Bill: This is Bill Schneider and Wendy Arundale and we're here with Charlie Edwardsen, Sr. and we're going to talk a little bit about the Ikpikpak River area and some of his experiences and it's March 9th today. Okay, so you hit right to the end there, huh? Charlie: Yeah, I cut right in. Yeah, we, I've been done a lot of traveling. See, I was, oh, when I was 15 years...old see, I start herding reindeer. And that's where we herd; clear up on the Ikpikpak River. And ah, clear up in the foothills, we stay all winter. Then just before fall, when they start fawning, we take them down. Now ah, we go down west of the Ikpikpak and hit the Chipp River. See, they call Ikpikpak the branch going east is Ikpikpak going up and from that branch it branches down and they call it the Chipp. They call it the Chipp. Bill: Why is that? Charlie: I don't, I don't know. See the Eskimos call it Ikpikpak; both of them. Bill: Oh. Charlie: And they call the one east going to Smith Bay Ikpikpagruaq. And ah, just to try and confuse somebody I think, the white people call it Chipp River, so they could confuse the old timers. That, that was right. And they named certain rivers different names. The Aumalik, the Quġannaq is right, but the Qaksraugaġvik is wrong. Qaksraugaġvik they named it Aumalik, Aumalik. And they named Tittaaliq....Aumalik, Tittaaliq. They string the names wrong. Wendy: Oh, okay, can you say that again? Charlie: See, the Quġannaq is right and ah Qaksraugaġvik they named it Aumalik. That's not Aumalik. That's Qaksraugaġvik. Bill: What does that mean? Charlie: Oh, it's where you portage. You know, you can qaksrau it, cover it over. Qaksraugaġvik they call it. And ah, and that goes right into the hills too. They've been up just about every river. And ah, from ah, they change the name, that's supposed to be Qaksraugaġvik instead of, they got that name out of there. I don't know how. The natives call it Qaksraugaġvik and....the white people got Aumalik on it. And they call Aumalik, Tittaaliq. Tittaaliq is a little further up. It's a little creek. Bill: So in Inupiaq you call the Tittaaliq um, Aumalik? Charlie: Aumalik, yes. That's Aumalik. And it goes clear down clear west and goes close to the Meade River and goes on up. Then you portage from, from there to Noatak. Just over the hill you to Noatak. Bill: Is that the place that you were talking about where you just portage over? Charlie: Ah, no, no not that. I mean, that's what the name of that river is, Qaksraugaġvik. I don't know what they portage to, but that's what they always call it, Qaksraugaġvik. Bill: Uh-huh, let me see what we've got going on here. Charlie: I mean, we went clear on up there ah, see, what they call east Aumalik site, drill site, that's right on, they call it east Aumalik site and that's on Qaksraugaġvik River. Right on the Qaksraugaġvik River. And that, from the old ridge site you just portage over the hill and you, then you run into Aumalik. See, this there's something there, that kind of country. Confusing, see? The old timers found a lot of color in that creek and just to confuse them, when these old timers are gone. (They) that's what I thought. Now they can look... at Qaksraugaġvik looking for them colors, people that doesn't know, they look for it, but it's in the other river. And, and that's what I thought. What, but there's not too many people that ah, that goes up there. But they just stop traveling a little anyway. But on the ground now we got camps up there, we stay up there and we like it.

Bill: When did you first go up to the Ikpikpak area? Charlie: What the first time? I was 15 years old. Bill: When you were reindeer herding? Charlie: Yah, that's when we stayed up there. I, we was up there for oh, I herded reindeer six years. My brother Eddie he'd been up there about seven years. Arnold Brower and I, we went the same time and there were four of us. Jonas Ningeok too. He was herding reindeer too, to Brower. See, we had to go into the reindeer herds. That was our own herd. The old man Brower said, "You herd reindeer 'til you're 21." That was all. Bill: Was that old Charlie Brower? Charlie: Yah, he was my grandfather. And to heck with school. He'd just send us up there all summer long, all year round, we took care of the herd. Bill: Was that Barrow herd? Charlie: No, that's Brower, Brower herd. Bill: Brower herd. Charlie: That was our herd we had. We claimed it, my brother, me, grandma. It was strictly, ah, grandma's herd anyway, son took over. White man couldn't have herd. Bill: Oh, so it was Charlie's wife? Charlie: Yeah. Bill: Yeah, so you were up there six years herding reindeer that time? Charlie: I was 21 years old when I got out of it. And I , I'm...not in Barrow all the time. We...out of every year we stay in Barrow about 10 days. And we enjoyed it. We, we had a lot of troubles up there. Bill: What are some of the reindeer camps up there on the Ikpikpak and Chipp River? Charlie: The Chipp River is just a Brower's herd, their range, ranging ground. And the Company herd is the Meade River. The Barrow herd, see, ah they, they got a line, they got each a line on each herd, Wainwright, Barrow, and Brower. On the Brower herd they call it the Half Moon Three Ranch. And the Halkett herd. Now there's a Halkett herd too. That's in the Tasiqpak area. Cape Halkett up there and there's a Tegoseak herd east of Halkett. Bill: Where was the Brower herd, on the Chipp River? Was there any camps there? Charlie: What's that? Bill: Was there special camps there? Charlie: No, we're moving all the time. We use snow houses. We tent, put a tent inside the snow and block it up. Stay really warm. And when the reindeer graze, when it's already grazed we move a ways on the edge where they haven't grazed. And we stay there too. They'd get quite a ways from us we'd move again. Wendy: How often would that be? Charlie: Oh, about maybe a couple of weeks or so. Then the reindeer right up side you again. Wendy: Did you have dogs or anything to help you? Charlie: We had six dogs. We had three collies, Lapp dogs. Bill: Where did you get those? Charlie: BIA got them from I think the Laplanders. These was collies, small, not very big ones. Some kind of collies. Bill: I know in talking to Waldo about this once, he talked about getting reindeer dogs from Siberia. Charlie: That's, that's some of them might... Bill: But the place on the Chipp River, ah, that Half Moon Three. Charlie: It's on the, ...it's Alaqtaq. Alaqtaq is Half Moon Three. Bill: Was that a reindeer camp? Charlie: That's the main camp. That's Brower's main camp. The corral and everything is there. Bill: Is it still there? Charlie: Yeah, still ready to use. Bill: How did he come to set up that camp at that place? Charlie: Oh, they've been there since ah, it might be in the 1800's or so. That's when they got their reindeer. That's where they had it. They had somebody else taking care of them. Like Levi, Levi was one guy. Bill: Levi Greist? Charlie: No, he's dead. It's Rexford, Levi Rexford, and also William Leavitt, Sr. He was, he was one of the herders too. Like Arthur Neokok he was one of the herders too for Brower. But them days you don't have to worry about nothing. There's no caribou, no wolves. But we, we when we start herding we had to stay with the herd night and day. When they go out feeding we go with them and watch them. There were so many wolves you have to keep the wolves away from them.

Bill: When you were reindeer herding how far up did you go with the herd? Charlie: We went clear up to...sometimes we go clear up to Simiutaq. We go clear up there. We go clear up to Simiutaq. I know what you seem that on the map, I guess. Yeah, we go clear up there just so we can get close to that coal mine, coal up there. And we'll burn coal. Bill: There's a coal mine there? Charlie: Yeah, there's coal there. There's coal all over. I was the one that found it. I didn't really find it, but I heard someone telling where it was and I went to look for it and found it. There's two veins of it. One in the water and one in the middle of the bank. And I'm thinking of getting some of that for our cabin up there. Ah, going downriver to take up a plane maybe and hour or so. See, once I went traveled with a boat. We travel five days going up river with a 70-horse outboard. They pull their boat up. Bill: Your mother-in-law, you were describing the pattern that she used. Charlie: Yeah, that's the river they followed. They go up the river. They drag their boats and go up the river and it goes right up past Howard Hill and just west of Knife Blade, they call it Anuyaaġvik. That river goes up to the east of Ikpikpak goes to Anuyaaġvik. And they'd leave their ġoats there and walk from there. Portage into the Colville looking for cariġou. See, that's all caribou right up the Colville. And they get their skins there. They bury the meat or they dry it. They got dogs for packing it too. And they dry the skins and head back before it starts freezing, so they can go to their fish camps. Go clear down to either place Qaksraugaġvik or Qaglugiksauraq we call it. Or Simiutaq or Aumalik. They got all places there. They go up to them and that's their winter camps and ah, clear down to Akiqpak, Quġannaq. All this place was occupied at that time. Bill: In your mother-in-laws time? Charlie: Yeah, in her time. And Ikpikpak, there was a lot of them at Ikpikpak all the time. And ah, what that book when they came down; I suppose you read that book, huh? When there was the coast geodetic survey of what...the first survey they had. Bill: Are you referring to the military men, or the USGS? Charlie: The military guys. Wendy: Howard? Charlie: That's Howard's name. Howard. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And there were, they said in that book that there was as many as 150 people in one...place. Wendy: Do you know where that place is? Charlie: I'd like to know. That's what I been looking for, that place where they stayed. That's what you guys ought to find but I'm getting too old to find it now. You know what? The only thing I want to find, they said that mastodon tusk cut, made in....stuck into the ground for a cutting table. Cutting table. Bill: Where's that? Charlie: On the Ikpikpak. Bill: Way up? Charlie: I don't know where. Them people that's gone already that know it. Bill: Was that what you heard? Charlie: Not from her but from Tukle (Tugli), ah Richard Tukle. They used to go up that river three times a summer and fight that current. Not really fighting walking, with a 70-horse you going full bore and it takes you...it took us quite a while to go up. Little over 5 hours coming back from Chipp 2. Bill: What was Richard Tukle doing up there? Charlie: They're trying to survive. They're getting fur for clothing and trying to find, looking for caribou. That's what they do. That's all they do, looking subsistence hunting. Bill: So he was an old man when he died? Charlie: Yeah, he was old. Yeah. Bill: And he was talking about his childhood up there? Charlie: There were two brothers. There's quite a few of them. Also there was another guys too up there. They hunt a lot, trap. They're looking for fur when fur was real high and they were all over, they were all over. Wendy: So, was Richard a person of your generation or was he... Charlie: No he's old, he's older. That's Joash Tukle's dad. Wendy: So he was your mother-in-law's generation. Charlie: Yeah, yeah they're in that generation. But he was younger than my mother-in-law though.

Charlie: Yeah, my mother-in-law old, a short little lady. Bill: Still sewing? Charlie: No, her eyesight is bothering her now. She moves about she moves better than me. Bill: Is she ah, what does she call herself, does she, is she Ikpikpaŋmui. Charlie: No she don't call that. She's regularly I think Mary ought to know, she knows about that, I'm sure. Ah, his father, his stepfather, Michael Qiugaq. Bill: Her stepfather? Charlie: Yeah, and...they adopt her from...from she had another mother. But she was adopted by her sister, her mother's sister. And this old man takes her all over the country. Some years she goes up the Ikpikpuk. Some years she goes through the Meade River and portages to Noatak. That guy was traveling. Some years she goes down to Cape Lisburne. She done a lot of traveling. Bill: Seen a lot of country. Charlie: Uh-huh. Bill: Would they return then every summer to this area? Charlie: No, not...sometimes yes. The time Wainwright got their reindeer he was transferred down there. He started work being a herder. Bill: What's his last name again? Charlie: Michael Qiugaq. That's Mary's dad there. That's a great dog musher. He mushed, he run on a trip clear down to Unalakleet one time. Bill: So, was he running mail? Charlie: He was a mail runner. He runs the mail three times a year down to Kotzebue. Bill: And what was his name? Charlie: Ned Nusunginya (Nusaŋiña).

Bill: So you were, as a young boy, 15 to 21, you were spending time out there and herding reindeer. Who taught you about that area when you were out there, was it the other people that were out there? Charlie: No, we learn ourselves. Bill: Just by yourselves. Charlie: Just by ourselves. Nobody showed us. I travel a lot. See there's four of us, that's four days. Every fourth day we are on duty taking care of the herd. And during them three days, I don't stay home, I go. Go look for another, go look for something. And we had six dogs. Every time a gut gets off he can use the dogs. They are nice to go caribou hunting. Go quite a ways from there. While they... I was hunting up at what they call Aumalik, and there were a lot of peoples up there, like Roxy and... Bill: Roxy Ekowana? Charlie: No, not Roxy, he's a town boy. He don't... Roxy Oyaqak (Uyaġak). They were up there and I went there and I just took a little meat for my dog food, just a day's meal. I know 'cause I told my brother, "I know I'm gonna find something up there." I ran into one herd of caribou. I met Ningeok, Jimmy Ningeok up there and I saw some smoke right...just the other side of Simiutaq. I looked at it and I didn't know there was anybody up there. And there was smoke coming right up in the nice sunny day. So I started heading for it. When I got close I could start smelling it and I got to them Jonas...Jimmy Ningeok, but his...one of their sons were working with us on reindeer, Jonas Ningeok and his folks. Old man Ningeok and the family were there. They originally from Kuukpaaġruk or someplace in that area and they moved to Barrow. That 's where I stayed overnight and I gave a little meat to my dogs and they cooked some of the meat. They were, they had hardly anything. They couldn't get any caribou. There was caribou around but they couldn't get to them. So I started to go again from there and I asked him, "Do you want to go in with me?" And Jimmy said, "Yes, I want to." So I let him go. So I took him along. And we saw a herd of caribou and he ask me, "What you gonna do now, go right under them?" We, we're on top of the bluff...on top of the hill. And I tell him I'm gonna...I'm gonna slide down with the sled. But I had a brake on my sled so we start coming down at them. Bill: Down at the caribou? Charlie: Yah, the dogs ahead of us. So, I set my brakes so we won't run into the dogs. Finally they was laying down. They didn't see us. Oh there was a little ridge up there, come up. All of a sudden here were the team. And as soon as we got there, we split the caribou. We were so close to them. And I jumped off the sled and let the dogs go. Charlie (cont'd): Jimmy said he thought he was afraid that dogs...we're going to lose the dogs. And there was no time to lose them right now. They were gonna have a few caribou bite 'em. So, we got 23, we downed 22 right there. Bill: Wow. So did he go with you then? Charlie: Then right there we just stayed there and skinned the caribou. While I was making that snow house, he was cutting them. And he had every one of them the feet, we skinned the feet out properly so they don't spoil. He had every one of them skinned out while I was making that snow house. Bill: 22. Charlie: And here his dad came walking when he heard us shooting, to go get some meat, to carry some meat for his family. Bill: It was pretty tough some of those times? Charlie: Yah, you better believe it and and ah, they would have been in a real tough jam right there if it wasn't enough for me that time. And I took just enough for myself and enough meat and gave the rest to them. Bill: Did they stay up there? Charlie: They stayed up there till the spring time. The old folks died already. Right on the, right on the fork. Just a little past the fork what they call Aumalik.

Bill: When you were reindeer herding up there, were there lots of people living there? Charlie: No, nobody. Nobody was there until about the third year. Peter Suqłuk and ah, Amaġuaq, that's the old folks, the Nayukok's. They moved up there, next to...they was at Akiqpak. They stayed there at that little house. They stayed there and it was just about maybe 5 miles from our herding area. We'd visit them. Bill: Then, I wonder why no one was living there? Was there a period of time when some of the people left there? Charlie: No, when the schools started...we came down. They wanted to take us to school. But some goes up yet, few of them. They was mostly on the Meade River, anyway. They like the Meade River. I went up the Meade River a few times too but there's no satisfaction for me on the Meade River. Bill: Have you in your mother-in-laws time, there was lots of people there? Charlie: Yah, there was lots of people that time. That time there were people from, there were lots of them. They come up to Ikpikpagruaq from the other way from Smith Bay. Smith Bay people, they come up there. Up that other river, through the Ikpikpagruaq. Bill: When you say Ikpikpagruaq, that refers to that. Charlie: Yah, big river, old river. Ikpikpagruaq. That's the older river and they call the one I'm on, Chipp. They call it Chipp, that's Ikpikpak. Bill: So the Chipp is Ikpikpak and the old river is Ikpikpagruaq. Charlie: See it branches off right where, where Arnold's just right above Chipp 8 to Smith Bay and my place is Chipp 10. That's at Pikłatak. Bill: That's the name? Charlie: Pikłatak. Bill: What does that mean? Charlie: Kind of rough domes or something like that. We call it Pikłatak. Bill: Is that an old place? Charlie: Yah, we're right on the old camp, old site. And there's proof there. There's old net sinkers, floats, pieces of wood in the ground, if you want to dig them out. Wendy: When you say Chipp 8 and Chipp 10, are those CB codes that you use or something like that? Charlie: No, we named them. Wendy: Oh.

Charlie: It was my brother-in-law's camp. And Chipp 4 is Arnold Brower's camp. And they went up to Chipp 5, is Bobby Brower, Jr.'s camp. And Chipp, I'll call Chipp 6, is Marchie Nageak's camp. He's got a camp there. And Tom Brower, Jr's. is 7 and Arnold Brower, Jr's. is 8 . That's supposed to be 8 anyway, and Arnold Brower, Sr. supposed to be 9. They got that mixed up a little right there. My camp is 10, Chipp 10. Bill: We'll locate those on the map in a bit. Wendy: Okay, are those sequential as you go the river or are they just in the order they were built? Charlie: Ah, let's see. That's the old site. It's the old site but we named them ourselves. Wendy: Okay. Bill: That site that you had your camp at, did you know any of those old people who stayed there.? Charlie: That's one of them over here, Faye. That's one of them out there that stayed at...they stayed at Aviullaavik. That's just about maybe, couple miles from there down the river. They called it Aviullaavik. And that's an old historical place. Some ice cellars, some of the old igloos are out, they washed out. That's not the main river anymore. It's just dry ground now. That river changed right through the lakes. Wendy: The old cellars though, are still there? Charlie: Yah, they're still there and where we get our water from a lake across the river. And there's an old sod house you can see. And I haven't even known that at all and my mother-in-law said she hadn't know that place either. But we found it. And we start digging into the ground we saw, we found old manila rope and an old can inside the ground. And she's pretty old and she doesn't even know who that place belong to. And she's the one that found that. And after you find anything it comes right out. Where the sod had been. But where Chipp 2 is... See, I dug into across there, I was going to make a cold storage across the river across from us. So I could put my meat, keep frozen meat in there, so I'll, so if so when the plane come I could just pick it up and put it in the plane; frozen fish. And I dug into one of those old cache, old time cache, Bill: I'll be darned. Charlie: They didn't use nails. It was wood but with willows. They stand them up and then squeeze them. Bill: This is Chipp 2? Charlie: Chipp 2, yah. And when I found that, see, I had quite an argument with the Navy. Bill: Oh, really? Charlie: Yah, I had quite an argument with the Navy. They said we hadn't been there, people hadn't been there that long. And I called the Navy department and they had some of their people come up and stayed with us and they said "That's true, they been here long time." Bill: So there was a period of time when people weren't up there, when they were bringing their kids to school here. Charlie: Yah, that's it. But there was somebody out there all the time. They're coming and going. When the people from the east came, they went right up the river. The ones that didn't have any kids, like the old people anyway. Like Roxy Oyagak (Uyaġak) and all them. They went right up the river. Bill: Instead of coming to Barrow? Charlie: No, they stayed in Barrow first. But they gotta survive, they gotta get some fish. And that's where they went.

Bill: Was the flu epidemics any problems for these populations? Charlie: See, them days that flu, see we were kids when they had the flu. Bill: Which flu was that? Charlie: That last big flu killed a lot of people too. Bill: Around 1919 - 1920? Charlie: No, it's after that. Bill: 1940's? Charlie: 1934 or something around in the 30's. Bill: You think in the 30's? Charlie: In the 30's, yah. Dr. Greist was the doctor here and after the flu was over the spring time, and they had, I don't know how many coffins, they had on a sled and they took them with a cat and buried them. Bill: Did that affect those people up there, up the river? Charlie: Oh, yah, see a lot of people at Barter Island and all them people when they got that flu. There was quite a few of them, too. And that's the time Jonas, that old man and his wife, died up at the fish camp too, Jonas Ningeok. When they had that flu. Bill: Which fish camp was that? Charlie: At Pulayaaq at the Meade River. Bill: On the Meade River? Wendy: I guess I didn't understand that clearly. Was that Jonas that died or was it his folks? Charlie: His folks. His mom and dad.

Bill: There's quite a few then, of those old places along the Ikpikpak, that has some history. Charlie: Yah, there's a lot of old places there. See, there's Auma..., they call it Isuliumaniq. There's some old places there. And they call it Pausana's. There's an old place there. And I don't really know the actual name it. See, we don't know the lot of names some of the lands. Bill: What do you call that again, that Pausalat? Charlie: Pausan. Bill: Pausan? Charlie: Yah, that's where Chipp 9 is. Just a little ways from it. And ah, see they call another place, just below Qaksraugaġvik they call it Aimaniġruaq. Wendy: Ai-ma- Charlie: -niġruaq. Wendy: -niġruaq? Charlie: -niġruaq. That's a big bluff. They used to tell the people not to go close to the bluff. And some people got smart and they think...See, there's always, in the spring time, even breakup there's a big snow hangs out quite a ways. And water is already in the bottom. And these guys said they were, they told them not to get close to that but they going up river they start going close by it, and that snow fell, and that was the end of them they say. Bill: Are they old places on the river? Charlie: What's that? Bill: Can you think of other old places on the river? Charlie: Ahh, Qaglugiksauraq. Bill: That's an old place? Charlie: That's an old place. That's a river that goes, that branches into the Chipp River where they fish. And how they call Uġvik. and you got Akiqpak, huh? Bill: No. Charlie: Akiqpak. Bill: What does Uġvik mean? Charlie: It's a, it's a hill. It's a hill that just put right down...Kind of square hill. It just looks like somebody put a pan there and just dropped it there, square. Bill: Perfect. Charlie: They call it Uġvik. Bill: How about that, ah Akiqpak. Charlie: Akiqpak. That's a creek and they used to fish out of there quite a bit. Leo Kaleak and ah, his brother, Owen. They used to been up there too. Al Hopson, Sr., he lived there too, in them days. Ernest Kignak. There's a lot of people that used to stay up the river when we were kids. Been up in like Uniyyauraq, they call them Uniyyauraaqs. He stayed at Akiqpak in them days. Like Okpeaha. That's ah, that's where they used to go. Trying to survive. Bill: What's that place? Charlie: Akiqpak. The Okpeaha's. That's where they...when were kids. I don't think they even remember. But a lot of people go. They used to go and also there are some that call it Aŋuyaaġvik, Niaquqtuaġruk. That's right above the Simiutaq. Qiruilaq. That's where they stayed.

Bill: We have a problem with some of the ..understanding the river in some parts because people talk about specific places and then they talk about parts of the river and then sometimes the names change. And we're not sure whether we're..it's a specific place or part of the river. Charlie: Ah, see, now this place you can...if a guy goes up there in the summer time with a boat, like. We don't go on the ...we're mostly traveling that's why. When we go up even on the Price River where it comes out of Ikpikpak we camp there too. And we found mastodon tusks that were cut up old but they were no good anymore. They was Charlie Edwardsen, (?)s right into the river and that's what they call Quġluqtuq. (?)means been sawing them. Bill: What do you call that place? Charlie: Quġluqtuq. Bill: And what does that mean? Charlie: Dripping, running. They call Quġluqtuq. It's a river going east from right above Simiutaq. And ah, it's the waters from the hills. Quġluq, runs right into the river and that's what they call Quġluqtuq. Wendy: Quġluqtuq? Charlie: Yah, and ah, like ah, another river but below there that is a lot of people stay too, is Tagli. And it runs clear into the Tasiqpak Lake. It goes east. Also, there's another river goes right above Quġluqtuq going east too, ah, what's that name, Qikiqtaġruuraq. See, them places there they had people in them living in them places long time. Bill: Are there, you see old ah... Charlie: No, I never even look for anything. I don't go that far. But they always...that's where they mostly trap Qikiqtaġruuraq. They get a lot of wolverine used to get a lot of wolverine that place. And the Tukle's used to go there. Bill: You mentioned a place, Tagli which is a river that runs east to Tasiqpak. Charlie: Yah, it goes right above Tasiqpak. I think it drains into the Colville or into Qalliqpak. That goes into the delta of the Colville, west of Nannie Woods. Bill: But you heard people talk about staying on those rivers? Charlie: Yah, see at Qalliqpik there's a lot of cellars. But I don't know where they are. There's a lot of ice cellars for fish. And around Tasiqpak Lake I think you can get ...I haven't been hardly up in that area, but I've run into a lot houses when I'm going to Tasiqpak Lake. But there's the Leavitts mostly stay up there. And see, even though they're way up there herding reindeer, see the people from Halkett, Qalluvik or Halkett, we'd meet up there. They come up to visit us right above Tasiqpak Lake. Bill: I guess we need to back up a second. You mentioned a place where you saw ice cellars for fish. Charlie: Yah, that's Qalliqpik on the mouth of Qalliqpik and also there's some at ah, ah, that's too far off anyway, the other way. Bill: You called that Qalliqpik? Charlie: What? Bill: What did you call that place? Charlie: Qalliqpik. Wendy: Qalliqpik? Charlie: Qalliqpik. Wendy: Is it qalliqpik or iqalliq? Charlie: Qalliq. Wendy: Qalliq. Okay. Charlie: The river that comes from this side, up from the Price River and that's where we come. There lot of wolves in that area.

Bill: Uh-huh. I've been trying to figure out as you've been talking who the Ikpikpaŋmiut are. Charlie: Ikpikpaŋmiut, I think they were Ikpikpaŋmiut. Bill: In the old days I'm trying... Charlie: But you can't really say they were Ikpikpaŋmiut, but they had Ikpikpaŋmiut. My nephew's got a book of it and it said they don't get along too good either. Ikpikpaŋmiut and Taġiuġmiut. But they trade. The Ikpikpaŋmiut bring the fur down. Wolverine, depends on what they get, furs, and they trade, trade oil for their fur, trade ammo. That's what they do. Bill: Did you ever hear anyone called that though, Ikpikpaŋmiut. Anyone thought of as that way? Charlie: No, I haven't heard them called that. But see, these people that I know, they're from mostly from Barrow that goes up there, stays up there. Bill: I wonder if there was people before that? Charlie: Yah, there's a lot of people in Ikpikpak in the 1800's. Bill: When the soldiers came to... Charlie: Yah, there were a lot of people and George has got that book. Bill: Yah, I'd like to know more, though about what people remember hearing stories about those earlier people. Charlie: Uh-huh, and them guys that were coming through they thought they wasn't going to survive from the Ikpikpak people. But they survived. Wendy: Would you... Charlie: But the map, when I look at it and ah, quite a bit of changes anyway, too, on the land. Looking at the map and what they draw, it's not right. Bill: Yah, it's hard to reconstruct. Charlie: Yah, but if you're going to travel by them you'll be lost. Bill: Yah, but I think that some of the place names may give us some clues to those old places. Charlie: Uh-huh. See, there was some people that Isiliumaniq. See these places are named by the natives like Pittaq and Pittaq, Mayuaġiaq. They're all named. And also Taġġaq, Iḷavgaŋuluk, Ahsoak (Asuaq). Wendy: I can't keep up with you. Bill: What does Pittaq mean? Charlie: What? Bill: What does Pittaq mean? Charlie: It's a big lake. I don't know. That's what they named it anyway, Pittaq. Bill: How about Mayuaġiaq? Charlie: Mayuaġiaq. That's a river. Mayuaġiaq. And you pass more trees there's another river called Mayuaġiuraq. That's where you climb Mayuaġiuraq. You follow that river and it go right into a lake and you portage right into the Ikpikpak. Bill: How about Taġġaq? Charlie: Taġġaq, it's a shade. That place is just like a corral, it's a shade. And we used to herd our reindeer right in through that opening and lasso right down the bottom there. They can't climb up the bank, it's so high, steep. More like a corral, it's a corral anyway. Bill: How about Ahsoak? Charlie: What's that? Bill: The last one? Charlie: Ahsoak, that's where my, that's where one of the old timers used to, that's where his camp is. That's just about maybe five miles from Chipp 10 up. Bill: Did you know him? Charlie: My old grandpa. Grandpa from my mother's side. That was my grandmother's brother. Wendy: Do you recall what his name was? Charlie: Alex Ahsoak. Bill: That was your grandmother's brother, huh? Charlie: Yah. Bill: On your mother's side? Charlie: Uh-huh. Bill: Do you remember him? Charlie: He used to take Tom Brower out trapping when he was a kid. And they used to trap there. And see, like what I was saying, just a little ways east of there, there're two big lakes and they call them Qiukkam Imaŋa, Qiukkam Imaŋa. That's Qiugaq's water. That's a, that's my mother-in-law's stepfather, father there, stepfather. They been all over that country. And see, it's two big lakes and a little ground between them. And he'd have his camp on the end of it and put snow blocks on the edge of two lakes and when the caribou start coming in then they look back and see something they don't go back towards what they see, It's made out of snow, a scarecrow. And the caribou comes right to his camp. Bill: That's your mother-in-law's stepdad? Charlie: Yah, Qiugaq. Iñuksutuq (Means "use a scarecrow") See, that's his son-in-law too, that Ernest Kignak. That's his son-in-law, that old man. I guess he didn't want to learn what this old man knew. Bill: That place you call Imaŋa, where is that place located, what quadrant? Charlie: It's just a little ways from my... Bill: It's on the river? Charlie: No, it's on top of the mainland. Bill: On the lake? Charlie: On the lake, yah. It's just a little ways from Aqsiiñ. They got domes up there too. That's name of the people. Ground, dome. They got names, people's names on them. There's one they call Siġvan and another one they called Taqtu, Arthur Taqtu (Neakok). And another one called Aqsiiña. And they know them by their names and a kind of ridge that hangs out they call it Quagrugaġruaq. ġill: They call that... Charlie: That ridge, yah. Quagrugaġruaq that's what it means. Bill: Is there a place called... or is it refer to the whole ridge? Charlie: That whole ridge Quagrugaġruaq. That place up there is all names, but we don't know. The elderly people don't tell us some of their names and they call it see, Kuupałłuk. That goes right into Teshekpuk Lake too. That's where the natives were camping there and the Indians came and killed off the families while the men was hunting caribou. They were all women. Wendy: What was the name of that place again? Charlie: Kuupałłuk. Wendy: Kuupałłuk? Charlie: They understand it. It's got another name, ashamed to put it on the tape. Maybe if you take off the tape I can tell you.

Bill: So the hunters came home, the Eskimo hunters came home and they saw that their women had been killed and one of those hunters... Charlie: One of the old elderly people were killed too. And all the hunters came home and ran into all this killed people but there were two missing, two young girls missing. So, this man start following them. He became a wolf anyway, he call them, he had a aanġuaq like what they call a wolf and he followed them and he told them, "If I catch up to them and I see them, I'm gonna howl, I'm gonna howl." And they kept going, follow, following his tracks all night and when he howled they know he saw them. So, they came to him and they know what to do and he starts sneaking up to them after it got dark. And he snuck up to them and these girls were keeping the fire going while the Indians were surrounding the fire, as usual, enjoying the fire. But the two girls were keeping the fire going. Cutting willows and getting wood and he sneak up where they were getting wood and when he and the girls got there, he saw this man and know who he was. One of them hollered and he just told them, "Get out of there, get out and tell them that it was a ptarmigan." I don't know how she explained that to an Indian. But when she came back again for another load of wood, he told them, "Build a fire, make it bright so we can see good." So, they all surrounded and shot them all with bow and arrows and they left two young people. They left two of them and they were gonna see how far they can go. What these girls can walk or not. Bare feet too. But they didn't reach the camp. Bill: They died? Charlie: They didn't die. They cut them up after they stop moving. Bill: How did you hear that story? Charlie: See, ah, this old man they call him Amaġuaq he used to be the witch doctor a long time ago. And he lived, he the two that died and they starve to death. And his wife and him starve to death after we stopped herding reindeer. We used to give him lots of meat and stuff like that before. But at that time we wasn't up there we was always trying to help them out. But that spring they starve. We, Arnold and I, used to hunt for them and get them a lot of meat. But we weren't there and the ground squirrel were... it happened before that and I guess they must have had hardly any ptarmigans, pretty near lost the whole family. But they had about three or four dogs and they ate them. Bill: That was pretty late, huh? Charlie: Yah, not too long. Oh, at least maybe oh, 40 years maybe. Wendy: This should be before World War II? Charlie: No, that was after World War II. Wendy: After World War II? Charlie: After, after we came there.