1,371,585 research outputs found
Kaye Danielson
No full textKaye with her husband Michael John Danielson and two sons went to the original construction site of Jabiru East in 1978 on the edge of Kakadu National Park. Kaye was asked to clean the school, she set up a business named Jabiru Cleaning Service and cleaned construction worker's quarters, school and gave a final polish to new houses in Jabiru providing employment for numerous persons in Jabiru. Kaye started the Jabiru Cubs and Boys Scouts and was involved in various community groups. 1982, the family moved from Jabiru East into their new home in Jabiru and Kaye's entry into local government, the new Jabiru Town Advisory Council (JTAC) was formed to give residents a say in the running of Jabiru. She was the only female member of Jabiru Town Advisory Council and remained as a councillor until 1984, when JTAC became the Jabiru Town Council.Business Woma
Internview with Stewart Branborg, March 3, 2003, by Roger Kaye (also present: Mrs. Branborg)
No full textOral history interview with Stewart Branborg. Roger Kaye was the interviewer.
Stewart Brandborg was a former Conservation Director of the National Wildlife Federation.
Name: Stewart Brandborg
Keywords: History, Biography, Congressional operations, Connecting people with nature, Forest conservation, Human impacts, Parks, Subpolar environments, Wilderness, Olaus Murie, Howard Zanhiser, Mardy MurieINTERVIEW WITH STEWART BRANBORG
MARCH 3, 2003 BY ROGER KAYE
(Also present, Mrs. Branborg)
MR. KAYE: This is an interview with Stewart Branborg conducted March 3, 2003 in
Darby, Montana by Roger Kaye. Stewart, thank you so much for doing this with me
today. I’d like to ask you to begin with a brief biographical sketch of your background,
where you are from, and how you got into this wilderness work.
MR. BRANBORG: I was raised in a family with a mother and dad who had a great
appreciation for wildlife and wild country. They took me and my sister on major
expeditions into the wilderness of Idaho and western Montana. This partially, or
substantially, I would say, because of my Dad’s service for forty old years in the U. S.
Forest Service here in the Bitter Root. He was Supervisor for twenty years. I was
influenced by a fine biologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, William Jelison, who
took young people, a group of young men into the woods and on to the ranges of our
wonderful game animals. I decided to take up Wildlife Biology. I attended the University
of Montana for my undergraduate work. I became involved with field studies, range and
timber surveys. I had the opportunity to live on wilderness lookouts for a couple of
years. All of this I grew to value more and more through the years. In that process I was
invited to be part of a Mountain Goat life history study. I picked up on that in 1947.
During the next seven years, I devoted a major part of my time research while attending
the University of Idaho, Wildlife Research Unit. It was with the Fish and Game
Departments of Idaho and Montana that I worked on Mountain Goat studies. I had
become an area game Biologist for the northern part of Idaho and I was offered a job with
the National Wildlife Federation in 1954 by Charles Callison, the then Conservation
Director. That took me in to four and a half years of legislative work with Callison
working in all areas of conservation. Particular areas of concern with wildlife and of
course very strong support for the Wilderness bill offered by the Wildlife Federation, lead
by Callison. This put me in contact with Howard Zanhiser in about 1955. I became a
member of the governing council in 1956, of the Wilderness Society. Then, as a part of
the Executive Committee, I worked closely with Zanhiser. I was given great latitude and
freedom to pursue the Wilderness bill in support of the Zanhiser campaign. Indeed the
Wildlife Federation was one of his stalwart organizations that did much to promoting
understanding of the Bill. That took me through some four years with the Federation. In
1960, when the Federation became embroiled in a controversy, Callison and others within
my friendship circle departed. I went to the Society and asked for a job. Zanhiser
encouraged me to be in touch with the then President Harvey Broom. It was decided that
if I could make my magnificent salary of $8000.00 through use of direct mail and other
skills that I had captured at the Federation, I could go to work. So, I was enlisted for a
position as Director of Special Projects, I think the title was. From that after a couple of
years I became Associate Director under Zanhiser and when he succumbed in 1964, in
May, I was appointed to succeed him. The rest is history.
MR. KAYE: So you were Director of the Wilderness Society then?
MR. BRANBORG: I became his replacement in May of 1964, on the eve the final
signing of the Bill in September. It was my task at that point…we had waged this long
campaign from 1956 to 1964. There were seventeen Congressional hearings. There was a
strenuous effort of organize grass roots people for the wilderness cause and in support of
the Bill. It was my task to make people aware that in this great accomplishment of
setting the national policy in a preservation program we had only included some eight
million acres in the wilderness system. All the rest had to come through the laborious
process of public hearings, local studies, the passage of proposals up through the
hierarchy in the agencies and Congress. There would again be a round of hearings to see
the inclusion of these areas into the wilderness system. So that took me into
implementation and what I feel was my contribution; in organizing grass roots teams in
some forty states, in support of wilderness.
MR. KAYE: When you were with the National Wildlife Federation as Conservation
Director you were their representative on the refuge issue. What were some of the things
that you did with the Wildlife Federation in support of the campaign to establish the
Arctic Refuge?
MR. BRANBORG: I of course had fallen under the influence of Howard Zanhiser,
Callison at the Federation, and the Muries. Olaus had come to the University of
Montana in the 1940s to a northwest section meeting of the Wildlife Society. Here was
this sweet, humble epitome of a fine biologist.
The infusions from Olaus and Zanny I think crystallized by thinking about the
rich experience I had had in the backcountry. Those months on the lookout, and working
on trail and telephone line and wild country, and the great trips that I had had with my
family. It gave a framework for something that was deep in my psyche, my life. But
here it was brought together that needed our best effort to realize protection of all of the
unique things that we had experienced in the wild setting. I was working under Callison
on legislation, on educational campaigns. I am sure that part of my job was to make
contact with those members of Congress and their staffs to give them background on the
Arctic Range, and to support this effort. Of course in effective lobbying, the best job you
can do is to say, “Here in Olaus Murie. Here is Mardy Murie.” I had the realization of
the value of those people, so wherever we could convene good, open minded staff people,
members of Congress, House or Senate, we would do that. That was my expertise, not
that I had fully accomplished all that I ultimately as a base of my competence as a
lobbyist. I know that these people had touched me, and as a representative of the
Federation, I could speak with real conviction and eloquence because of my tie to these
spirited people.
MR. KAYE: Interesting! Were the people, the legislators and so on that you lobbied
touched or influenced my the Muries and their philosophy about wilderness?
MR. BRANBORG: Some were. The John Sailers, the Lee Metcalfs, just to name a
couple. In that period, conservation and the environment were not popular causes. You
introduced yourself with your card. The best way to get into a Congressional office was
have people call from the home state, or district saying, “we’re sending in Steward
Branborg to discuss this issue with you.”
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MR. BRANBORG: I had a lot of background in doing that. So if I really wanted to get
in I would call the local affiliate of the Wildlife Federation; a Sportsmen’s group and say,
“Would you mind writing and or calling that office and telling them we have this
important issue to bring to them?” That would prepare the groundwork. But at that
time, when you walked in you didn’t necessarily get a warm reception if you didn’t have
that kind of introduction. But there were those, lets say epitomized by John Sailor, who
embraced the concept. He knew it and he felt it. And so he would steep in the presence
of Olaus, and Zanny and Mardy. He savored them for what they stood for as people,
and their testimonials. He loved what they spoke for. He sensed the values that they
represented. Some others later, the Udalls, they were good. Senator Nelson was good.
Hubert Humphrey in Minnesota, the first introducer of the Wilderness Bill on the Senate
side. These people had the feeling. They had the measure of the quality of these spirited
folks who spoke for the wilderness. And they themselves sensed what we valued.
MR. KAYE: What did you do as far as your position with the Wildlife Federation to
encourage members to write their Representatives and get involved? Did you have a
campaign to involve members?
MR. BRANBORG: There was a very strenuous campaign particularly as we went into
the hearings for the Wilderness Bill. It was outreach, mobilizing people. In Idaho, as a
matter of fact I was assigned to go with Ted Trueblood with my 35mm slides on the life
history of the Mountain Goat. We held meetings at the Rotary and the schools all the
way from southern Idaho up to Sand Point and the Canadian line in every community we
could reach. It was just proselytizing for the Bill, explaining why it was so very
important to gain its passage. But in every instance, when there was a field hearing, we as
the Wilderness Society would go into the grass roots communities, bring together those
who shared this concern about wilderness. That concern had been nurtured through a
series of mailings that Zanhiser had engineered from Congress, to the citizens using the
mailing list of the Wildlife Federation and most of the conservation groups. They
numbered into the hundreds of thousands as I recall. The Federation was some three
hundred thousand. And there was Audubon, the Sierra Club, the National Parks
Association and other groups. Everybody on those lists had received these descriptions
of the Bill, its purposes, the rationale for its passage, the speeches that were made by
Sailor and Humphrey upon introduction. People had had repeated mailings saying, ‘here
is the Wilderness Bill. Here is the effort that we’re making. Here is why people from all
over the country must be in touch with their members of Congress to voice their
support.’ It was that foundation that gave us the starting point.
MR. KAYE: Was this the same approaching, but probably on a much smaller scale in
your advocacy for the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?
MR. BRANBORG: I think with the Arctic Wildlife Refuge of course you focused on the
key committees in the House and Senate. You focus on those members who will be
friendly. You do that systematic approach. You call and mail to your membership out in
that state, and the key leaders. You say, “Here’s the Arctic. Here’s what it means. Here
are the magnificent dimensions of what it represents for wildlife and wildness.” Then you
have those people apply words of encouragement and pressure to those who are on that
Committee. Of course you are watching that vote. You are going in from the Washington
level to say, “How’s the Congressman doing? What will the Senator do on this?” You are
talking to staff. You are talking to the member. You’re walking with the member to the
House floor or Senate floor. You are catching him wherever you can. But you’re nailing
down his vote. I am damnably sure that was my job on the Arctic, along with Callison
and Zanhiser. The Muries of course were not in the Washington scene except when they
came to visit. I think C. R. Goudermooth, the Wildlife Management Institute, Ira
Gabrielson, I think they were fully in ownership of this campaign. You probably read in
the context of this documentation their testimony. They were working with Zanny, with
Callison in coalition.
MR. KAYE: The document that you point out is a hearing record for a Senate testimony
that you gave on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation in 1959, recommending the
establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In reading through this, one thing
that interested me was that it was very eloquently written. You are representing a group
that is largely hunters and hunting interests, yet you don’t focus on that as being the
value of setting this place aside.
MR. BRANBORG: I believe that’s because of my own personal feeling and love for the
living creature. The appreciation emanates I believe, from my parents. But having come
out of Wildlife Management schools you know the heavy emphasis on harvest. Having
survived with Annalee on Elk and Deer meet through the winters, and being a hunter, I
was increasingly appreciative of the living creature. While I had to represent the interests
of the hunting community and recognize appropriateness of hunting in specific places, I
didn’t feel in my heart that this was the function of the Arctic; to provide hunting
opportunities any more than any of us emphasized recreation.
MR. KAYE: What did you see as the primary value of what became the Arctic Range?
MR. BRANBORG: I believe I saw through the eyes of Olaus and Mardy the
magnificence of the area, the rich community of wildlife and this spacious, endless
panorama. And here was the community of life and this spectacle, this museum. These
people were so articulate and so persuasive that that influence came on what I had had as
a kid and as a young biologist in the field and it coalesced with all of the things in my
background to make me see that in the wild untrammeled setting we had things that far
transcended the human experience of taking an animal or indulging in one kind of
recreation or another. Putting oneself in that setting as an observer who traveled as
quietly and unobtrusively as he could, but to savor it, to measure it, to watch it and above
all, to leave it untouched as much as humanly possible.
MR. KAYE: In your testimony to the Senate in 1959, you talked about the importance
of an area, “free from man’s domineering influence.” Tell me what you meant by that in
the context of the Arctic Refuge.
MR. BRANBORG: Significant signs of course, of human presence. Really, I get down
to any signs of human presence. What I was thinking about then, I can’t bring back. But
basically, leaving the setting without any signs of having been there, as much as possible.
And I think that is incumbent upon us. And I think that’s the test that we face now.
How do we give support to wilderness with a public that says ‘this is the ultimate
criterion, we will come, we will savor, we will indulge ourselves, but we will leave it
basically untouched’. Well of course it’s almost impossible to not leave some sign. But I
think that that is what I felt at the time, as much as I can project into that time fifty years
ago almost.
MR. KAYE: Your quote, “free of man’s domineering influence’ is very similar to the
Wilderness Act statement of ‘wilderness is in contrast where man and his works
dominate”. It seems like your advocacy for the Arctic Refuge and the Wilderness Act
was very much the same.
MR. BRANBORG: Undoubtedly, because I had been one of the early readers of the
Wilderness Bill drafts. Zanhiser was leaning on me to look for imperfections as he was
looking for people like you in the agencies. There were Dick Griffith, and people in the
Forest Service and many different disciplines to whom he presented the draft of the
Wilderness Bill and asked that they read it and study it. He wanted them to refine the
language and make it as good as they could for the purpose of the wilderness. By this
time almost on the eve of the introduction of the Wilderness Bill, right in this period, I
had been exposed to those words and those thoughts, most of which had fallen from
Zanhiser’s good mental process to the tablet where he did his first draft of the Bill. That
stuff was being fed into my system.
MR. KAYE: I noticed you used the word ‘wildness’ as an adjective, as a descriptive of
the values of this place in some of your writings. Tell me what you meant by ‘wildness’,
and what some of the parts of it are.
MR. BRANBORG: Of course, coming on the scene as a visitor, watching the land within
vision of the magnificent glaciated mountain basin, the meadow, the lichens the mosses,
the Labrador Key, that’s some of the country that we both know. I think there’s in
periods of isolation, when you’re by yourself, you do feel that there is energy and a
presence that is much greater than self. You are just there. You watch and feel this and
you listen and you hear. You marvel at what’s there. And you absorb what’s there to
the best of you ability in the absence of the knowledge of all that goes on within the
lichen or the Lemming, but you are the furry Marmot, the Caribou. It’s enveloping. It
comes over you. You sit and absorb the marvel of it.
MR. KAYE: Is this the wildness of the wilderness that you refer to?
MR. BRANBORG: This is the wildness, yes. No patterns of conformity, no impacts of
human beings are present. The communities of animal and plants, the glacial and
geological forces, they are all there working in their timeless way. Any reflection brings
you to the realization that this is the evolutionary process of life and the landforms. You
are here as an observer. And you are here as a humble agent who gets to see this without
any interference on what is taking place.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting that you mention the word evolution. Olaus Murie used
that work very often in his wilderness writings. The idea being, let me ask if I understand
Murie correctly from your understanding of him; that a part of the value of this place
would the evolutionary process would be free to continue here unhendering by people.
Was that a value of this place to you?
MR. BRANBORG: I think very definitely. Here is the stop where things are continuing.
The landforms are changing. The animals are changing. The plants are changing, and the
climate may change. It is an epitome of evolutionary process if we can keep our hands
off of it.
MR. KAYE: Does that contribute to the scientific value of the place? Was that a
concern of yours, or a value to this place?
MR. BRANBORG: Yes, I always identified the scientific value, but I recognized that
scientific exploration would pose a threat to wilderness if we got carried away with it.
The intrusion of science in a way that interfered with or inhibited natural evolutionary
process would itself be destructive to the wilderness and the wildness. That was
something that came to us as it is here today. We can’t tolerate intrusions on the
wilderness that are destructive in the name of science.
MR. KAYE: Olaus used the words spiritual value and intangible value quite a bit. Did
this place hold some intangible value for you? I think that some of the values we have
talked about are intangible, but…
MR. BRANBORG: I believe so. Interestingly, in references to spiritual values from
Zanhiser, Murie and the two that I knew the best; Harvey Broom, Sig Olson, Oberholser,
and I am not mentioning others that were rich in their philosophical base and their
spiritual base. I don’t read to remember their references to the deity, to God. But I think
in those people and in myself, there’s a rich spiritual feeling that comes. And some of the
best expressions of that were from Olaus in describing what had happened to him when
he walked around the block waiting for a bus. I think it was in Pennsylvania when he was
on his way to Washington. He met me for dinner with Mardy. He said that he came to a
place were the ‘beautiful leaves of fall had come together.” He looked into that montage,
and he saw that there were transcendent things, beyond us. I remember conversations
with Mardy where said that some of these things that flow together in our lives are by
some design. There is synchronicity. Things come together and are meant to be. Many
times in my life in the Salmon River Canyon and in the high basins of the Bob Marshall or
the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, and I had my wilderness experience in these
areas on my Mountain Goat research that I was doing. I think you feel a spiritual
influence, and I don’t think I’d tie that to any specific higher power. But I felt that there
was a strong spiritual influence. I don’t know that I ever really discussed that with
Howard Zanhiser. We both had spiritual experiences in the Cathedrals of Washington. It
was our habit, when I drove with him to and from work, to stop by the Cathedral, or the
Catholic Shrine and stand in awe within these structures.
Finding ourselves, I guess, in the midst of the flurry to do all of these things for the
Wilderness Bill and the membership of the Wilderness Society and holding the operation
together. Certainly, there was a heavy feeling of spirituality within these rich characters.
Harvey Broom, Howard Zanhiser, Sig Olson, and of course Olaus and Mardy.
MR. KAYE: How about Bob Marshall? You were probably pretty young in his time,
but I know you met him as a child and your father knew him didn’t he?
MR. BRANBORG: Yeah. When Bob Marshall retired from the Forest Service his
brother George had run on to some old notes. Those old notes indicated that there were
five people in the Forest Service that Bob recommended for his replacement in the Office
of Recreation, as the Chief. One of them was my father.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MR. BRANBORG: I don’t know whether my dad had been with him on more than the
one occasion when I remember Bob coming to our home. He had hiked from the Salway
River over the Montana Divide, down into Boulder Creek on the west fork of the Bitter
Root in one day. That was a tremendous exertion of forty or fifty miles. His face was
sunburned, and he was at our dining room table when my mother served dinner. I
remember him, I suppose, that would have been in the 1930’s before his death. I think he
passed on in 1939. It would have been in the period of 1935
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Savremena Muzika Amerika: Danny Kaye
No full textThe music of Danny Kaye is featured in a program apparently broadcast by the Voice of America's Yugoslav Service
Interview with Bella Francis with Roger Kaye, February 26, 1993
No full textOral history interview with Bella Francis and Roger Kaye as interviewer.INTERVIEW WITH BELLA FRANCIS
WITH ROGER KAYE, FEBRUARY 26, 1993
This is Roger Kaye with Bella Francis.
MR. KAYE: Bella, tell me, where were you born?
MRS. FRANCIS: I was born in Orland Park, up the Porcupine River.
MR. KAYE: What year?
MRS. FRANCIS: 1928
MR. KAYE: How long did you stay up there?
MRS. FRANCIS: I stayed up there until 1941.
MR. KAYE: Who were your parents Bella?
MRS. FRANCIS: My father was Charlie Francis. And Blanche is my mother’s name.
MR. KAYE: And you were adopted?
MRS. FRANCIS: I was adopted by my Dad.
MR. KAYE: Who was that?
MRS. FRANCIS: Charlie Strong.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about Charlie Strong.
MRS. FRANCIS: Charlie Strong married Mom when she was very young. He went up
to Orland Park. They had a little trading post there for the people. There was about
eighty people there. A lot of people from all over come there because he had a little store
there.
MR. KAYE: What kind of people came?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, Indians, and sometimes Eskimos. And a lot from Old Crow.
MR. KAYE: Where did the Eskimos come from?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, there used to be a lot of Eskimos from up around Artic Village,
up that way.
MR. KAYE: Did you ever talk to them?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. I see them, bit I didn’t talk to them.
MR. KAYE: They didn’t bring kids?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. They didn’t bring no kids. They probably did, but I don’t know
I guess.
MR. KAYE: What was your Dad’s trading post like?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh it just a log house. There was a drum stove over there to burn
wood. It was just like other stores, you got a counter in there and shelves. He’d get all
his stuff by getting it on a inboard launch and barge nanovik. He would go up the
Porcupine River, that’s how he’d get his stuff up there.
MR. KAYE: Where did he come from?
MRS. FRANCIS: He came from Sweden.
MR. KAYE: What brought him to Alaska?
MRS. FRANCIS: He told me that he just ran away from his family when he was
fourteen year old. Because of the hard times, and there were a lot of them, and he wanted
to go to Alaska. So he made it up to Alaska around the time when he was twenty-five
year old he said.
MR. KAYE: Was he a good father?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah! He was a really good father. He really brought me up good.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your mother, where was she from?
MRS. FRANCIS: My mother is from Fort Yukon. They were pretty young too, all of
them, my aunts and uncles they were pretty young when my grandpa, Dick Martin
drownded. So, my grandma had quite a bit of kids to raise up by herself.
MR. KAYE: Did you go to any school up at Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had no school in Old Rampart. There was a school in Fort Yukon,
but my Dad doesn’t want me, and my sisters to go to school. Even though we wanted to.
He doesn’t trust anybody, that’s why he doesn’t want us to go to school in Fort Yukon.
MR. KAYE: Why didn’t he trust people there?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, thinks we were going to get hurt, and things like that I guess.
MR. KAYE: Did you want to go to Fort Yukon? Was it lonely being way out, way up
the Porcupine, away from the village?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh no. Oh no. When we were in Fort Yukon, two month out of the
year, we were in a hurry to go back. The reason we were in a hurry to go back was
because we were in a hurry to pick berries, and go fishing and things like that.
MR. KAYE: So, about two months out of the year you spent at Fort Yukon then.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, from the first of June to the first of September.
MR. KAYE: Was that to bring furs in and send them out?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes. He would bring all his furs, and he’d wait for his groceries what
he sent for. All of that got to be taken care of. While we were there in Fort Yukon for
two months people would help him, and he’d take all of the stuff up for the store and for
us. He works year round.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about the boat trip from Old Rampart up to Fort Yukon.
MRS. FRANCIS: That was fun. When the first of June would come we’d like it. Up
there, there were certain kinds of birds that we don’t have up that way, and we see all
that. And we see a lot of people up the Porcupine River at that time. We see villages,
and when we get close to Fort Yukon, we see tents. You know people go out camping in
the springtime for muskrats and ducks, and fishing and everything like that. We really
enjoyed ourselves. And they got in nice in the barge that we won’t be crowded.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your fathers barge. How big was it? And did he make it
himself?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, there’s a guy named Andy Johnson at Fort Yukon that made it.
SIMON: It was Stanley too.
MRS. FRANCIS: Stanley Luke too.
MR. KAYE: How big was it?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh I don’t know. How big is it?
MR. KAYE: A wooden barge?
SIMON: Thirty feet, maybe forty.
MR. KAYE: A plank boat?
MRS. FRANCIS: It was a barge.
SIMON: The barge was about forty feet.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, about forty feet.
MR. KAYE: How many people would ride this barge down to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: Lots. A lot of people. We’d pick people up on the way.
SIMON: That barge could hold about twelve tons.
MRS. FRANCES: We would pick them up on the way, that want to go in. Or help them
out because their boat is small. Sometimes they had this small boat. They don’t all have
big boats. So we helped them. You know, you have to take your dogs and all that with
you because there was nobody in the came who will take care of them. You can’t go
without dogs because don’t have no “snow goes” and things like that in those days.
MR. KAYE: So how many people in your family rode the barge to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: My family? All of us.
MR. KAYE: How many, who was that?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh well, me, and my sisters, and we got one brother. My sister next
to me is Doris, and there’s Jean, and Barbara and Bessie and Dick Strong.
MR. KAYE: And how long would it take to get to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: It’d take about a day and a half.
MR. KAYE: A day and a half. Did he have a motor on the boat? An inboard?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, an inboard.
MR. KAYE: And he had all of the furs that he had traded?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: And how many dogs?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh, a lot of dogs sometimes. I will say maybe over ten.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: It must have been really crowded.
MRS. FRANCES: No, it’s not crowded.
SIMON: Sometimes there were five families on the barge, dogs and all.
MR. KAYE: Oh really? So, as a little girl when you were living at Old Rampart, what
did you do? How did you spend your days?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh gee, the days would just go so fast. Normally we would get up
and Dad would talk to us about what we’re supposed to do. Help our mother around the
house. When I was young I didn’t work outdoor too much. And when I got older I
would work out. When we got big enough, maybe around eight or nice year old we
always helped her out with cooking, and sweeping the floors, and things like that. There
was always a lot of things to do. Making beds too. After lunch, then we all get dressed
in all of our furs, and go down to the river and then we’d make our house. All the kids get
on down there. It’s always so windy. The snow would get so hard you can just saw it
out. Saw, it out and get it in a square. And we’d all make a house for ourselves. Just like
we helped our mother, we’d do the same thing at our house. We would get our wooden
knives and carve things.
MR. KAYE: This was a kid’s house?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. Then if we’d get tired of that, we’d get together and we’d slide
down, all the village kids. We’d go way up on the hill and pack the big toboggan up and
we’d all pile in it and slide down. Or we’d play football.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh, sometimes we’d do that until moonlight. Then they’d have to tell
us to come in the house now. Next day, we’d do that again. We had all kinds of games.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about the playhouses that you made as a kid at Old Rampart.
MRS. FRANCIS. Well, the snowdrift would get so hard we’d cut it out. Sometimes we
would saw, or axe and cut it in squares, and pile it up and make a house out of it. Big
enough for two maybe three to sit in it. Some kids make it big, they got a lot of room in
there. After we do that, we’d play in there. We’d carve. Maybe we’d carve doughnuts,
and little biscuits, and plates and pots, and all that. We’d make a stove, and pretend we
were cooking. And there were chairs and tables. We’d make it real nice. Then we
pretended to visit each other, and send a biscuit over to the next snow house. Things like
that. That’s what we’d do.
MR. KAYE: And you had just your brother and sisters to play with at Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. Other village kids too.
MR. KAYE: At Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, at Old Rampart.
MR. KAYE: And these were children of Indians?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, all Indian kids. Then you’d get little snacks. Mother would give
us little snacks. Me, I was always getting crackers from the store. Or some kids get
dried, smoked meat. We pass around and share with each other. And we’d chew that.
And we really enjoyed ourself that way.
MR. KAYE: Did you have more store bought things ‘cause your father owned the store?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had more than other kids.
MR. KAYE: More than other kids?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. Because we got it right there you know.
MR. KAYE: Besides you family, your brother and sisters, how many kids lived up at
Old Rampart then?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, I don’t know, I can’t remember, but just one family was my
husband’s family. When I remember it, I’d say there were about maybe ten boys, ten or
eleven there at one house. Then another family had maybe eight or seven. That was
Cyrus Blakely. Then another family that’s Henry Wilham, he had about seven or eight.
So we’ll say that there’s more kids there than adults. There’s about maybe fifty, sixty
kids. There were a lot of childrens. They did make a log schoolhouse, but they couldn’t
get teacher. They had a hard time. They tried to get a teacher In those days you know,
they had a Chief and Council. Our Chief really tried, but he couldn’t get anybody to
teach. That’s why we couldn’t go to school.
MR. KAYE: Did you plays with dolls when you were a girl?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, we didn’t have very much toys.
MR. KAYE: You didn’t?
MRS. FRANCIS: Unless our relatives sent us some. I had a china doll but I dropped it
and that was it. We never had Christmas tree. Didn’t have no Christmas tree. And at
Christmas time we had a potlatch we called it. Everybody would get together and eat
together. Then they’d pass out presents. We didn’t have no toys so they’d give us,
sometimes they’d sew things. They would give us, some people would get fur coats, new
ones, and moccasins, mitts, or a scarf. We’d get a lot of goodies though. Hard candy
come in big buckets in those days. And cookies. Cookies come in fifty or maybe sixty
pound box, they come in. All different kind of cookies, real good ones. And all the dried
fruits , they all come in boxes. Raisins come in boxes. Crackers come in boxes.
Everything is boxed. The elderly would get leaf tobacco it come in a box. So, at
Christmas they would have potlatch all the way to New Years. And they have good
time. And they have a dance. They played just like now, a fiddle. They’d have a dance,
and teach the kids how to dance.
MR. KAYE: Really? Where was the dance held?
MRS. FRANCES: They had a dance hall.
MR. KAYE: Really? There in Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. They had a dance hall.
MR. KAYE: How many buildings where there, about, in Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Gosh, I don’t know. There was a lot of buildings, but they all went
down.
MR. KAYE: How many would you say, Simon?
SIMON: There was about twelve.
MRS. FRANCIS: But there was more houses that went down. A lot of people stay in
tents in those days. There was a log around the bottom and they staid in tents. Even in a
blow. Even in Fort Yukon they used to do that. They all staid in tents, down in the
village. Nowadays, they don’t do that. You know why they don’t do that? Because
there’s danger nowadays.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Those days, I remember when we live in the village, everything is
outdoors. Like in front of the door, when they’d come back from hunting, they’d just put
their gun against the wall there. They’d put their gun there, their axe there, their
snowshoes there, till next time they go out again.
MR. KAYE: What did you do for mosquitoes?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had smudge. Up there’s a lot of bluffs, you know. There’s a
certain kind of weeds that grow, like grass just like. They pick that up, and they make a
fire. And they put that on it. That’s what kill mosquitoes. It smelled strong. Like
buhack. The mosquito medicine smelled strong. That what they use.
MR. KAYE: Looking back, what was the biggest hardship of living up there?
MRS. FRANCIS: I don’t know. But sometime it really hard for people. “Cause its kind
of way up, and it’s in a canyon you know. Sometime it’s hard to get food. I mean like
meat and things like that. Or furs.
MR. KAYE: Did you consider life a hardship being so far from town when you were a
girl?
MRS. FRANCIS: That’s true, that’s true. It’s hard to go to town you know. You have
to go all the way with dogs. And sometime the weather is bad.
MR. KAYE: Did you make the trip with dogs from Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah, a lot of people come from Fort Yukon.
MR. KAYE: What about you? Did you make that trip?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, not me.
MR. KAYE: What did your father do besides trade there? Did he trap at all?
MRS. FRANCIS: He trapped.
MR. KAYE: He trapped which way from Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Saminkut, he traps up that way. He traps over to Old Crow, up that
way.
MR. KAYE: Did you ever go with him?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, at that time, I never go with him.
MR. KAYE: You were still very young then?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, very young then. Then when we moved thirty-five mile below
where they call Burnt Paw, when we moved there I was sixteen year old. So then he was
getting ill.
MR. KAYE: Oh, I see.
MRS. FRANCIS: He was getting short of breath. I can’t go out very much. So when he
went out with us, he taught me and my sister how to set trap and all that stuff. What do
to, and all that stuff. We kind of know little bit from before, we see a lot of people do
that in the village. So we start out. And sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen I trap.
I trap all the way around up the Colling River, over the mountain, all over around there I
trap.
MR. KAYE: Before you tell me about living at Burnt Paw, as far as Old Rampart goes,
didn’t they expand when you were there, and start building houses across the river?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like some of those houses are very old. There
was about four families. They built across the river, where there was nice timber there.
They make a whole bunch of nice houses there and they move across. All of them got big
family too. And we still stay on this side. A few families stay on this side. Every time
we want to visit we get a little boat and go across the river to visit. We can wait til it
freeze up too. After it freeze up, then we harness up two dogs and we go over.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: We visit like that, even at nighttime. Lot of time, we holler, and we
holler, and tell kids to come over. So they’d do that.
MR. KAYE: Was it dangerous, the Porcupine River? Did anyone drown when you were
there?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, nobody drowned when I was there.
MR. KAYE: So, what year was it when you left Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: 1941.
MR. KAYE: In 1941. And you moved on to Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Um hum. (agreeing)
MR. KAYE: Why did your father move there?
MRS. FRANCIS: Because he was ill. And it’s really hard for us up there you know,
because it’s canyon, all over. Hard for us. Where we moved to is my uncle’s place, uncle
Richard Martin’s place. He went to the Army, so he want us to move down there. It
more easy.
MR. KAYE: To Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, it’s easier than Old Rampart. That’s why we move.
MR. KAYE: Did you build the cabin that’s there now? At Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, in 1944 I build it.
MR. KAYE: In 1944. There was a cabin there before?
MRS. FRANCIS: It burned down.
MR. KAYE: It burned down. Where did Burnt Paw get its name from?
MRS. FRANCIS: I guess that long ago when people travel a lot, you know, always
traveling out for food, and for things like that, I guess this one kit, this is what they told
me, that one kit fell on the fire or hot ashes or something and burned the foot.
MR. KAYE: Oh, I see.
MRS. FRANCIS: So, in our language they say “burned foot”. So they just made it Burnt
Paw.
MR. KAYE: So you were about sixteen when you moved to Burnt Paw.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: It that about when you started your own trap lines?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your trapping. I remember we mapped it, and it was a
tremendous length. Tell me about what you did, and how you went about it.
MRS. FRANCIS: Your mean how I start out?
MR. KAYE: Yes
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh well, before we start out, like we said, on September first we go
back up to village. The first thing we do, is we fish. Put nets in. I put maybe four or five
nets in and try to get fish for the dogs.
MR. KAYE: How many dogs did your family have at this time?
MRS. FRANCIS: I always had nine, nine dogs. The rest of my sisters have dogs too.
We get all the dog feed we can.
MR. KAYE: How many salmon would that be, do you think?
MRS. FRANCIS: For a year?
MR. KAYE: Yes.
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh gee, I don’t know. I can’t guess. But we get a lot of corn meal and
tallows and all that too besides the fish. Probably, maybe eight hundred, a thousand
maybe. We’d get all kinds of fish. Like whitefish. We put fishnet under ice. For eating
and for dogs. My mom fished lots too. Sometimes fish ‘til Christmas. Depends on how
the ice is too, how thick it gets. If it get too thick, then you have to pull your net out.
Then while you’re doing that, you get your wood. We go back, and we get wood.
Maybe three weeks we cut wood. Cut it all up, haul it. When snow come we haul it in.
Then we cut it all up, and then we split it all up. We got to make kitchen wood, we call it
kindling for cooking stove. We don’t have no propane stove. So, then outdoors we put
big tarp over it. That’s for winter. We’d get meat, and caribou and moose. Then we’d get
everything ready. Then, when snow come, when season opened, we fix our toboggan.
Fix all the harness, and all our gears. Mom fixed all our clothes. Then we’d just start off.
MR. KAYE: When you started trapping did you go alone, or did you go with someone?
MRS. FRANCIS: Lot of time my sister went with me.
MR. KAYE: Which one?
MRS. FRANCIS: Doris, she was next to me. She was fourteen year old when she
started. I was sixteen. But, I lost her after about a year. A lot of time I had to go alone.
MR. KAYE: Did you think it unusual for a young girl to have a long trap line ?
MRS. FRANCIS: I think it’s fun. When I see those women go in the races, in the dog
races, I know how they feel. Because I really enjoyed myself when I was out alone. Out
alone, and my dogs. Have a good time with the dogs.
MR. KAYE: Were you ever afraid to go out?
MRS. FRANCIS: Never! Never afraid to go out, never. Because in Colling River,
there’s always a lot of bears. Even my dogs try to pull me in the brush because the first
bear tracks go in the brush you know. I just hold them down. One thing, I was not
afraid.
MR. KAYE: When you trapped alone, how many nights would you be out on the trap
line?
MRS. FRANCIS: I didn’t stay long. The longest I stay out is maybe three nights, or
two nights.
MR. KAYE: I remember when we traced it on a map it was about ninety miles once.
You must have gone a long ways.
MRS. FRANCIS: I do go a long ways when I’m alone. That’s the funnest part. When
you are alone you can go a long ways. When somebody’s with you, gee, you waste a lot
of time. I can go up the Colling River to the cabin just like that, you know. But if my
sister, or mother go with me, gee it’d take all day!
MR. KAYE: Did you stay in tent camps sometimes?
MRS. FRANCIS: Sometime tent camp, sometime little houses. We build one at let’s see,
we build one at Colling River, at Fishkil we build one. That’s one, two, three, four, below
our place, six mile, there’s a house too. So we had about five trapping houses. We had
about two tents.
MR. KAYE: Two tent camps? And how many dogs were you running now?
MRS. FRANCIS: At that time? Nine. I always run nine.
MR. KAYE: You had pretty good fur catches?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah! Gee. . .
MR. KAYE: What would you catch?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, one time was pretty good for link, I remember. It was pretty
good for link. And I caught forty-two lynx. And a lot of other animals like fox . . .
MR. KAYE: Was that in one year?
MRS. FRANCIS: One year.
MR. KAYE: And martins?
MRS. FRANCIS: Martins, and the fox, and coyotes.
MR. KAYE: Oh yeah?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had about two or three coyotes one year. And wolverine, things
like that.
MR. KAYE: Did you skin them yourself?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. That’s one thing, I don’t skin them.
MR. KAYE: Who does?
MRS. FRANCIS: I bring them home. My mom does.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: I only thing I don’t like is when we haul it. We have a tough time
when we haul the lynx.
MR. KAYE: Oh, the furs?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, when they’re frozen.
MR. KAYE: Are you using traps, or snares?
MRS. FRANCIS: Everything. Trap and snares. When we trap lynx, we make a house,
and put trap, and then we put s
Faces and Places in Fashion: Michael Kaye
No full textPart presentation, part Q&A, FIT's "Faces & Places in Fashion" lecture series is an opportunity to connect students and the public alike to the pulse of the fashion industry in an open and conversational setting.A graduate of FIT, Mr Kaye describes his early career in fashion design, current success as a couture designer for Michael Kaye Couture, and his plans to design jewelry. He illustrates his discussion with a 2008 video that documents his success with tartan designs
Papers of Geoffrey Alfred Kaye and William Alexander Osborne
No full textThis record was harvested from a previous catalogue system and will be withdrawn in 2025. Information in this record may be superseded or incomplete. Visit this record in UMA's new catalogue at: https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au/nodes/view/69632Comprises 145 handwritten and typescript letters from Professor W.A. Osborne to Dr. Geoffrey Kaye. All letters are numbered.
Edited typescript,"Letters to a Pupil 1948-1953" with introduction, index and footnotes, by GA Kaye created in 1968 in 'case publication were desired. Material concerning the pupil alone [GA Kaye] has been excised. All the rest has been preserved, but has been rearranged systematically, according to subject-matter.'111935
Acquisition: [1969.0013] "Papers of Geoffrey Alfred Kaye and William Alexander Osborne
Lenny Kaye sitting backstage, Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C., May 10, 1979
No full textGuitarist and composer Lenny Kaye, sitting on a couch backstage at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on May 10, 1979. Kaye was then a member of the Patti Smith Group, who performed that night at the Warner Theatre. The photograph was taken by Don Hamerman, then a staff photographer for the Unicorn Times, a performing arts newspaper for the D.C. area in the 1970s and early 1980s
Interview with Ave Thayer by Roger Kaye November 21, 2003
No full textAve Thayer oral history interview with Roger Kaye.INTERVIEW WITH AVE THAYER
BY ROGER KAYE NOVEMBER 21, 2003
MR. KAYE: This is an interview with Ave Thayer who was Refuge Manager of the
Arctic Refuge. It was conducted on November 21, 2003. Ave, thanks for doing this
interview with me. I’d like to start off with what brought you to northeast Alaska, and
when you first came to Arctic Refuge what some of the perspectives were that that you
brought with you.
MR. THAYER: I first came to the eastern Brooks Range during the search for Clarence
Rhodes’ airplane. I did not go to the North Slope. I concentrated on the valleys on the
south side for a few weeks.
MR. KAYE: Were you flying an airplane then?
MR. THAYER: Yes, a little Cessna 180. There was a base at Fort Yukon. There was
quite a bunch of us there. That was my first exposure to that region.
MR. KAYE: Before you go on, tell me a little more about the search. There were quite a
few planes involved. How long were you involved in it?
MR. THAYER: I don’t know how many planes were involved. There were probably
about a dozen or so. There were some Grumman’s, and Gooses, and 180s. I came up
after the search had started as a general surveillance pilot; flying all of the probable routes
and so on. Then after that proved unsuccessful, more planes were added and they began a
valley-by-valley and lake-by-lake search. That was the point at which I came to Fort
Yukon. I was at Fort Yukon for ten days. We went out to Galena and we were there, for
I don’t know how long, searching north and west of Galena along the west coast and in
the mountains there. That was probably in October because we were flying in snow quite
a bit. We were looking for tracks in the snow around any cabins, or trails where he might
have been walking. I don’t remember when that terminated, but I think it was in late
October. The search was continued the next spring on a smaller scale.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about Clarence Rhode, what kind of guy was he?
MR. THAYER: He was an effective bureaucrat. He wasn’t the typical one, but he was a
bureaucrat. He had an appearance that was not that of the average bureaucrat. He had
kind of a hawk-like look. He had that intelligent, beady-eyed look that impressed people
and made them like him. Consequently, when he made his annual trip to the north with a
Goose generally; he went around and stopped and talked to people he knew. I think they
were pleased that he had taken the trouble to stop in there and chat with them and renew
old acquaintances. They were still back in the village and he was the big-shot government
man. Nevertheless, they didn’t see him as that.
I think he was very effective in the area of public relations. I don’t remember bad
publicity about him, or hearing comments from people in the villages or cities complaining
about him. He was generally accepted as a good and worthy leader. He had a very keen
memory. He would remember where he had met people and what they had told him. He
could give a big long speech with lots of numbers and facts and do so without the aid of
notes. He was impressive in that regard as well. He was a genius as well. He knew how
to get military surplus, for example. He pretty well equipped all of the radio stations with
war surplus radio equipment. The transmitter we had at McGrath was exactly the same
kind of transmitter that was on the ship I was on when I was in the Navy. Consequently,
whenever it broke down I could fix it. He would sometimes fly the Goose back to Alaska
loaded down with electronics that he had collected here and there.
MR. KAYE: Do you think he was anxious after a while to add what is now the Arctic
Refuge to the System?
MR. THAYER: Oh, I think so. I think that people recognized its wilderness value. It
wasn’t such a matter of saying, ‘do we make this a Park or a Refuge, or Reserve?’ It was
a matter of how best to protect the wilderness value of it. Then they had to work within
the system and it ended up being the Refuge. Proper legislation would have done that
too, or could have. They probably wouldn’t have at this point, but they could have.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about the ideas and the approach that you brought as the first
Manager of ANWR? Where did you get your ideas? What year did you begin as
Manager?
MR. THAYER: 1969. You know, Jerry Stroebele asked me that and I think that’s a very
strange question. Because I think what needed to be done was evident. It was right out in
front of me with the Wilderness Act and all of the other Refuge legislation. The old
Refuge Manual that had been around for decades had all of the language that was needed
to suggest that the wilderness values, sometimes they referred to it as habitat
preservation, but that’s what it amounted to; wilderness value. So I think it was obvious.
There’s never been, in the history of the world, any kid who was not a natural pantheist,
or who was not drawn to wild areas. In every little town there was a pond, or a river or a
woods or something where the kids were drawn. They would spend hours out there,
sometime destructively, but nevertheless…. I am thinking of the Boy Scouts when I was
one. Nevertheless, they are naturally drawn to wilderness values. Some people lose
that when they become adults. Some people become selfish about it. They will destroy a
lot of wilderness to enrich themselves, but they’ll have a cabin out on the lake or out in
the wild some place.
For that reason, I felt that there was no question of what to do for taking care of
these wilderness values. That starts with law enforcement. The oil industry would camp
at Peters and Schrader Lake in the summer and do surficial geology and base their
helicopters there. This created considerable flack to say the least. One of the first things
we did was to move them out of there. They had to stay west of the canyon. They
didn’t like that, but later on; individual employees told me that they liked it better that
way. They were in less of a remote camp. That is probably the first major law
enforcement action taken. Those people were working under permits and we monitored
that as best we could. We had a fixed wing airplane, and they were all traveling with
helicopters.
MR. KAYE: What kind of plane did you have Ave?
MR. THAYER: It varied. In the winter when there wasn’t a lot of demand for planes we
had three; a Cub, a 180 and the Beaver. There were all crammed into the hanger.
Sometimes it was a problem getting them all untangled to get to the one you wanted.
During the summer, I think we used the Cub for the first couple of years at least.
Occasionally we used the 180 in addition to the Cub. In the past, surficialgeology
companies had established temporary camps here and there in the Refuge. They had left a
lot of junk. We identified that and notified them that we wanted the stuff removed. They
removed it so we didn’t have any court action. There wasn’t any need for it. They
responded, but I guess that was another law enforcement action.
MR. KAYE: How about wildlife? I know you were involved in some wolf hunting.
There was some evidence of some illegal wolf hunting on the Refuge.
MR. THAYER: Initially, wolf hunting was legal. The State issued permits to aerial
hunters. Then later on, at our request they refrained from doing that but there was still
some illegal activity.
MR. KAYE: Why did you request that they refrain from this?
MR. THAYER: Primarily to protect the wilderness values. Flying around, shooting
wildlife from airplanes is just not appropriate. A trapper can go up there and trap to his heart’s content.
But with wolves, mowing them down from the sky didn’t look good at
all. Also, they weren’t really all that numerous from what I saw from tracking. I don’t
think there was a severe impact on the wildlife so they certainly were not causing real
problems there.
MR. KAYE: This was the wolves?
MR. THAYER: Yes.
MR. KAYE: Was there any controversy or issue when the Service prohibited aerial wolf
hunting in the area?
MR. THAYER: As I recall we didn’t actually prohibit it as much as we asked the State
to refrain from issuing those permits; which they did. The person of charge of Fish and
Game at the time was annoyed by that but it was not a serious thing.
MR. KAYE: Was there any variance in opinion between you, representing the FWS and
the Fish and Game type people, on what approach should be taken to this area?
MR. THAYER: Considerable I think. Their view on hunting was much different from
what it is now. Their view on hunting now is in much more accord with what the feds
feel. We felt that there should be considerable restriction on hunting. Quite a few of the
Fish and Game guys felt that hunting should be liberalized and that there should be more
access, and increases in kill limits. But I could see over a period of ten years specific
individuals in the Game Department changing their view on that. It was not because I
was so persuasive but from a maturing process I believe; from experience.
MR. KAYE: Were they becoming more aware of other values that a wilderness area
could hold besides just hunting?
MR. THAYER: Yes, exactly. And several told me privately that the Refuge should not
be open to hunting at all.
MR. KAYE: Really!?
MR. THAYER: I agreed with that of course!
MR. KAYE: Do you remember, or would you care to mention who those people were,
and why they felt that way?
MR. THAYER: The one I can think of offhand was Scott Grundy. I think it was just a
maturing process. When he came out of college, he had an idea that was fixed by the
college of how game should be managed. Then he started to see other values. I took him
up there twice I guess. So he had a chance to see it and I think that probably helped.
I was probably not the very best person to have here to work with the Fish and Game
Department. I knew a lot of guys who were in it, some of whom had worked at Fish and
Wildlife Service before Statehood. I had my vision of wilderness management and they
had theirs of wildlife management. It was just never an easy relationship. We didn’t get
into heated debates. When they were up at Barter Island during the Polar Bear season I
helped them in fueling their planes. I talked to them. It was nothing personal, but there
was not a lot of inter-agency camaraderie. I think probably some other manager could
have done a better job on that. But that’s the way it worked out.
To get back to reading; I read Seton and devoured every word.
MR. KAYE: This was Ernest Thompson Seton? And this was as a kid?
MR. THAYER: Yes. I did, just like every other reader did. But I hadn’t read Thoreau. When I was at
Kenai in 1958, Spencer spoke of the Muries a lot of times. I really
didn’t know who they were. I just hadn’t been exposed to them in any way. As far as
the reading goes, it has to go back to Seton I guess.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about Ernest Thompson Seton’s influence on your childhood, or
your sense of the wilderness; your wilderness management approach.
MR. THAYER: I grew up the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho at a time when Idaho had
less than half of the population that it has now. I lived in a defunct mining town, which
was quite a ways from other towns. The opportunity to be out in the wilds was
considerable. Seton made sense to me. I agreed with everything that he said, I’m sure.
MR. KAYE: Which books were they, and what did he say that made sense to you?
MR. THAYER: It’s been a long time since I looked at any of those books, but there was
Two Little Savages, and what else.
MR. KAYE: There was The Woodcraft Manual for Boys.
MR. THAYER: Yeah, I read that.
MR. KAYE: There was a whole series of eight or nine.
MR. THAYER: I think I only read about five.
MR. KAYE: What did he write about that you remember? What stuck in your memory?
MR. THAYER: Nothing specific. It was just the overall view towards wildlife. As I
recall there were places where he was expressing what was on a woodchuck’s mind.
Wildlife managers are a little doubtful about that sort of thing. But the point is that
Seton was no further off the fact than an awful lot of the wildlife managers. The hunters
for example attribute all sorts of attributes to wildlife. They are no more accurate than
Seton by any means. Seton was just the other way. And as I was saying, every kid is a
pantheist. That’s a fact worldwide. Even in darkest Africa, little kids are out running
around prowling around in the woods and getting snake bit. It is something that humans
are born with. And this is not surprising since we are a mammal.
MR. KAYE: So this wilderness idea that you brought to the place was a bit in variance
with the Fish and Game people who were production oriented, would you say, towards
wildlife?
MR. THAYER: That would be it, exactly. But I didn’t invent the concept of wilderness
but it’s perfectly natural that since is exists that I would sooner or later come to my
senses and recognize it. When I was in the Navy during the War, I didn’t sit around and
think deep thoughts about wilderness. I didn’t think of it even once. Although my
friend and I did propose to the Captain of the ship when we were in Hong Kong port just
after the war, that we be permitted to go on a back packing trip. He threw us out of
course, but there was that continued interest.
MR. KAYE: What kind of public uses did you think that this area would best serve?
Did you personally believe that quality or regulated sport hunting were appropriate or
not and if so, in what form?
MR. THAYER: If it had been left up to me there would have been no hunting at all, but I
knew that wasn’t going to work at all. And if you go back to the old refuge manual, it
lays it out in there what a hunt on a refuge should be. And a hunt on a refuge is different
from a hunt on just any public land. It’s a quality hunt; the spirit of the chase, the
ambiance of the campfire, the whole works. Those are the guidelines. The manual is
about that thick and I don’t know, but I think it was printed in about 1940 or something
like that. It was all in there.
MR. KAYE: So given that hunting was allowed: what type of hunting then do you think
the Refuge should provide? Tell me what you mean by ‘quality’.
MR. THAYER: It should be the very highest quality in which a party goes to a place in
the Refuge; they set up camp or they shoulder their backpacks and head up into the
mountains and camp in there. They find the sheep and look them over for a couple days
and pick out some nice specimens. Get them and backpack them back down to their
landing source, or to whatever means they used to get it there. They don’t fly up and
down the valleys spotting sheep. They don’t have elaborate camps with stoves and
generators and lights or whatever. It should be sport hunting in the older, traditional
sense.
MR. KAYE: When you were the Manager, were some of the hunt guiding operations
being established?
MR. THAYER: Well, there were guided hunts up there. I don’t remember just who was
there early on. But there were several guides working up in there.
MR. KAYE: Did you have any problems with their approach towards hunting, either
legally or philosophically?
MR. THAYER: Philosophically, I am sure I did, but we didn’t have any court cases. At
that time the guides and the other hunters too, would wait until late in the sheep season
when the sheep were driven down by the snow. You’ve probably noticed that if you go
there in September you’ll find all of the sheep down there on the valley bottom. They are
feeding on the vegetated islands in the glacial streams that are right on the bottom of
Canning River and in Sheenjek and others. It was about that time of year when the most
pressure occurred. Sometimes they messed up and it turned too cold and they got snow
all over. Then they were just done for the year. Generally, they waited for that. Again,
you can refer back to the old refuge manual. It’s all laid out in black and white, well black
and yellow; the pages were old!
MR. KAYE: What about recreationists? Did you have much contact with people who
wanted to do trans-Brooks Range trips, ski trips and that type of thing?
MR. THAYER: Yeah, we did. We corresponded with people, or responded to their
mailed requests for information. We gave it a lot of attention. When I first came to
Fairbanks in 1968, the Refuge wasn’t yet a refuge. There was correspondence in the office
there. I was in the Law Enforcement Division then. A fellow from Johns Hopkins
University, who was a staff member there, had written about taking a hike through the
Refuge from Sheenjek to Barter Island. There were all sorts of memos from the Regional
Office telling him not to do it, and that he would disappear; that he would die and that
sort of thing. The guy was adamant. He wanted to go. I don’t think legally you could
tell him that he couldn’t. I wasn’t about to tell him that he couldn’t. So he showed up
and went up to the Sheenjek. I didn’t see him for a long time. I took off from Barter
Island one day and I was just flying over that channel between the island and the
mainland. He was standing on the bank there waving his sleeping bag. I had the
floatplane so I landed and gave him a ride across the channel. He was as hale and as hearty
as could be. He didn’t have a gas stove or anything. He had special rice and raisins for
some sort of rations that he carried. He had an excellent trip with no problems
whatsoever. He then went back to Johns Hopkins and published a big write-up there.
He sent us copies of all of the publicity. He also sent it to the regional office with a little
bit of rubbing their noses in it.
MR. KAYE: I know in John Melton’s book, Nameless Valley, Shining Mountains it talks
about you meeting them and giving them a little ride with the plane.
MR. THAYER: Well, they were camped at Last Lake. I didn’t know they were there.
But they showed me where they wanted to go and the route they were going to take. It
was just way too rough. I took one of them up in the plane and flew over that route. I
pointed out some precipices that they would have had a terrible time with. He picked out
a different route. I took him back to the lake.
MR. KAYE: Was there very much recreation in those early years?
MR. THAYER: No there wasn’t. The first year, as far as I know, there were thirty-five
backpackers and hikers and so on. That was in 1969. Then I wrote an article for Alaska
Magazine about canoeing on the Sheenjek. That prompted, I think, considerable interest
in doing that specific thing and some interest in some other activities too, I suppose.
That was the purpose of the article, of course, because use of that nature was going to
support the Refuge.
MR. KAYE: Explain what you mean by that.
MR. THAYER: People go there and see what it is and help defend it. But there were
conservationists who were annoyed because I wrote that article. They said that I was
just inviting people up here. It was going to get too crowded. I knew it would add to the
crowding but I think the tradeoff of getting support for the Refuge was worth it. The use
was going to come anyway; it was just a matter of when.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your interactions with the native people in the early days in
Arctic Village and on Barter Island. When you became Manager, did you make an effort to
interact with them, to hire, or to work with them?
MR. THAYER: Very initially we did not hire them. I always talked to them, but I don’t
think they were really sure just what I was about. We had good relationships. I never
heard a harsh word. Of course, frequently you don’t in that situation. They are fairly
quiet people. After a few years we did hire some guys to camp on a bluff on the North
Slope and watch for the caribou and make notes of any other wildlife right down to the
last raven. I had a guy over on the Sheenjek helping the Sheep Crew. I can’t think of any
others off hand.
MR. KAYE: Did the villagers have any idea what a refuge was? Was that one of the
things you had to do; explain what a wildlife refuge is?
MR. THAYER: They claimed not to be really aware of what was going on when it was
being established. They said that nobody asked them if they wanted a refuge there.
MR. KAYE: In looking through the record, I have never found any record of any of the
earlier proponents meeting with either village to get their input on it.
MR. THAYER: I think that’s probably correct from the way it sounded at Barter Island.
MR. KAYE: I wonder why that was.
MR. THAYER: That’s pretty much the way it was done then. It wasn’t until about
1970 or 1971 that the matter of public involvement took on a lot of importance. There
were public meetings for the Refuge; but public involvement as an activity was fairly
minor.
MR. KAYE: Did you have any conflicts with the villagers in terms of their hunting and
trapping and things like that?
MR. THAYER: No, I just didn’t get involved in their hunting and trapping at all.
MR. KAYE: Did you just overlook, or ignore it?
MR. THAYER: Entirely. They had been doing that for thousands of years. The
amounts of animals they were taking was not all that great. If we were going to permit
hunters from Fairbanks, or Chicago to come there and hunt, it seemed reasonable that
they could hunt up there unmolested. There might have been a better way of handling
that, but that’s the way I did it. I did nothing on it.
MR. KAYE: How about the Muries? When did you first meet the Muries?
MR. THAYER: Well, I never did meet Olaus Murie. In about 1965 we were banding
ducks at Fort Yukon and the Muries and Sigurd Olsen and somebody came in there. That
may be the yea
Interview with Martin Murie by Roger Kaye, December 16, 2002
No full textOral history interview with Martin Murie as interviewed by Roger Kaye.
The subject of the interview is Martin's father, Olaus Murie.
Name: Martin Murie
Keywords: History, Employees (USFWS)INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN MURIE
BY ROGER KAYE DECEMBER 16, 2002
MR. KAYE: This is an interview with Martin Murie by Roger Kaye, December 16,
2002. Mr. Murie, thank you for being willing to talk to be about this. I asked you about
your father, and the types of values and ideas that motivated him to work for the
establishment of the Arctic Refuge.
MR. MURIE: Right. Well I up studying Biology and then Philosophy at Berkley and so
on at the time of the struggle for the Arctic Refuge, so I don’t have first hand contact. I
wasn’t really even on the edge of that struggle. But I would like to say that when my
father was the Director of the Wilderness Society his great emphasis, and he told me this
more that once, was to build a grassroots activism across the country in support of
wilderness. His goal, concrete goal anyway, was not to talk wilderness and get other
people talking about it, but use that as a tool to build membership. He refused to go to
Washington you know. He wanted to stay out west on the ranch. That was part of that
whole attitude that it takes masses of people to really make change. I think that was the
basic attitude that he took with him to Alaska.
MR. KAYE: In his advocacy for Arctic Refuge, he emphasized, and I see repeated use of
the phrase, ‘intangible values’. In fact, he writes of saving the intangible values as
embodied in this move to establish the Arctic Range. Do you have a sense of what he
meant by intangible values?
MR. MURIE: Well, that’s a hard one isn’t it? Nowadays we are using the word
‘spiritual’ an awful lot. I think we are overusing the word. Intangible is more of a word,
and I am just guessing now, you’ll have to understand, that he didn’t like to specific
particularly what anybody would get from wilderness. He wanted to keep it open. So
intangible is more of a vague kind of word.
MR. KAYE: He also used the word ‘spiritual’ quite a bit, too in his writings in relation
to this place.
MR. MURIE: Of course, and I think that’s a word that is very hard to pin down, you
know. I can’t specify just where is was, but he once said, “Why don’t we defend
wilderness simply because we like it?” See what I mean? He wasn’t one for trying to
formulate a rule like Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic, although he certainly agreed with that
Land Ethic. In his own work he sort of shied away from getting too involved in the big
Metaphysical defense. In my mind, he was a little more down to earth.
MR. KAYE: I know you told me once before that your father worked closely with quite
a few people, and his ideas were, to some degree, a product of Leopold, Marshall,
Zahniser and other folks. Was Aldo Leopold, do you think a considerable influence on
your father’s thinking?
MR. MURIE: I am not equipped to say that one way or the other. But at that time
there were a lot of people influencing each other. To chose one person as sort of the
David Brower that everybody took the message from would, I think be false to history.
Life is more complex. Rachel Carson later was a great influence on everybody. But they
influenced each other. Rachel read people’s work. They met each other and talked things
over. A lot of that interaction is just lost to history. We don’t know what all happened.
MR. KAYE: Your father uses the word ‘wildness’. That seems to be the context of
most of what he wrote, and certainly in relation to Arctic Refuge. In what sense was
wildness so important to him?
MR. MURIE: Well, again, you’re trying to pin me down to somebody else’s ideas. I am
not equipped to do that. It’s like the word spiritual, or spiritualism. These are very
complex words. It’s very hard to speak for someone else about that.
MR. KAYE: Your father was widely known. In fact, reading in the articles written after
his death the word humility kept reoccurring. Was that pretty much a characteristic of
him, do you think?
MR. MURIE: Yes it was. There’s no question about that. But he had, underneath it all
a strong stubbornness you know. So you get a combination of genuine humility but there
were certain lines he just wouldn’t cross you know. He’d dig his heals in. He didn’t
mind going against the current.
MR. KAYE: Do you recall any of the things he said about the Refuge or the purpose of
it, or what motivated him to work so hard for it?
MR. MURIE: I just refer you back to the fact that I just happened to not be with him or
Mardie during that time. I can only talk about his general attitude towards wilderness all
over the world. He had a great international view of it. He discovered a naturalist in the
Soviet Union who was speaking up for the animals. He went to New Zealand and so on.
He had a global view. And the Arctic was very close, and dear to both him and my
mother. But they also just fought for wilderness everywhere, as much as they could.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting that you mention the global view. I see in many of his
writings about this place, he refers to the ‘planet Earth’ like this place would help us
understand the universal processes of the Earth. It seems like Arctic Refuge was perhaps
symbolic of a much bigger concern that he had, a global, as you say, lesson or?
MR. MURIE: Well, I think environmentalist feel that way. Don’t you? [They feel]
that’s it’s a global problem and you just work on the parts that you know the most about
and that are close to you. It’s like my mother; she worked on trying to protect the Red
Desert in Wyoming for example. I am sort of a second generation in that struggle. I don’t
know, it seemed to me that Leopold and others did have this global view.
MR. KAYE: After the Range was established there was a question of naming it. There
was a proposal to name it after your father, and he strongly resisted that.
MR. MURIE: Oh, absolutely!
MR. KAYE: After his death, I saw a letter that your mother wrote resisting any effort to
name it after him. Why did your father resist place names like that?
MR. MURIE: Both my father and his brother, my Uncle Adolph just couldn’t stand that
kind of thing. For example, Mount McKinley; here was a sacred mountain to the natives
of Alaska and we come along and name it after a President. No, they were just absolutely
against that sort of thing. I remember once when Zahnsiser and Olaus were talking. I was
just a kid then and I was just a pitcher with big ears. But I remember clearly Zahniser
sort of bringing up the idea that a certain mountain could be named after him if he gave his
permission. I think the USGS as involved in that possibility. And Olaus said right away,
“No, absolutely not Zonny, that’s just out of the question!” I can’t remember his
arguments. It just was the vehemence with which he absolutely refused. It’s also no
secret that my family, when the Murie Center was established in Moose, Wyoming, we
objected to the use of the name.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MR. MURIE: Oh yes.
MR. KAYE: And why was that?
MR. MURIE: Well, we didn’t think that either Adolph or Olaus would like it. And we
felt it was an intrusion into our own lives. I guess the rest of the family felt the same way
that Olaus did, that naming that kind of thing after a particular person tends to lead to
kind of idolatry. It’s just not the right kind of thing to do. I could right you a whole book
about it!
MR. KAYE: I wonder if a name is symbolic of something that he resisted then, perhaps
humility or something?
MR. MURIE: Humility was at the basis of it, I am sure of that. The same with my
Uncle. They were both very strong in that. They objected to the egotism of which some
people went into wilderness. They objected very strongly. They grew up in wild
country and spent their lives in it. It wasn’t just something for Adolph, you know.
They lived it.
MR. KAYE: They obviously believed that one should bring a humble approach, and
perhaps; I get the sense from your father’s writings that wilderness was perhaps a lesson
in restraint and humility. It symbolized a larger scale approach we should have towards
nature. Is that correct, do you think?
MR. MURIE: Let’s see, would you repeat that?
MR. KAYE: I was just wondering; wilderness seemed to be a symbol of humility and
restraint towards the natural world. Maybe I am reading something in to your father’s
writings, but that’s the sense that I get.
MR. MURIE: Well that is certainly your privilege. And it could be. Again, I just don’t
like to, right off the bat, try to read his mind on that. He had a kind of a very down to
earth, close to experience view of wilderness. He didn’t like to get involved in high
philosophical doctrine. In all of his writing, he certainly thought it would be good for us
in, as you say spiritual values. He used that word a lot. But he didn’t get too specific
about that, at least when he talked in my hearing. I am not acquainted with all of his
writings.
MR. KAYE: Gee, these are some of the questions I wanted to ask you about. Is there
anything you’d like add about his perspective of wilderness, or the Arctic Refuge, or the
future he saw for it, for example?
MR. MURIE: No, I just would like to emphasize his feelings of humility, and his
wanting a grass roots approach. In fact, he said once and you’ve probably read this
somewhere, I can’t remember where it was, that “This country will never be safe for
wilderness until the American people want it”. I think that is sort of near the bedrock of
his political tactics anyway.
MR. KAYE: I guess in looking at his tactic for the Arctic Refuge it was not very
aggressive compared to say, David Brower and his approach toward “dinosaur Olaus” [?]
MR. MURIE: That brings up another point. Do you know of John Waterman’s work
on Olaus’ life in Alaska?
MR. KAYE: No.
MR. MURIE: Well, he has a contract with a published for not a biography of Olaus, but
a study of his role in Alaska in saving the Arctic Refuge, the political aspects of it.
MR. KAYE: Oh yeah, that’s right, he interviewed me about that this summer.
MR. MURIE: So you know about that?
MR. KAYE: Yeah, it isn’t done yet. He’s still working on it.
MR. MURIE: Well now, what’s your project? Like this interview, what would you do
with all of these interviews?
MR. KAYE:….the influence of say Seton on ….
MR. MURIE: Well, we all, at least two generations of people grew up on Seton. In just
introducing people to the fun of being outdoors and playing Indians. I think he was a
pivotal person in that particular generation. Then the Bureau of Biological Survey and all
those people that got tied up with the Biological Survey and the Journal of Mammalogy
this is part of the talking to each other that contributed to the cultural change that you are
trying to trace down.
MR. KAYE: I read an article that your father published very early called Boyhood
Wilderness. Do you remember that article about his boyhood on the Red River?
MR. MURIE: Yeah, he wrote more than once about that. I think, is the one that you
have the Living Wilderness one?
MR. KAYE: Yeah.
MR. MURIE: I have that one.
MR. KAYE: He traces, and I think he mentions Seton, but also this sense of adventure
like getting out of town and living like an Indian, or imagining he was.
MR. MURIE: That’s right. But see, they got it from Seton. They had his books. Then
when I was growing up, those books were in the library in Jackson Hole.
MR. KAYE: What other books do you think might have influenced your father? Did he
mention any others that were important at that formative time?
MR. MURIE: I can’t speak with great authority on that. I do know that Thoreau was in
the library there when I was growing up. There was Thoreau and Emerson. My father
didn’t read nearly as much as my Uncle did. That was interesting. My Uncle, he’s
another person who is even more modest. He’d talk to a lot of people. People like that
probably had influence too. It’s awful hard to trace it down. Both of those brothers
influenced others and were influenced by others.
MR. KAYE: I look at the word ‘evolution’ as it reoccurs through your father’s writings.
Apparently, he was more interested in preserving natural processes than features or
specific wildlife of places like the Arctic Refuge. Is that your sense?
MR. MURIE: I think he felt that if we lost fauna and flora that it would be a great blow
to evolution. He had sort of a feeling that evolution was a very prized thing. It was a
wonderful discovery. But again, he didn’t want to get all metaphysical about it. He just
liked it that’s all. He thought that maybe it would lead somewhere.
MR. KAYE: In what sense do you mean?
MR. MURIE: I don’t want to put words in his mouth. We did talk about it. Just after
the War we traveled a little together. I was kind of upset, just coming back from Italy,
and he tried to give me some feeling of optimism that no matter how bad things were,
evolution was a part of the Earth’s history and we were evolving towards something
good. I did ask him, “Where are we going?” But he wouldn’t answer that. He didn’t
want to …these things are hard to put into words.
MR. KAYE: Yeah, it is. It interesting. I remember in one paper that was for The
Journal of Wildlife Management or something his last sentence was, “Evolution is our
employer.” Implying I guess that the agencies should consider that instead of just wildlife
and just features.
MR. MURIE: Yeah, I think you’re right. And you could put a philosophical tag on it
and say that he believed I teleology. [?] Philosophically, if you got down to a rigorous
analysis, you’d probably have to say he was a teleologist, and that evolution was
pointing somewhere. It was kind of a Brooksonian approach. But I don’t know why it
is, I hate to pin anybody down that way.
MR. KAYE: Oh yeah.
MR. MURIE: That’s sort of the general area he was in. Most of the time he was just
living life now, and wilderness was something to protect and fight for and enjoy without
worrying about metaphysics.
MR. KAYE: Was he driven in that sense, to use his information to protect place?
MR. MURIE: I don’t know about “driven”. He had certain amount of field data that he
that he certainly used. That’s a kind of a double life that biologists lead. You get
published in a journal, but you also use that data for whatever you’re trying to do as an
environmentalist. He wasn’t really a…just to watch him around the ranch there he
certainly doesn’t give the impression of a “driven” person. But he was always busy. He
was always painting or drawing or writing or just walking around. He didn’t sit around
much.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting. He worked for the agency that I work for and he left. I
guess circumstances were such that his work wasn’t interpreted as he thought, perhaps,
in terms of the role on predators.
MR. MURIE: Oh, well that was a long running battle that he and Adolph and others too
fought inside the Bureau. But it wasn’t until he was offered the Wilderness Society
Directorship that he actually resigned. That’s the way I remember it. But there was a
tremendous history inside those Bureaus during those times. Leopold and other talking to
each other, and as I say its just lost to history, but a lot of going on.
MR. KAYE: We tracked down a few records of what he wrote about it and he is very
strong about his feelings about the role of predators and especially the Coyote.
MR. MURIE: That’s right, and Adolph was in on that too you know. That’s another
bone in my craw that people talk about Olaus, and they forget about Adolph. They
influenced each other. They worked together all of the time, supporting each other.
Adolph was the Park Service Biologist and Olaus was the Survey Biologist. They both
were in on all of these things.
MR. KAYE: Again Martin, I want to thank you for your time here
Interview with Kaye Masatani
No full textKaye Masatani described her childhood in the Salinas Chinatown during the late \u2730s and early 1940s. She is the daughter of a Japanese businessmen, an owner of a bar and Chinese restaurant among other small businesses, and her mother a cook at her father\u27s restaurant. Her, as well as other Japanese kids during the post internment years, desire to show White America that the Japanese were smart and could succeed academically even with the world against them helped her earn a degree at UC Berkeley in business. Kaye began with how her family came over to America, initially to Lompoc, CA before moving to Castroville and finally Salinas. Throughout the interview she talks about her father\u27s business, how she met her future husband, what her seven other siblings did, and sparingly about her mother. Kaye also describes the Internment Camps in great detail. She gives an idea of what a teenage girl would do to have fun in the internment camps, such as going to the movies or looking at the newest fashion catalogs. Her stories though also show the harsh reality that many families had to face. Her father was separated from his family for over 3 years and the news of one of her sisters\u27 death did not reach the family until after the internment was over. Kaye doesn\u27t describe the internment as a horrible time for the Japanese children, but her parents, as did many others, lost almost everything. While Kaye\u27s information about Chinatown may not be the most full and complete picture, her thoughts on race relations is utterly eye-opening. She describes how when she was a little girl that she had a Chinese friend named Helen Lu. They were best friends, but when they came back to Chinatown Helen had to go on Soledad St. and Kaye had to walk on California St. Due to this being during World War II, race relations between the Japanese and Chinese were at a definite low point and she stated that one knew where they were supposed to be. She also noted on how few Filipinos and African Americans she saw in the community, deeming Chinatown/Japan town mainly for the Chinese and Japanese. She also notes how the Salinas community at large were overtly racist, with White school children not playing with Japanese students and her inability to find a job after graduating college, possibly because of her race. Her insights into race are of paramount importance to an understanding of the Chinatown community of Salinas.https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/ohcma_chinatown/1034/thumbnail.jp
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