Birds in this condition (i.e., with guts intact) may be hung until the legs stiffen and the skin turns green.

That is an extreme few hunters in Alaska–or elsewhere in the United States–favor. Since most ‘how-to’ advice insists that birds be bled immediately and then gutted as soon after the kill as possible, few Alaskan birds are aged in the English fashion.

If birds are to be hung outdoors in camp, many hunters do not leave the feathers on–partly so that the plucking job can be handed over to someone at home, we suspect–but also to protect the meat.

Feathered or bare and protected some other way, birds must be aged at a temperature that does not rise above 40°F (4°C), with a range of 34 to 38°F (1 to 3°C) being ideal. If the meat freezes, it doesn’t age very rapidly. And warm weather aging usually has another name–putrefying.

Roasting Wild Birds

Many recipes suggest placing extra fat such as strips of bacon over the breast of all wildfowl during roasting. Some birds need it; others–well-fed geese, notably–are fat enough to provide excellent self–basting without additional fat. To be sure the breast stays moist, roast birds breast side down until the last half–hour or so of cooking. Then turn the bird and allow the breast to brown, basting frequently with pan juices.

To Stuff Or Not To Stuff

Dressing is always a welcome accompaniment for roast wildfowl. Some cooks argue that the dressing should be baked separately because it takes on ‘too gamy a flavor’ cooked inside the birds. Others say that’s nonsense–the bird won’t have too strong a flavor if its not a ‘fish-feeder’ and the meat was properly cared for in the field. Obviously both opinions have a merit that must be judged by each cook on the spot.

But there is another reason for deciding to bake dressing separately. The length of the cooking time is considerably increased for a stuffed bird, and it is not just the meat that requires additional time. Bird AND dressing should both reach an internal temperature of 160 to 170°F (70 to 76°C). If the dressing is stuffed inside the bird, it will take longer for it to reach that safe point…additional time that risks overcooking and thus drying out the bird. For that reason, many cooks stuff the cavity of the bird with onion, carrot or apple, or sprinkle it with herbs for flavoring, and bake heavier stuffings–especially those containing bread–separately, basting the dressing from time to time with juices from the roasting bird. In any case, leftover stuffing must be removed from the bird, stored and reheated separately.

Hot Oven Or Slow?

Another controversy amongst cooks about the best way to roast wild birds is whether to use a slow oven or a hot one. Our advice, as usual, experiment to find out what suits your taste, knowing that there are good cooks who swear by each method. Hot oven is most often a recommendation for roasting ducks; slow oven for geese.

Hot-Oven Method

To use a hot oven method, start with an oven preheated to 450 or 500°F (230 to 260°C). Place the duck on a rack in a dry roasting pan and bake it, uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes. For those who like rare meat, the duck may be sufficiently cooked at this point. If not, reduce the heat to 250°F (120°C) and continue baking an additional half–hour, more or less, depending on the size of the bird.

Slow-Oven Method

The slow oven method for roasting a wild goose starts with an oven preheated to 325°F (160°C). Roast, uncovered, about 30 minutes per pound (0.45kg). Check breast juice with a toothpick; a pink–white color indicates the goose is done. If you have roasted the goose breast side down to prevent drying, turn it during the last half–hour of cooking and basting frequently with pan juices.

Fish-Feeders

What to do with a bird that has been eating fish–or any food that may transmit an unwanted taste to the meat–is another question fraught with disagreement. Some cooks say, “Give up. Toss the bird.” Others recommend one or another marination. Here are several:

• One way to overcome the fish flavor of wild ducks that have been feeding on fish is to soak the dressed birds a few hours in water to which a little baking soda and salt have been added. Then parboil them in fresh water with a small carrot and a little onion inside each bird. Throw away the carrot and the onion, wipe dry and stuff with sage–flavored dressing. Roast until brown and tender.
• If ducks are inclined to be strong in flavor, stuff dressed duck with peeled onion, apple or potato for a few days before cooking.
• Late in the season, spruce hens go on their winter diet and develop a spruce–type flavor. They may be converted into a delicacy, however. Both ptarmigan and spruce hens (spruce chickens) breasts may be sliced and put to soak overnight in a mixture of sour milk and herbs–a pinch of oregano, marjoram and rosemary. Buttermilk or sweet milk soured with lemon juice or vinegar may be substituted for sour milk. Use 1 tablespoon (15 mL) white vinegar or lemon juice for each cup (240 mL) of sweet milk. The next day, roll the meat in flour, saute it quickly in butter or oil to brown it on all sides, and then simmer it very gently in the sour milk mixture until it’s tender.
• Occasionally, a wild goose turned out to be too tough to be roasted in the ordinary manner. By steaming it for 15 to 30 minutes, then roasting it slowly, we made the feathered old–timer into a palatable entree.
• Wash and clean the bird thoroughly as you would any fowl. Pour about a half-cup (120 mL) of vinegar into the body cavity and over the breast. Allow this to serve as a mild tenderizer while you prepare a stuffing…if you feel you probably have a tough, old gander to prepare, it is best to forego roasting it. Cut the goose into serving size pieces and parboil them in salted water for 20 to 30 minutes. Then proceed with a recipe that calls for slow cooking in a Dutch oven or covered pot.
• Roasting goose in a brown paper bag saves cleaning the oven afterward. Several holes in the bottom of the bag allow grease to drain out, and the bird browns nicely without basting.

Cited From: Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans, published by Alaska Northwest Press, 1983.

Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans Cookbook

Here is a story about a man that traveled around the world. He had a brother that had two boys. So he was their uncle. Every time the boys came around to the uncle’s place he told them, “Get me melted snow for drinking.” The boys were really getting tired of this because their uncle was not doing anything and he was always staying at home.

The boys comes home and told his father, “Why is my uncle always telling me to get him water?”

“Well,” his father said to him, “Next time he asks you to get him water, put dog manure in the bottom of the bucket, and then put snow on top of it. Maybe if you do that, he will go hunting.” So on the next day, the boy went into his house again, and he asked him to pack snow for water. He said, “Yes,” and he took the birch bark basket and went out again. He put dog manure in it and covered it with snow. Then he took it back in to his uncle and went out again.

When the snow melted, the uncle found the dog manure floating in the water. He grabbed a stick, and with it, stirred up the water and manure becoming very angry at the same time.

Afterwards he got ready to travel. He got his sled ready and loaded it. Then he started to pull the sled down the trail.

‘I will never come back,’ he thought to himself as he pulled his sled on and on. Finally, he came to a creek that had a glacier on it, and he found wolverine tracks there. The tracks went up the creek. “I wonder where that one is going,” he thought to himself as he followed the tracks.

As it began to get dark, he saw a fire. There was someone camping behind a beaver house. He had chopped the beaver house open and got all the beavers out. He was roasting a small beaver by the fire.

He told him, “You can make yourself a bed on the other side of the fire. When the beaver is roasted, you will eat.” By this time, the beaver was cooked. “You m ay eat half. I will have the other half only.”

Then he continued to tell him, “I came over the mountain, and there down in the small valley, I defecated. You should look for this place. And there was another mountain that I climbed over. There is a big valley. Down there in the bottom of the valley is a dry creek bed. I defecated there too. If you back track me, be sure to look at this place too.” Then Wolverine continued, “It is time for me to go to bed.”

“I’m going to bed also,” Ch`ititazkane woke up, the man was gone. He found out that he had eaten raw beaver the night before. Where he thought there was a fire, there was no fire. There wasn’t even a place where a fire could have been. So he looked around for the tracks and found where a wolverine had jumped in the snow. So he back tracked the wolverine like he was told. He went over a mountain and came to a valley where the wolverine had defecated. There he found a bear den. When he looked inside, there were a bear and cubs. He clubbed them and killed all of them. Then he left them there after he cut them up.

Again he pulled his sled where the wolverine came from. He came to a mountain and he pulled his sled over it. He came down the other side. He came to another valley with a dry creek bed. He was pulling his sled along the valley when he came to another valley with another bear den. This den was much larger than the last one. This one was a grizzly bear and cubs. He killed them, and kept on going. He came out in the plains away from the mountains.

As he traveled, many days passed. He kept traveling. Finally, spring time came and it started to get warm, but it froze at night. As he traveled, he came to a creek. The creek was open. So on the shore he made a home. He thought to himself, ‘Maybe I should make a boat, but I don’t know how to make it.’

At this camp, however, he found a good tree that could be split, and a good place to camp. So he made a home out of bark. Then he began to make a canoe. He got the tree and split it. Then he made a frame. He also got the birch bark to cover the canoe. As he was doing this, he thought to himself, ‘How am I going to sew this birch?’ Then he copied the breast bone of a spruce chicken. To make the gunwale, he covered the frame with the birch bark and it was ready to be sewed.

Then he went to bed and began to wonder, ‘How am I going to sew this the canoe.’ Then he thought, ‘Maybe I should go outside and call out for someone to come and sew my canoe.’ He did this, and an answer came from far back in there in the big trees, and another one came from the willows across the river. Then he went back to bed. After a while, there was a sound like someone landed out there. A second one landed by his canoe and they began to sew on it. They began sewing with awls.

“Maybe I should take a peek from the hole in the wall.” When he looked out, he saw there were two young girls sewing his canoe. In the morning when he woke up, he saw that his canoe was fixed. When he looked out the night before, he noticed the girls were pretty. The other girl was pretty too but her hair was messed up. So after coming out when morning came to inspect the canoe, he found that the girl who had her hair fixed nicely did a good job. He had to cut the thread on the side where the sewing was bad. He thought to himself, ‘Maybe if I call out again tonight, the girl that sewed the best will come back.’

When night came, he called again. The girl that did the good sewing came back. He wanted to marry this girl, but when he ran out to grab her, she flew off.

He looked at his canoe. It was done but nothing was done about the thread holes. Therefore, he began to wonder. He began to wonder how to fix that. Finally, he thought of spruce pitch.

He melted the pitch with coal on the end of a stick. Now the canoe was done. He put it in the water. There were no leaks at all in it. He also made a paddle. Then he loaded the canoe and headed down river, leaving his sled.

As he traveled down river, he came to someone tanning a hide. The hide looked like a man’s skin. He stopped to take a closer look and he asked her, “Is there anyone on this river?” “Oh!” she exclaimed and then she jumped down the bank to grab him, but she missed, and grabbed only the end of the canoe. She really got angry with herself. She was angry because she did not see him before he came close to her. So she poked an awl in her eyes. Then man stopped and looked at the hide closely. It was a man’s hide. The woman was a mouse. The reason why the mouse’s eyes are small is because it poked its eyes out with the awl.

The man traveled and he saw what looked like a fence, but it was a trap. The log trap came together in the middle. He thought to himself, ‘I must find out who set a thing like this.’ But then he also thought that this trap should only get the back of his shirt. So he paddled fast at it and went through it, but the trap got the back of his shirt.

The guy that set the trap came back and saw that he got a man in his trap. The trapper said to himself, “Maybe I got it long ago since its stiff.” So he examined it closely, and the one that was trapped also watched him at whatever he was doing. The trapped one made himself like a dead person. So the trapper packed him back to where he came from. He also said to himself, ‘I will rest along the way since it is a long portage.’ So he packed him for a while. He got to a ditch and then to the river. He propped him but Ch`ititazkane passed air. “Why are you passing air when you are dead?” he, the trapper, said to him. Then he rolled him over. He began to carry him and soon got to a ditch again where he descended and jumped on to the other side. He dropped him for a rest, and again, Ch`ititazkane passed air. He, the trapper, said, “Why is he passing air when he had died a long time ago?” So he carried him again for a while. Soon he got to his home, and he took him inside.

There Ch`ititazkane looked around and saw two old women sitting in one corner. There was a curtain there, but he did not know what this was for. Then he wished the trapper would put a club under his head. This the trapper did, and he told the women to look for knives to cut him up, but the women did not find any knives. The trapper got angry and fought with the women. The women began to cry and he turned around by the fire to warm up his aching back. While he turned his back away, Ch`ititazkane got his club and hit him over the head killing him.

There was an older woman there was in the corner who ran out the door. He started to hit her but missed. He hit her only on the tail. That is why now the wolverine has a flat tail. The woman was the wife of the one he already killed. He did not know this, however. The woman ran up a nearby tree. The man got his bow and arrow, and started to shoot her, but the wolverine woman talked to the arrow telling it not to hit her. Then he began to chop the tree, but Wolverine Woman urinated on him. So he gave up and left from where the wolverine had carried him.

From the place where the wolverine took him, Ch`ititazkane turned back and traveled on by canoe. He came to a fence. He saw a man standing there. He stopped and pulled his canoe up and walked over portage behind the man. The man that was standing there did not see him. So he went in the water below him and started to swim. He became a king salmon. As he was swimming along, he saw the man was ready to spear a fish. He thought to himself, ‘I wish he would pick me out from among the other fish.’

The man picked him, and he tried to spear him, he grabbed the tip off the spear. He swam back downriver with it. He came back out of the river and checked the spear tip. It turned out that the tip was a big bill of a seagull. Then he went back the way he had come to his canoe. He put the seagull bill under the deck of his canoe because he thought, ‘He will search me if I come to him in a canoe.’

He came round the bend and saw the fisherman. He asked the man, “How are you?” The man told him how the salmon got away with his spear tip and asked him if he was responsible for it.

Ch`ititazkane left again. He was paddling downriver when he came upon a woman who was working on a skin. When he came up, it looked like a human’s skin. He started watching really close. The woman said, “I am glad you came. No one ever comes. I will stay with you and live here.” Ch`ititazkane did not want to. He told her, “I am not raveling around looking for girls. I like being alone.” While he watched her, he went back into his canoe, then she said, “Wherever you stay over night, I will be there too. Even if you don’t want me, I will always be there.”

He left her there and continued downriver. He stopped when the sun was going down. He fixed his bedding and went to bed. He wondered if the girl would come. He was watchful but then he fell asleep. When he woke up, the girl was sleeping next to him. He didn’t touch her. ‘I wonder how she’ll kill me,’ he thought. He sneaked away. Again the sun was going down when he stopped. It was early when he awoke. The girl was there again. He didn’t like that very much but he couldn’t do anything.

He left again. He reached a creek and went paddling up the creek for a long ways. Next morning again the girl was there sleeping next to him. He got restless. He started to think of clubbing her. He was still wondering how she killed the people.

She got a small stick and spread his legs with it and poked the stick into him. When it sounded like it had crunched into him, she pulled it out. Only half the stick came out. “I think I finally killed the one I am following around,” she said. Ch`ititazkane lay still. The girl got up suddenly. Ch`ititazkane sprang up and clubbed her. He finally found out how she killed the men that slept with her. He left her lying there. He kept going and spent the night but she never came. ‘I killed her,’ he thought to himself.

It was early morning when he came around a bend and there was a house. There were many people there. They were glad to have some company. “We never see anyone. Where are you from?” they said. “You will stay with us inside.”

Ch`ititazkane did not want to. He was suspicious. He always had his club tied to him just in case something happened. They brought him in and made him comfortable. There were people all over. He got really drowsy and went to sleep. Then he heard them singing. All the people were singing and dancing. They were singing, “The person that came to us has died.” He opened his eyes slowly wondering what was going on. He moved a little. When he did, everyone looked surprised and stopped. He got up and said, “What’s all this noise while I’m sleeping?” They told him that they thought he died. “We always dance when one of us dies. We don’t know about sleeping,” they said. Ch`ititazkane said, “Where I come from the people go to sleep at night.” From that, they found out that people sleep.

When he left there, he saw something black on top of the river bank. He paddled across towards it. He floated down near it when he saw that it was a black bear. It was sleeping. It had blueberries smeared on its rear end. Ch`ititazkane smiled and said, “If someone comes paddling, he will laugh at you. You shouldn’t sleep like that with your rear end showing.”

The bear ran off into the woods when he heard it. It would have been like that to this day, the bear eating berries and sleeping along the banks of the river, but because Ch`ititazkane told him, that the bear is now in the woods somewhere when he is eating berries. You never see him along the river banks.

(c)1978–Personal Communication.

Video – Part 10 – Blooper on Making A Fur Ruff Series

This is a video blooper from the “Making A Fur Ruff” series. We just thought it would be fun to add it in the series.

If you would like us to make a fur ruff for you, please leave a comment or click in the link listed below:

Raven’s Ruff Stuff Arctic Gear