Wisdom Keeper

by Ilarion Merculieff

  People in town thought I had gone over the “deep end” because I was laughing and joyful, joining the kids in playing games, hugging folks as if they were my long lost brothers or sisters. I even went back to the Church at age thirty-five, after having left nineteen years before. People couldn’t understand how I could be so happy and joyful, knowing what I had so recently lost.

  Chapter 21

  The Boat Harbor and Private Enterprise

  Through collaboration with a private contracting company that the village corporation had hired and the Army Corps of Engineers, the design of the harbor was finally complete in 1984. I had wanted a harbor that would support only the local small boat fleet. However, there were national laws governing the use of public funds for construction, which dictated the size of what was eventually built.

  As the village corporation president, I had been part of the team that negotiated with the private contracting company that eventually won the contract to build the port. I insisted that local people be hired to at least drive the large Terex trucks needed to transport rock to the proposed harbor site. The contractor agreed. I subsequently insisted that the company hire local women to drive the trucks. This took some doing, but eventually they agreed and asked me to identify those women who would be trained as drivers. For Saint Paul, this was revolutionary because local women did not even drive personal vehicles in the 1980s. I knew there would be resistance. The attitude was that women had their place, and that place was not doing the work of men; driving trucks was men’s work.

  I intentionally picked two of the brightest young women in town because they were not afraid of doing something completely new. I recall teaching one candidate who happened to be my cousin, Anita Zacharof, how to drive my pickup truck, which had a stick shift. Terex trucks were much, much bigger than the pickup, but I assured her that the principles were the same. When I told Anita she was ready, she said, “really? I don’t know. I can drive this pickup now, but a big Terex truck? Those trucks are so big. The tires are as tall as a man!” I assured her that size didn’t matter. It was the attitude.

  I then approached another young woman in town, Zenaida Lestenkof. She was going to college at the time and knew how to drive a car. She readily agreed as she wanted to, among other things, show off to the guys who thought women should not drive any vehicle, let alone a monster Terex truck. I remember Z, as we all called her, driving the Terex truck from the rock quarry to town, waving to the driver of a car who was a man. The two women drove those big trucks the entire summer with only one mishap.

  During this time, the U.S. government contracted with the village corporation to conduct the seal harvest. Though the contract was short-lived, lasting only two years before the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty finally terminated, it gave me another opportunity to bring more women into our local workforce. Until that year, women had not been allowed to be involved with the seal kill. Since I thought that very few people should be allowed to kill seals because of what it does to the person, especially women because they represent life, I decided to place women in the skin processing plant.

  I approached Zenaida Melovidov, also called Z, because, knowing that the men who worked at the processing plant would tease and make sexual remarks about their women colleagues, I also knew Z wouldn’t put up with any of that behavior or language. I was there the first morning she showed up for work. Sure enough, the men were gathered and the leader immediately started making sexual remarks in front of everyone about her. Z was prepared for this and said, “Okay, if you want to do it, let’s do it right now in front of everybody. Take your pants down! Let’s see if you are as good as you try to make everyone believe.” The leader didn’t expect this. His face got red, but he didn’t say anything and walked off. From that moment on, no one harassed the women.

  Taking over the seal kill was no easy task. I knew that, by now, the men were used to “government time,” which meant officially working at 8:00 a.m., quitting at 5:00 p.m., with two coffee breaks in between. (I had changed the time for sealing from a 4:00 a.m. start to an 8:00 a.m. one as well as a cessation of work at 5:00 p.m. because it was more humane and to avoid having to pay overtime.) And even then, the workers would push the limits because that was how the government had run the town in the past. Many of the men would show up for work at 8:20, take twenty to thirty minutes in coffee breaks, and leave work early. This had to change, but, rather than handing out punishments, I set up a policy that “work offenses” would be counseled. Almost every man in the sealing team was counseled by me, but the pattern continued. Because we were supposed to be a for-profit corporation and this behavior was costing the village corporation thousands of dollars, we had to convert the government-run mentality to private enterprise as soon as possible. I felt that if the villagers couldn’t grasp the principles of private enterprise, we would go under.

  Frustrated, I decided to do something that would make me very unpopular and even hated. I chartered a plane and brought in people from Atka Island to conduct the seal kill for one week. Atkans were known to be hard workers and I knew they would do well. They agreed to come and did not tell the local people of my plan. When the plane load of Atkans arrived, I fired all the local workers without telling them I would hire them back at the end of the week. After that week, I thanked the Atkans and saw them off to the charter plane. I then had a meeting with all the previously fired Unangan men.

  “You saw that I would not hesitate firing anyone and bring in other people who could do the job. But, you didn’t know that I hired the Atkans to be here only for a week. I did this because I feel that it is important for you men to learn about private enterprise. It will be private enterprise that will make the money for us to continue living here, but these businesses won’t tolerate slacking on the job.” I paused and continued, “Let me show you how much money we as a corporation lose when an employee slacks off.” I proceeded to explain the amount of time lost when everyone goes to work at 8:20, takes extended coffee breaks, and leaves early. I explained that every dollar lost to slacking on the job is money taken away from the shareholders of our corporation, which is every Unangan on Saint Paul. “It is up to you. Either do what you’re supposed to do on the job, or we all lose,” I said. “The ones who want to continue working, you are hired. Show up at the shop tomorrow at 8:00, and we will go out sealing.”

  Torn between my actions and the men’s reactions, I felt I had to take the risk. Thankfully, all the men showed up the next day and every day thereafter on time.

  After a storm destroyed the first one due to a design flaw, the harbor was finally operational in 1986. The village corporation negotiated a contract to lease land to a processing company, and Saint Paul has been processing fish ever since. In 1991 the City negotiated a rental contract with a processor to moor at the city dock, and they stayed for several years. Combined, the processors and a city tax on processing resulted in a per capita income of $34,000 during the height of the crab and halibut fishing activities, and city revenue increased 400 percent.

  Chapter 22

  The Creator Has a Sense of Humor

  I drove to Southwest Point—approximately ten miles out of town via one of the island’s three roads—to watch the fury and majesty of storm-driven waves. This part of the island always seemed magical and different from other parts. Elongated twelve-foot-high basalt rocks peppered the landscape, lobbed by a now dormant volcano in the center of the island, giving it an eerie look, especially at twilight. During summer, the winds come gently from all points south; in the winter, waves are driven in from the west by cold Siberian storm systems cycling down into the center of the Bering Sea. The storms push waves in from the west so that they breach the tops of the sixty-foot basalt boulder cliffs. I loved to watch the awesome power of the water, its highly variable shades of blue. Sun shining through the clouds illuminated a diverse palette: some parts of the turbulent waters were sinister and dark, while the surface near shore was a very light blue.

 
One cold, blustery winter day the snow was coming down sideways as it often does in this place we call the “Birthplace of the Winds.” I watched from my four-wheel-drive pickup as an occasional lonely gull flew by, surfing precariously in the forty-mile-per-hour winds. I always wondered at the skills and abilities of what some might call the lowly gull. It is able to stay near the island year-round, even in the winter when food is scarce and the moist sea storms are bone-chillingly cold.

  I grew to love the seagulls in my childhood. My childhood home was next to the town dump, put there by the federal government. Every morning I would wake to the sound of gulls foraging in the garbage. I could tell, by their calls, when they found food because they sent out calls for others to come to the feast they had uncovered. Great teachers, these gulls. Even though they were highly competitive, they didn’t hide their finds. Even as they wrestled with each other over the scraps, they called out for every gull to join and never hurt each other, ever.

  I loved to hear a particular kind of call that would tell me, without looking out the window, that it was going to be a glorious, wonderful day of play—sledding or ice skating, as the sound of many gulls sang out a long “currrrrrrrrrrr, currrrrrrrrrrrr,” signaling that it was a beautiful sunny, windless morning with snow on the ground. It was the only time they made that particular sound.

  Now, watching the thunderous waves crash against the cliffs left me feeling . . . what? Humble? Awed, strangely peaceful in the knowledge that there are powers greater than we humans, comforted by my security and warmth inside the truck, I was in a state of reverie when, suddenly, the truck engine quit. I quickly looked over the gauges. Gas tank was full. Engine didn’t overheat. I cranked the engine over. Nothing. Maybe it is flooded, I thought. I will wait awhile. I waited, headlights and all electrical items off. A couple of minutes later I cranked the engine again. It kicked over, but no ignition. “Whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh.” I waited another few minutes. “Whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh.” Nothing.

  I looked outside. I could tell a storm was cooking—a blizzard was beginning to stir as the snow moved from right to left across the windshield. “Whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh,” the engine said. I got out to look under the hood, not sure what I was looking for—maybe a loose wire? I checked the oil: full. I tried to start the engine once more, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It isn’t going to start, I thought to myself. Shit! What am I going to do if it doesn’t start? “Whuh, whuh, whuh, whuh.” I could hear the battery starting to run down. Damn! I couldn’t walk or run back. I was wearing a pair of jeans, gym shoes, a parka, and a pair of work gloves, but that was not enough. If I tried to walk back, I would freeze to death after a short time in the growing wind and snow. The chill factor had to be at least thirty below zero.

  I centered myself to think. Well, this is a frequently traveled road; there are only three roads on the entire island, and my fellow Unangan like to “joy-ride” as much as I do. Someone will come, I thought hopefully. I will wait it out. By this time it was about 4:00 in the afternoon and getting dark. In Alaska, we have only a few hours of daylight in the winter months, and this was February when the total was about three and a half hours. I could only wait and hope. Six, seven, eight, nine o’clock came and went—still no one came up the road. By ten o’clock, I knew I was there for the night. No one would drive out there at that time of night. I hunkered down in my truck, feeling sure someone would come the next day. The windows of my pickup iced over as my moist breath hit the cold glass. Soon the entire interior was frosted a thick white. I could feel the beginning of a chill setting into my body. “Must keep moving, must keep awake,” I said to myself, taking comfort in my own voice as the wind whistled and groaned in the complete darkness.

  As a hunter, I was used to sitting next to the sea and waiting for hours in cold wind for ducks or the occasional Steller sea lion to come by. This is easier, I thought.

  Daybreak came around eleven o’clock the next morning. I felt a mild sense of accomplishment—I had gotten through the night in good shape. I was cold but not shivering cold. Anticipation rose in me as I thought of having a hot cup of tea when I got home that day. I got out of the truck and ran briefly in circles to keep my circulation going while I waited for somebody, anybody, to drive up. Noon, one, two, three, four o’clock came and went, and nobody came. It was getting dark again. Six, seven, eight . . . my heart sank. God, am I going to have another night here? My last sleep was two nights ago. If I fall asleep tonight, I won’t live to see another day! I will stay awake; someone will know I am missing, and they will come looking. I bolstered up my determination. I was beginning to shiver. Not good if I do this for hours, I thought, too much energy loss. “Think warm, think warm, think and feel warm, think and feel warm” became my mantra throughout the night. Finally, after what seemed like the proverbial eternity, daylight finally came again. I was cold but alive! I knew someone would come that day—they had to. I wouldn’t be able to stay awake another night. One, two, three o’clock . . . noon. My feet were getting very cold, and my thighs were starting to feel numb.

  I rubbed out a circle from the frost on the windshield so that I could watch the road. I was startled to see a bulldozer flying over the hill toward me, then a front-end loader, then a truck. Flying! Oh, shit—now I am hallucinating! I realized that if darkness came again, I would die. By four o’clock on the third day, I decided to make a run for it. Hallucinations were not a good sign. At least I was doing something, and that was good!

  It was twelve miles through blistering cold wind and snow, through four- and five-foot-high snow drifts, to get to the village. I figured that if I could hold a steady trot, I could do it. About a quarter-mile into the run, my lungs began to hurt from taking in gulps of extremely cold air. Within a half-mile, my legs were numbing out. My body got so cold, so fast. I was still determined to live, but my body was not cooperating too well.

  I decided to stop and say a prayer of release. I gazed into the blizzard, toward where the sunlight was barely coming through in the west, and I prayed in that direction: “Creator, I surrender to you. If it is time for me to leave my body, then I go knowing I led a good life and I thank you for that with all my being! I thank you, Creator. I thank you for giving me this life and now I let go to you. But, Creator, if you would send even a drunk driver out here right now, I would be equally grateful!”

  No sooner had I completed the prayer and turned to trot again that I saw what had to be headlights shining through the twilight blizzard, careening from side to side down the road toward me. When it got close enough, I could see it was a VW Beetle. I wondered if I was hallucinating again. “I don’t know how that car is staying on the road in a blizzard,” I said in a somewhat dazed state. What a ridiculous sight. “The Creator is playing with me!” I laughed, not caring if it was a hallucination or not. It was such a funny sight as the car struggled to stay on the road, zigzagging its way toward me. When it stopped, I recognized the people, and it was obvious they’d been partying.

  “Looks like you need a ride, eh?”

  The small car was full—six people. I got in, sitting on the lap of a guy who grinned at me, nearly toothless. I loved these people, and I didn’t care if I was sitting on another man’s lap for the first time in my life. I had made it! I survived! Not only that, I also found out that the Creator does have a sense of humor!

  Chapter 23

  The Spiritual Journey

  Shortly after the “dark night of the soul,” I visited two dear friends, Susanne Swibold and Helen Corbett who lived in Calgary, Alberta. I had met Susanne and Helen on Saint Paul when they would come there every year for several years on a self-financed research project about the people of the Pribilofs in modern times. I was now visiting them to conduct sound recordings of the people and the islands. From that they produced four films about the Pribilof Islands: Amiq (the Unangan name for the islands), San (the Unangan word for seabirds), Laakux (the northern fur seal), and Peter Picked a Sea
l Stick (a story about how Unangan boys cut seal reproductive organs off the carcasses that ultimately were sold in Asia as an aphrodisiac). The films received critical acclaim, and throughout the years we had become good friends.

  While I was in their Canmore home in Canada, I received a phone call from the Stoney people at the reservation in Morely, inviting Susanne, Helen, and me to attend a sacred ceremony they had not performed in 150 years, not even in private. When we arrived at the reservation, we went to the women’s shelter where the ceremony was to be held. The people conducting the ceremony were all Elders with pure white hair, wearing traditional regalia of beaded buckskin. They spoke in their language the entire time. Susanne, Helen, and I, knowing we were guests, just watched and listened even though we could not understand the language.

  The ceremony preparation included sacred pipes laid out in the four directions in a circle, and offerings of the people who attended. The Elders chanted and sang songs in their language until about two hours into the ceremony when an Elder spoke English for the first time. “I am speaking English for the benefit of our friend from Alaska. We know why you are here. We have been praying to the Creator, and we have a message for you to take back. We know that many people believe they have lost their way spiritually. This is not so. It has been kept for you in the unseen world, waiting for you to wake up in spirit.” As abruptly as the Elder stopped the ceremony to speak English, he continued with their ceremony for another two hours.

  I was struck by this message. I had thought I was at the ceremony because the Elders had invited me, but the Elders knew the true reason: I did lament the fact that our people had lost the spiritual ways, or so I thought. When I returned to Alaska, I was invited to speak at many forums and to thousands of people that year. It was inexplicable. I even emceed a concert by the Indigo Girls. At all the venues I was invited to, I spoke of spiritual things and that message from the Stoney Elders. I realized that the message had affected me profoundly and set me on my spiritual path.