I have a "strong sympathy with the animal rights movement," but your
>lifestyle and those you spoke of do not offend me. I was fascinated
>and loved your very colorful account of the rituals and spiritual
feelings
>of those so in touch with the earth. The people you speak of do not
>place dogs, cats and other creatures of God in darkened pens to be poked
and pried and tormented to death. When beautiful animals are hunted to
make tacky little key chains from their pelts and their carcasses tossed
away, I feel
>the animal rights activists must step in. I believe the people you so
>eloquently spoke of are living the way God intended us to live. I would
love to
>hear more stories of their every day life. Just please spare me the
>details of the endless sunlight -- I got insomnia just picturing me
trying to
>stuff a pillow over my head. Please continue with chapter two...
>Janet
Dear Janet,
I had to laugh--spent last night with said pillow trying to evade dog,
kids, mosquitoes and sunlight that all wanted to party at 3 a.m.
That was a well-expressed and thoughtful presentation of your
views. I see your point. I was trying to avoid being tarred and
feathered for my post, and I think I inadvertantly lumped a lot of
people together unfairly. Thanks for the deserved thump.
When we travelled Outside a few years ago in mid-winter (NJ and
NY to visit a failing MIL) I was concerned that our children would
be attacked by folks with cans of spray paint, since they were wearing
ruffs on their parkas--without which their little noses and cheeks take
a real thrashing at -50F. Instead of hostility, we were greeted
with interest and courtesy. There are times when trapping is an
obscentity, and times when it is a necessity. Fur makes great
sense as a garment, both for animals and people, in this climate.
I read about some people in Barrow who received barrels of
mink coats from reformed fur-wearers. This was seen as very
funny, and so were the designs of the coats, since they released
instead of trapped body heat. All of the coats were taken apart
and resewn into sensible garments that actually worked.
A neat story someone shared with me. A Native woman, about
my age, was out trapping with her uncle when she was about ten.
It was an area that they went to every year, and they seemed
to her to get as many beaver as ever, but her uncle sensed something
she couldn't see. When they took up their traps, then he said, "We
won't trap here anymore until your sons are this tall," holding his
hand up to his shoulder. She said, "I didn't know what he meant,
I was just a kid. But my sons are teenagers know, like he said, and
just last year ago, we went back to that area to trap beaver, and
there were lots of them." The Natives developed an approach toward
game management in terms of generations, not election cycles.
THere is so much knowledge accumulated that the saying here is
that when an elder dies, a library burns.
I chased down a site for the local newspaper, in case any of you
are interested. It's at
www.newsminer.com
There is a section in there called the Heartland that is kind of
a lifestyle, introspective, fun section of the paper. (Ray, the
cover article in there this week is on the rebounding peregrine
population, if you're interested.) There are also a couple
of columns by the Campbells, one on Native Alaskans and one
on village life, and both are pertinant to questions I've been asked
here in the last day or so, and are well-written. The archives
should have some pretty good articles in it, but I think they only
go back a year or so. I recall an article published a few months
ago on trapping --- a lot more graphic than Ray's accurate and
rather tepid description of a wolf kill, not for the sensitive.
And for Janet, the front page flashes the sunrise/sunset data:
3 am-12:44 am. I'll hit the snooze button for you. . . Kathleen
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