January 30, 2009 - Cemetery Hill

My new midwife friend, Yolanda Meza, and I walked to Cemetery Hill a mile outside of town today. The sky changed from grey and purple clouds to unobstructed sun and patches of baby blue sky. Pure turquoise met the orange sun-reflected snow on the foothills to the northeast. It was about 15 below zero minus a few more degrees due to the breeze.

The wooden crosses visible beyond the lagoon and up the berm looked like candles on a cake. The people laid to rest on this hilltop had a connection, deep or intermittent, to the Friends Church, the first missionaries who came to Kotzebue in 1897. The church building in town boasts 1887 but Eskimos have never been too careful about numbers.

Many more cars than usual passed us, turning to go up the hill. When we reached the top, people were leaving their vehicles carrying fresh bouquets from far away. I asked a friendly-looking man in his 30's who wore glasses and had a mouth full of perfect teeth whose funeral it was. "My Uncle Ray", he said. He introduced himself as Archie Ferguson, named after his grandfather who was Kotzebue's first and most famous entrepreneur.

When the North Star ship came from Seattle up the Bering Strait on its yearly summer voyage through the 20th century, it brought from the Outside all the items people would eat, drink, smoke, wear, and use to supplement their subsistence living. It brought along a few families from the southern part of the route so they could spend a few months with kin. Most of the cargo went to Archie Ferguson's various enterprises - the trading post, roadhouse, hotel, and air taxi service. Archie Ferguson was a star.

This was the one time of year when Natives living out on the tundra or "at camp" could be sure of work, unloading the barges that ferried the cargo from the ship 8 miles out in the harbor to the shallow shore. With their earnings they could pay off credit at the store and purchase luxury items like sugar and coffee or new necessities like rifles. Except that they were mostly paid in aluminum "bingles" with specific amounts etched on the coin, good only at Archie's.

We walked unobrusively by as twenty-some people stood in their best parkas with faces framed in fur ruffs and watched as several of the most able-bodied men lowered Ray's very fine casket into the ground using ropes. His was a prime spot at the top of the hill as befitted their elder and nephew of Kotzebue's most enterprising man of his time.

My feet were starting to freeze since I wore shoes instead of my 40 below boots which give me blisters. As we passed the gaggle of SUVs and late model pickups on the way back, my mind turned to the luck of being Archie Ferguson's progeny.

His vision, energy, and hard work guaranteed the good life for many who followed him. But seeing others in this remote northern town, people who struggle to pay their bills, and have little left over, I know not everyone is so lucky.