Oscar Albert

Oscar Albert was an Upper Tanana River Athabascan Dene Elder from Northway, Alaska. He was born in 1917 to Peter and Elsie Albert when they were living on Moose Creek near Nasbesna, Alaska. He was one of nineteen children and grew up living a traditional subsistence lifestyle of seasonally traveling the region for hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering. Oscar married Mary Luke and together they had fourteen children. He never went to school but supported his family by trapping and selling furs and working at Kennecott Copper Mine, on construction of the airstrip at Northway in 1940, and on the Alaska Highway by helping the Army haul lumber and build housing. He then worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1944 and 1945, where he earned enough money to buy a car, making him the first one in the village with a car. He also was the first one in the area to buy a snowmachine when they came into use in 1960. Oscar raised his family at Moose Creek and Fish Camp, and continued to run his trapline in the Black Hills until 1977. Oscar Albert passed away in 2011 at the age of 94. For more about Oscar Albert, see his obituary in the Anchorage Daily News newspaper.