Roger Menadelook

Roger Menadelook was Iñupiaq and was born in 1942 in Teller, Alaska. He came from a family with a long history of reindeer herding. In the 1930s, his grandparents were the first Iñupiat schoolteachers at Sinruk on the Seward Peninsula, and is where they got involved with reindeer herding. At one time, his grandfather, Charles Menadelook, had a large number of reindeer he got from Sinruk Mary. Roger's father also became a herder, but the reindeer disappeared during his time so he had to give up herding. Roger got involved with reindeer herding when he was young and was looking for something to do in Teller, and helped Wilbur Kakaruk with his herd. Roger got more involved when NANA Regional Corporation took over Kakaruk's herd, and then started his own herd in 1986 with 500 animals that he obtained from Wilbur. Roger Menadelook passed away in 2008 in Nome, Alaska.