Chickaloon spirit

Frontiersman reporter

CHICKALOON -- Katherine Wade can still remember the sound that the fuel rig at Drill Lake made during her early years growing up in Chickaloon Village. "You could hear it from our place," she said. "Putzing all the time, when they turn on their power."

Today, Wade herself engages in a different kind of excavation -- the excavation of the past, the recollection and compilation of her memories for all to read and experience.

During the summer of 2001, Wade spent countless evenings in a room with a tape recorder and Nancy Yaw Davis, an anthropologist. The stories that resulted from these meetings, after laborious transcription, excerption, and editing by Tina Gangon, a friend of Wade's, and Larraine Wade, her daughter, were compiled in a volume titled "Chickaloon Spirit: The Life and Times of Katherine Wickersham Wade," recently published.

These information-gathering sessions involved rapid back-and-forth dialogue between Wade and Davis, the latter said. "A lot of the time I wouldn't even finish one sentence before starting the next." Davis described her own role as more of a listener than an interrogator. "All I did was ask questions, encourage, and ask more questions," she wrote in her preface.

The interviews were excerpted during the editing process since, as Wade said, some of the material would probably be too embarrassing for some. "I didn't take it all out, though," Wade laughed, referring to some of the frank tales of rural life in her volume, including one chapter on sweat baths and another on the house's slop bucket.Wade said she has already received numerous requests from fans who want her to "tell the rest of the story," and fill in what happened to her after the book's conclusion, which follows her life up to about the age of 20. However, she's not sure if she can muster up the energy and determination to make this happen. "It's going to be a long time," she said, "maybe too long."

Wade's tale is rich with echoes of her traditional Native upbringing and flavored by tastes of a concern for nature she was taught in her youth. "Everybody should be responsible for the land," she said. "We shouldn't have to put lines everywhere saying: this is mine, this is yours."

In her book, Wade talks about burning dead trees during the winter in order to ensure that those trees didn't catch fire themselves during the summer. "From where we lived in Chickaloon, we could tell where [my grandfather] was by watching trees go up in flames. He would do that while there was snow on the ground, so the fire wouldn't spread."

Wade said this time-honored practice could still be helpful today. "We should burn some of those trees in the wintertime, when the fires won't spread," she said. "Chickaloon is just waiting for a spark right now."

In addition to memories, Wade provides many summaries of the Native beliefs she was taught in youth, and emphasizes their enduring value. "These Indian tenets aren't gone, and she urges us all to respect and incorporate them in our own lives," said Davis in her foreword to the book. The volume also contains a smattering of verbatim excerpts from the Wade-Davis interviews, illustrations by Dimi Macheras, even recipes for traditional foods.

Wade said the basic intentions of the volume are humble. "I'm just trying to let them know what they used to tell us, our traditions," she said. One of the earliest chapters deals with some of these life lessons garnered from her grandparents: "First of all, they taught love and respect. 'Learn to love people like you love yourself.' That's one of the things they used to stress. They like people to be serious and on the quiet side. 'When you love someone you don't want to hurt their feelings or shame them. Therefore, you listen to them to find out what would shame them and hurt their feelings.'"

Profits from the book sale will go toward improving Chickaloon's Ya Ne Dah Ah ("Ancient Teachings") school. A book signing will be held on Saturday, July 24, from noon until 2 p.m., at Alaskana Books in Palmer.

Contact Daniel Spoth at daniel.spoth@frontiersman.com.