Fish Camp and Family
By: U.S.Fish Wildlife Alaska
Tags: Environment, Native Americans, Education, Tradition, Culture

The family was poor in the sense that there was little available cash, says Cora, “but the land provided for us, just as it had provided for our ancestors over thousands of years. We didn’t have toys — for Christmas, our presents were moccasins and mukluks my mother sewed from moose skins she had tanned. But we had everything we needed, and I was so happy there.”

But though the fish camp formed the physical parameters of Cora’s life, her mother knew the family — indeed, all Upper Tanana Athabascan people — straddled two worlds. And the outside world was encroaching on the traditional world Cora knew. From mid-autumn through early spring — when she wasn’t at fish camp — Cora attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Northway. And when she was around ten, her mother sent her to a boarding school in Wrangell.

“My mother couldn’t read or write, and she felt that we needed to get formal educations to negotiate the modern world,” says Cora. “But I didn’t want to leave her. They put me on a little plane at Northway kicking and screaming, and I kicked and screamed when they transferred me to other planes at Fairbanks and Juneau. I was incredibly homesick — traumatized, really. Even today, more than 50 years later, I sometimes get a little twinge when I’m on a plane because that memory comes back.”

The following years were tough for Cora. In the 1960s, Alaska Native children were punished for speaking their primary languages in school, and tribal cultures were denigrated.

“I wasn’t allowed to speak Upper Tanana Athabascan, and they cut my long hair,” recalls Cora. “My mother was terribly upset when she found out. In general, Native kids were just treated poorly. I wanted to come home, but mom wouldn’t let me, insisting that I needed to be educated. She’d send me dried fish and meat to make me feel better.”

Ultimately, says Cora, “I just went within myself for protection, and I stayed there.”

Things started to turn around after Cora graduated high school. A school counselor, Dorothy Johnson, took the young girl under her wing and helped her find work. The genuine concern and care expressed by her mentor was transformational, Cora says — she describes herself as a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

“Dorothy made me feel worthy again,” Cora says, “and when I returned to Northway I got a job at the airport lodge, doing everything from waitressing to cleaning rooms. And I did the best job that I could possibly do. My mother taught me that. There’s a saying in our language, which essentially translates as ‘Do the best you know how,’ no matter what it is. That ethic kept us alive in our family fish camp, and that’s still how I live my life today.”

Cora married her husband, Glenn Demit, in 1966, and they eventually had four children. She became an alcoholism counselor and still maintains her certification “because sometimes people just want to talk. Sometimes they need to call and check in, and I always want to be available to help.”

Later, she became a special education aide for the Northway school district.

“I had that position for 10 years and I loved every minute of it,” says Cora. “Working with those kids was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”

Cora’s life changed again in 1991, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service posted an opening for a Park Ranger at the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. She applied for the job and got it, and later became a Refuge Information Technician, charged with overseeing Tetlin’s visitor center in Tok.