John Joe Kyikavichik’s trip to the headwaters of Ch’oodèenjik in the 1930s
In the 1930s, when I was 12 years old, my father trapped at the headwaters of Ch’oodèenjik and I went with him. He hunt for meat and trapped for marten around there. He taught me; I really never had any schooling. I was raised only out in the bush … Nowadays the children go to school. I never did that. I always talk to you in my language.
I remember back around 1930, it was a bit hard. The people went through hard times. They lived only on food from the land; in those days there was not much white man’s food. They hunted in different directions and trapped. They lived on the meat they hunted. … They went way up river for moose and caribou, too. They made rafts and brought [the animals] home and then they dried them. In those days, Moses Tizya and Peter Charlie had boats. [They would take them] way up where they hunted for food. From there they made caribou rafts to go back down [river]. This is the way people lived long ago, when I was growing up.