Anchorage Daily News

For six weeks during the winter of '67-'68 the caribou did not come within range of Point Hope. The village was experiencing a major food shortage. Options for the people in Point Hope were limited.

The word went out to all the villages in the area that Point Hope needed meat.

Bobby Hawley brought me the news. We in Kivalina had been notified that Gov. Walter Hickel was sending state airplanes to the villages in the area to pick up donated meat for transport to Point Hope. The question was direct, "What are you giving to Point Hope"

We went to my meat rack where I had three sacks of white fish left from the dozen sacks that were my share of the white fish seined from the Wulik River the previous fall. Bobby directed that the three sacks of white fish would help and that the leftovers from the last two caribou I had killed should be sent to Point Hope. Bobby filled his sled with my meat and took it to the airport where a large pile had collected. I was confident that within a couple of days I would again have caribou on my meat rack for my dogs.

The state airplane came and transported the meat to Point Hope. Other villages in the area contributed to the effort. Some hunters from Point Hope were taken by the state airplanes to where the caribou herds were and sufficient meat was taken for the village needs. Thus ended the meat shortage in Point Hope. The villages that contributed knew that if they needed meat in the future Point Hope would return the favor. Spring brought plentiful seals and bowhead whales that the people could rely on.

I wonder, how would the state deal with a shortage of food in a village today.

Darroll Hargraves is a retired school superintendent. He taught school in Kivalina in the 1960s.

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