by Peter Twitchell
My article today is entitled, Remembering Grandma’s Spring Camp”. I have fun memories of camping out with Mom, Dad, Grandma Hannah when the Kuskokwim River ice would break up in front of our fish camp a quarter mile upstream from the old airfield across the river from Bethel in the 1950s.
The ice on the Kuskokwim used to be thick back in those days when the Kuskokwim River was at its height in the break up process and the ice was coming down from upstream. It would flow for two weeks until it was clear. The ice was in blocks and very thick.
I remember several spring when the Bureau of Land Management red aircraft was bombing ice jams on the river to get them flowing downstream.
I loved and looked forward to the day when the upriver ice was clear and we could go to Grandma’s spring camp. When it was time to go to spring camp, Dad loaded the boat with gas tanks and his black bear rugs that Grandma, Mom and myself would sit on. We would also all sleep on them inside the tent once we got to spring camp and set up our tent.
Back then I didn’t see too many aluminum boats and Dad always had a wooden skiff. The boat was about 20 feet long and about 4 feet wide and heavy but it would have no problem maneuvering in floodwater.
Dad took us into the Napaskiak Slough each spring when we were going to go to spring camp. There was no problem going back to the lakes and the other side of the trees of the Napaskiak Slough.
This was a happy time because portaging back behind the tree line inside the slough and boating across lakes was always exciting. There was always pike in the lakes, muskrats, beavers, and birds that just had come up from the south. Dad would set his white fishnet for fresh fish while we were out camping.
We could hear boats passing by inside the slough without any knowledge that we were in the back part of the slough back in the lakes. People had no clue we were even there. It was our private spring camp at Grandma and Grandpa’s camp many times back in the 1930s and 1940s.
Once we were at the site of Grandma’s spring camp, I saw an old galvanized 55 gallon drum that they had used for a stove. I knew they would never have a problem with putting a chimney in there and a door when my Mom was married to a Japanese man who worked with steel.
Grandma would see some remains of materials they had used at their fish camp and I would hear her laugh and it was so good to see Grandma Hannah and my Mom Sarah smiling and so happy at what was once their spring camp.
I heard my Mom say, “I wish we lived here.” The land was so clean and pristine and there was no sign of pollution. My Mom and Dad, Grandma and I were so happy to be there. Remembering back at those times…there’s a tear coming out of my eye.
