Making of a chief 

DAVID SALMON

Interview by JUDY FERGUSON

Published: February 6, 2005

First traditional chief of the Interior's 42 villages.

In 1972, TCC named Chief Andrew Isaac of the Upper Tanana the original first traditional chief. When Andrew Isaac died in 1991, Peter John of Minto replaced him as first traditional chief. When Peter John died in 2003, I became chief the following year.

A Gwich'in Athabascan, I was born in 1912 off the Yukon, Porcupine and Black Rivers on the Salmon River near Canada. My mother was from Old Crow country, and my father was from near Arctic Village.

My grandfather, King Salmon, was born about 1815 and was nearly 8 feet tall. He poled freight boats for the Hudson Bay Co.

After visiting the Gold Rush, my father, William, and my mother, Alice Salmon, continued their subsistence lifestyle, track-lining their boat from Fort Yukon to Salmon Village, 12 days upstream. Gee, today that is flown in 22 minutes!

When I was a young boy, we pulled one boatload of supplies for the winter, wearing no rubber boots, up the rivers to our cabin. We hunted and fished as we traveled. My parents were Christians, so we prayed every evening.

Tuberculosis was rampant in those days. Dr. and Mrs. Burke of St. Stephen's, the Episcopal mission at Fort Yukon, took care of the sick and orphaned. There was no government assistance.

My mother began to get sick in 1923. When I was 11, she died. I wondered, "Who's going to take care of me?" I had a little bow and arrow, my only toy.

Wanting to protect me from the sickness and needing to survive, my father took me from the village. I left to go trap with my father for the first time, breaking trail and camping in a wall tent. My older brothers and sisters were all grown. I had one younger sister whom my father sent to the Fort Yukon mission.

I followed my father out of the village, crying as I broke trail with my snowshoes. If you had seen me, you would have felt sorry. Gee, I had nothing.

In the evenings, my father told me stories about the migrations of our people. We had no radio, and the stories went right to my heart. He told me about Fort Yukon and sometimes Washington, D.C. They were like a far-off dream; I never thought I would go any of those places.

In the tent, our beds were spruce branches, caribou hides and cotton-covered, duck-down blankets. During the day, our four dogs pulled our stuff on a toboggan. Sometimes my dad prayed, "Please don't let my son die out here alone."

That spring, when it was time to trade furs, my father decided I was too young to trap and took me to the mission. I couldn't speak any English, but I learned about Cracker Jacks at the store -- and inside, there was a toy! I was scared of the horses in Fort Yukon and of the white people. But Mrs. Burke was kind; the kids at the mission followed her like she was a mother duck. Every day, we ate good food and slept in a warm room.

That September, a little girl caught the curtains on fire. Suddenly the mission was in flames. We made a bucket brigade down to the river, the only water, but we could not save the mission. We moved into another building while a new school was built.

Two years later when my father remarried, he came for me and my sister. He put enough supplies for a year and us into a boat with a heavy inboard. We went far upstream, past Salmon Village and into the Grayling River. After building a base cabin, we mushed deep into the wilderness, where we trapped for the next 18 years. We were the only ones from the Grayling River to the Canadian border: us, the animals and the mountains.

In the evenings while we skinned, my father told me stories of the Hudson Bay Co. When they first arrived, they taught the Natives to jig and play the fiddle. I missed Fort Yukon's dances and felt like I was in no man's land.

At the mission, I met Sarah. When I was 21, we married. Sarah helped me read and write better. I always tried to learn from other people.

Sarah and I trapped out of the Grayling River, but I mushed to get our mail in Salmon Village. When I was 29, I was made chief of Salmon Village. Wanting to get a government-funded school, the people asked me to move from the Salmon to the Black River. In 1941, we began Chalkyitsik village on the Black.

There was no air freight at that time, so I began freighting supplies with my boat from Fort Yukon to Chalkyitsik and Arctic Village. I started the Native store in both villages, and then I brought logs into Chalkyitsik for a school. I introduced potlatch, dog races and the first Christmas tree into our village. We were a happy little village, but we had no church.

I worked construction in Fort Yukon during the 1950s. I began studying the Bible there with Albert Tritt and became converted. When he died, I asked the minister at St. Stephen's if I could work with the church, so they sent me to Michigan to Bible school.

It was tough in those days to become an ordained priest due to the requirement of four years of college and three years of seminary. I asked Bishop Gordon in Fairbanks if they would make an exception for the Natives. In 1962, I became the first ordained Native Episcopal priest. Over the years, I traveled from Point Hope to Annette Island and often to the Lower 48. I served as archdeacon of Interior Alaska and of the Yukon.

In 1962, I went to Tanana for the first Tanana Chiefs Conference. I met Chief Andrew Isaac there and began talking more with Chief Peter John. In the early 1980s, we organized the elders organization Denakkanaaga. The old chiefs' words are life to the young.

Today, I share traditional Indian law and subsistence tool-making with our children throughout Alaska. In 2002, the University of Alaska honored me with an honorary doctorate of law.

By tradition, Indian law requires fathers to teach the necessary tools of life to their sons. The scriptures are my tools of life. I tell others (that) when they honor me, they are honoring God, whom I serve. With such tools, our people will survive another thousand years.

Judy Ferguson of Fairbanks is a publisher, freelance columnist and author of Alaska histories "Parallel Destinies" and "Blue Hills" and a children's book, "Alaska's Secret Door." Ferguson will publish a children's book about David Salmon this spring. Salmon also will be the focus of a book by Thomas O'Brien, transcribed by Janet Curtiss. For more on Salmon, see www.tananachiefs.org/corporate/chief_salmon.html and www.episcopalak.org/special_article_message_from_fds.htm. Ferguson can be reached at outpost@wildak.net.