Arctic

Point Hope elder Papa Joe bridged generations and eras

POINT HOPE (Tikigaq) -- Usually couples get to know one another before becoming engaged. Not Joseph and Lucy Towksjhea.

In the 1960s Joe was a young, strong man who loved to hunt and enjoyed the outdoors. His career meant working hard to better the small community of Point Hope. He helped build several houses within the village. Never committing to a serious relationship, he spent his time providing for his parents.

One day, Joe and his parents, Ruth and Rueben, were relaxing in his parent's living room. In walks his aunt, Daisy Oomittuk. Instantly, she told them that there was this young woman who just moved to town. Her roots were from Point Hope, yet she moved from Kiana. Daisy told Joe that she wanted the two to get married.

With no reply, he thought on it for a couple days. He finally decided that it was time for him to get married, even though they barely knew each other.

"The next time I saw Lucy, I told her that my aunt said she wanted us to get married," Joe said. "Her reply was, 'Today? O.K.!'" Not much later they married in the St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

Joe grew up in a time of change and saw many events unfold during his lifetime.

• Non-Natives started making regular appearances;

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• He lived through the effects of WWII;

• His community fought against Project Chariot, which was the federal government's plan to create a harbor 30 miles away from Point Hope using atomic bombs;

• He helped move the entire village to the new town site for safety reasons. He witnessed a different era, a different atmosphere and a different village than what people now know as Point Hope. The only thing that remains the same is the community's love for tradition and hunting.

Joe was born March 7, 1934, at his family's camp approximately 13 miles from Point Hope. Joe's mother gave birth by herself. His father had traveled by dogsled to the village of Point Hope, so when he came back, Joe was born. The one-room cabin is still nestled on a little hill on the coast. In the past, the Inupiaq people lived a hunter's lifestyle, with families following the game within their country. Joe remembers the camp as being peaceful and quiet. "There was nothing much out there," he said. "That's why we had to move." With only the occasional caribou or waterfowl passing by, hunting was slow.

When Joe was a toddler, his parents decided to move to the village of Point Hope. Joe became the oldest sibling after his brother, Hugh, passed away. He has two brothers and three sisters.

The Towksjhea family lived in a sod house in the village. "It was small, but warm," Joe said. "We slept on caribou skins and had a seal oil lamp then later kerosene lamps." With no modern conveniences for entertainment, families gathered together in the one-room dwellings to tell stories. Joe's grandfather used to tell stories about how their ancestors used to hunt. "That was how we learned the old ways," he said.

Walking and sled dogs were the only mode of transportation in his early years, so like everyone else in the village, Joe's family had lots of dogs. At one time his family owned about 20-25 dogs. Rueben would pack up a few dogs and walk for miles to hunt for caribou and other wildlife. Once Joe was old enough, he would accompany his father.

Joe's childhood days were spent playing outside, exploring the village and its surroundings. Missionaries provided an Episcopal Church, which he attended regularly. His mother felt it was important for her children to grow up attending church. "I gotta go, because momma say (I have to)," he said.

Point Hope has always been regarded as a whaling community. Joe was taught that every part of the whale should be used. The bones created the foundation for sod houses, the fat provided warmth, and the skin and meat fed the community. The bowhead whale was also desired by non-Natives because of the rich oil and baleen it provided. Unfortunately, the oil and baleen were the only parts taken from the giant mammal by the non-Native whalers and much of the whale was left to rot, although Natives took what was salvageable.

Point Hope used to be very close to the finger of land that juts out into the Arctic Ocean, known as the "Point". In the 1930s, whaling ships became a normal site for the Inupiaq people. In this time period, the population of the village was almost all Native. Joe remembers seeing strange whaling boats that greatly differed from the 20-foot boats, called an umiaq, they used for hunting. Some ships had sails, some were huge and some were small. These different boats also carried different people. "There were all kinds of people," Joe said. "Black people, Japanese, and Europeans, people from all over came."

The Inuit of Point Hope lived in harmony within the village. But when whale hunters started coming into the community, the harmony was exchanged for bitterness and disagreements. Due to the language barrier, the whalers did not get along with the Inuit. The different languages spoken caused mixed signals and village leaders pushed the whalers out of the community. The non-Native whalers were no longer welcome and had to move their establishments about eight miles south of Point Hope. Community members dubbed the whalers' new dwelling as "Jabbertown," because to the Inuit, the whalers spoke gibberish.

A Bureau of Indian Affairs school was built before Joe was born. His older peers had to walk a few miles each way in the dark cold weather to attend school, which only went up to the 8th grade. By the time Joe was able to attend, the school had relocated closer to the village. If students wanted to attend high school, they needed to leave the village and attend one of the few high schools available in the state. Many families could not and did not want to part with their children, so students stayed home instead of furthering their institutional education. Joe did not finish middle or high school as he was old enough to help provide for the family. "I only went up to the 7th grade," he said. "I had to help dad hunt."

Joe's father and grandfather taught him how to hunt. He started out with squirrels and ducks, and later progressed to bigger game such as seals, beluga, and whales, but his favorite animal to hunt was caribou. "We used an old .30-30 bolt action," Joe said. Ammunition was used as sparingly as possible, as there wasn't a store back then. The whalers brought a lot of ammunition and goods to trade with Natives. Fur pelts and walrus ivory were traded instead of currency. Rueben even bought a wooden house from the whalers with fox furs in the 1940s.

During the WWII years, Joe remembers people from the Alaska Territorial Guard coming into town and recruiting Natives. Rueben was a member and his duty was to stand guard at the Point to make sure there weren't any enemies coming. "Dad had to go down to the Point every day," Joe said. "From morning until night. Nobody ever came, so he just hunted seals the whole time."

The only food that was eaten was what was caught. Sometimes the only thing to eat was meat and broth. "We had no white man food when I was young," Joe said. His favorite food is whale meat and muktuk, which is the skin with blubber attached.

In Joe's youth, there were a few Native whaling crews that hunted each spring. He started out as a boyer on one crew. A boyer is a young boy who brings food to hunters, chops wood or other chores as needed. Although boyers are not allowed in whaling boats because of their age, they learn the ways of whaling by watching.

Whaling crews tried to catch as many whales as they could in one season. Joe remembers most crews tried to catch three whales so the community would be fed for months. "We used flint on the tips of harpoons, while whalers used bombs (to kill whales)," he said.

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Joe was 17 years old the first time he left the village. Recruiters came from Cape Lisbourne looking for strong 18-year-old men for work. "I lied and said I was 18," he said. "I only worked half a month until they found out and sent me home." The men built houses at Cape Lisbourne and carpentry soon became a career for Joe. He helped build numerous houses when he returned to Point Hope. He also enlisted in the National Guard. While he didn't have to leave for duty, he and fellow Guardsmen attended training regularly.

Joe met Lucy in the 1960s. She came to town to work at the school. After marrying, the couple decided to move to Kiana and lived there for one year, then moved to Kotzebue. Point Hope still drew them in, so they decided to move back home and have lived there ever since. Joe continued his work in carpentry back at home. Joe and Lucy adopted a baby from within the village and named her Josephine. She is married now and has 10 children who reside in Anchorage.

During Joe's young adult years, the village beaches started to severely erode. With beaches on both sides becoming smaller, village leaders started the process of moving the town one-mile inland. Joe drove trucks to help build the new roads and move houses. The process was time-consuming, but necessary. "We moved a house a day," he said. "It took less than a year." After the move, more homes needed to be built and Joe helped build a lot of the new structures.

Joe and Lucy started a whaling crew in the 1970s. It's a lot of work preparing for the whaling season, hunting and distributing the animal, but it's a tradition that Joe grew up with. Over the years his crew caught six whales. "Lucy loved it out there," Joe said. He said Lucy grew to love every part of the whaling culture, from cooking hot meals for the hunters, to distributing the whale during the annual whaling feast.

Joe's fondest memories are of the two of them hunting and camping. "She never stayed home during umiaqtuq," Joe said. "Even if whalers came home from hunting, she stayed out there." His proudest moments in his life were when he married Lucy and when his crew caught all six of the whales. "When I caught a whale, it would feed lots of people," he said, "people from all over."

Joe and Lucy were married for about 30 years before he lost her. Unfortunately, her love for being outdoors during the whaling season left her sick with double pneumonia in 1999. Lucy's memory is kept alive in his heart along with the pictures that are hung on his walls.

Since Joe grew up in a church atmosphere, he loves to sing gospel. Joe was a member of the Tigara Play Boys, then later the Tigara Bells. Both musical groups played gospel music during local events such as the Thanksgiving and Christmas community feasts. Joe is a self-taught guitarist, who wrote 15 gospel songs. He still plays his Gibson-Epiphone in his living room. His soft, low voice sings in Inupiaq while his foot taps to the time of the music. His fingers move swiftly over the strings as he sings whole-heartedly. Although his expertise clearly shows through his music, he modestly proclaims there is still more to learn about playing the guitar. He usually plays every day, but lately arthritis has gotten the best of him. "I like to play when I'm all alone," he said. "It quiets my mind."

Joe is 78 years young and is very active in his community. He attends every meeting and event, and is an avid fan of high school basketball games. Lately, the village has had numerous meetings regarding the offshore drilling that is to occur.

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Along with writing his gospel songs, Joe enjoys writing in small pocketbooks. He has written for nearly four decades. "I have a whole boxful of notebooks," Joe said. "It's a part of me." He writes in tiny cursive every day detailing events, his daily ventures, or news in town. The end of July was unusually rainy, so in his notes he read out loud his dislike of the rain and how he wished for the nice, sunshine days to reappear.

One of Joe's lifetime hobbies is taking pictures. "I started out with the box cameras where you have to send out the film and now I develop my own pictures right here on the coffee table," Joe said. Just like his stack of notebooks, he also has stacks of photo albums filled with everyday life events. Joe's most recent photo album contains pictures of the whaling feast that was celebrated in June. Three whaling crews caught a total of five whales, so it was a big community feast early this summer. On Independence Day, the community ends the day's activities with umiaq races in the lagoon. Two boats filled with passengers paddle as fast as they can around a buoy and back. Joe captured a boat that had overflowed with water just feet from the shore.

Although Joe is a retired carpenter, he has operated a bed and breakfast for the past two years based out of his three-bedroom home. Most days his home is quiet and slow but in the summer, his business fills his home with a variety of guests.

Joe enjoys life by taking rides with one of his several vehicles. His car is parked for the winter, so he takes his four-wheeler out, weather permitting. "I still like to go out hunting when it's nice," he said. These days, he takes his camera with him when he goes out to capture his hometown. "I enjoy the scenery of Point Hope," Joe said. "I like to sit and think."

Joe is a sweet, gentle man with a big heart. He cares about the younger generations and is a respected Elder among the community. "My advice for the younger generations is to not smoke or use alcohol," he said. "It's not good for their health. Not good at all."

Molly Maqpee Lane (Inupiaq) recently graduated with a journalism degree from University of Alaska Fairbanks and is now back home in Point Hope.

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