The Mudflats

Happy Easter, Mudflatters!

This morning, I thought we could take a break from politics for a moment and focus on the positive work that this community has accomplished on behalf of the residents of rural Alaska. There is much more to be done to ensure long-term solutions for the challenges facing Alaskan villages, but there is a story that says when a man has been struck by an arrow, you don’t ask where the arrow came from or who shot it, or what kind of arrow it is. First, you remove it and tend to the wound. When people need food, you can’t postpone help until you figure out the tangled web of events that caused the problem. Immediate help must accompany long-term strategy.

The following is a wonderful letter of thanks from a Mudflats reader for all those who have helped rural Alaskans in their plight this winter with gifts of food, donations for fuel, and messages of love and support.

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Memories come in strange form. This time they arrived amongst the cans of corned beef hash.

The list read: Canned Meat.

So canned meat we had been stalking, and had found in the massive boxed offerings at Costco. There among the cases of Spam and Vienna Sausages and Corned Beef Hash, I found myself catching drifts of memories… horses, can opener, shame.

Strange, the power of memories. You can either put them back in the brain caves from which they came, or grasp them and learn from their stories.

This was no time for remembering. Hubby and I were on a mission to fill Ann Strongheart’s food list. We’d adopted a family in Nunam Iqua, and were flush with purpose as we pushed our carts. Major discussions were had over canned beans and soup cartons. Would cartons freeze in transport? (Yes!) Do kids eat beans? (doubtful). But committee approval was not needed at the candy aisle. Who doesn’t like M & M’s?

An hour later we’d boxed up the loot and Hubby was off to do the posting.

And I began to cry. I cried at sharing with my husband the joy of giving this family a helping hand.

And I cried for the little girl memories that refused to go back into that cave. The thought of the faces of the village children when they opened our boxes of food, signaled in me a rush of pictures in my mind. I saw the faces of my sisters as we watched our mother open a flour sack filled with canned goods and another filled with milk and cereal.

We hadn’t eaten real food for a week. The crackers and watered down evaporated milk were gone that morning. There’d been no heat in the house for weeks. We chopped wood and sawed logs trying to get fuel for the old fire stove. My stepfather hadn’t had work for I don’t know how long and neither had my mother. We were three sisters, all under ten. If stepdad hadn’t found the rent-free caretaker’s house at the head of a canal works, we would have been homeless.

There is a certain shame to being hungry when you are a child. And the shame is unspoken.

We three sisters would walk the mile up the canyon to catch our school bus, and once boarded and taken off to school, never talk of our hunger . We accepted lunch money loans that embarrassed us with the taking. In our minds we were the only kids with growling stomachs. We pretended that we belonged, but our poverty lurked behind us like a shadow. What we could have used was a hero.

And on this Saturday morning, just after the frost of April, in a river canyon of Colorado, there stood outside our house, a horse. And behind that horse was a packhorse. Working the straps of the horses was a cowboy. He wasn’t a romantic kind of cowboy. He was more the grizzled type, all grey and brown and bowlegged and wrinkled. I never heard his name and he wasn’t much for words but when my stepdad came out to shake his hand, there lurked a bit of a grin behind his beard.

We were in awe…here stood the legendary “cowboy hermit” of the Western Slope. Of course, we’d heard of him and one exploring day, past the canal a few miles to the west, we’d thought we spied his cavehut.

On this day, the hermit became our hero.

Here’s how he came to us:

Back at the head of the canyon stood a miners’ store. It was where we caught our school bus and the miners and cowboys could stock up on canned beans and chewing tobacco. The day before, stepdad had been in asking for credit. He didn’t get it but our cowboy heard his desperation.

Without announcement he packed up those horses with provisions…all that he had in that cave and the milk from the miners’ store. And he showed up at our back porch.

He carried those floursacks into the kitchen, was offered a seat, and with the coffee that he’d pulled from the bag, my mother made him a fresh cup .

He watched as we girls stood dumbfounded at the bounty in those bags. Peanut butter and crackers, Cheerios, and canned chili and baked beans and a can opener. These we all knew. But there were, also, six cans of the one thing I’d never seen before: Corned Beef Hash

To this day I love the memories of that Hero Cowboy. And I love Corned Beef Hash.

But now I cry again as I write to thank all of you who have given to the Alaskan Villages.

In my own life I have come full circle in the receiving and the giving. In each of you I know that there is a similar story. Most of you carry these stories in your hearts and your hearts are full.

Quyana caknek

Fawnskin Mudpuppy

[For those of you who would like to reach out to assist those families in need in rural Alaska, visit HERE.  Go to the side bar and click "How to Help"]