That's Just the Way It Was

Today, Minto School participates in an Indian Grant Educational Program called the Alaska Care and Husbandry Instruction for Lifelong Living (A-CHILL). One of Minto's local elders, Lloyd Charlie, helps as a musher and a Local Cultural Expert. His knowledge and history of mushing-culture and lifestyle help the students connect traditional practices into the classroom. With the help of Lloyd Charlie, community members, and school staff, the students of Minto now have a dog yard located on the school campus where they can learn to care for the dogs and engage in subsistence activities. Visit the <a href="https://www.achill.life/about">A-CHILL website</a> to learn more. &#160;

Read by Kaiyuh

The trail&#160;was rough on the dogs sometimes. Once when Lloyd was coming home at Christmas, they had to go through a lot of overflow. It would freeze the dogs feet and then it would take some time to heal injured dogs.&#160;Other times, the glare ice and low hanging branches made it hard for the dogs to travel on. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Read by Chad

Teams on the loose! Sometimes the dogs got away from mushers if they didn&#8217;t tie them to strong enough trees or bushes. That left a musher walking all the way back home. Lloyd said once his sleeping bag was loose in his sled, so he stopped his team and went up to fix it. The dogs took off and he could not grab his sled. He hoped they would get tangled at Murphy Dome so he could catch&#160;them. There were lots of twists and turns in the trail. Finally the dog team missed a turn and were tangled down over the hill. He had to bring them back up the hill. He was glad to have his dogs back. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Lloyd explains what was used for dog bedding.

Read by Mercedes

Trap dogs had to be trained to run faster and longer without stopping. Lloyd ran Huskies for mid-distance racing on his team. They were not very good for sprinting. Later, many racers&#160;started to run hounds on their teams because they were faster. They get colder so you have to feed more and provide them with grass bedding, which you gather out in the flats. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Elder Lloyd Charlie Interviews &#38; Video Transcription Teacher: Mickey Kenny Kanye J, Grade 6 Roland S, Grade 6 Clayton W, Grade 8 Mercedes F, Grade 9 Aiden W, Grade 10 Kaiyuh J, Grade 10 Narration Chad R, Grade 8 Robbie D, Grade 8 Kanye J, Grade 6 Mercedes F, Grade 9 Page Illustrations Teacher: Peggy Bruno Instructional Aide: Lynnessa Baker

Page Illustrations (continued) Tayla B, Grade 2 Brielle B, Grade 3 Reese G, Grade 4 Jonathan D, Grade 5 Maddison F, Grade 5 Andrew D, Grade 7 Robbie D, Grade 8 Clayton W, Grade 8 Thanks To Principal Vicky Charlie and Superintendent Kerry Boyd for their leadership in making the Minto Book Slam possible. Book Slam Project Management Steve Nelson, Project Coordinator, Consortium for Digital Learning, Association of Alaska School Boards Cheryl Bobo, Site Facilitator &#169; 2019 Yukon-Koyukuk School District

After annual patterns of erosion and flooding, the people of Old Minto decided to relocate the village in 1969. There were a few sites being considered, all offering different environments and conditions. The selected site, our current home, is well protected from river erosion atop a bluff at the edge of Minto Flats. The relocation didn't change lifestyles in major ways, but it did make things a little harder for running dogs. Old Minto had easier access to fattier fish and more protected woods for running dogs out of the winds coming across the flats.&#160;

There was no store bought dog food in the early days of Old Minto. Most people fed their scraps to dogs. Lloyd said, &#8220;I had a friend and I gave him some dogs and he fed them moose, sheep, and caribou. They grew to be as big as wolves.&#8221; The meat was not cooked, they just give it to them raw. They grew big and strong. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Later, dogs were trained for racing. You either chose to train your dogs for sprint races or for mid-distance races. The mid-distance races were the Cantwell 110, The Gold Miners 140 in Nenana, Backwoods 70 in Nenana, and Lloyd&#8217;s favorite was the Tour de Minto each year. You had to choose what kind of team you wanted to race. Sometimes the kind of dogs a person had determined what races they would do. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Elder Lloyd Charlie tells stories about growing up in Minto.

The role dogs played in his life growing up.

Things he did for fun as a kid.

Lloyd recalls chasing horses into Rampart with his dog team.

Strange things happen on the&#160;trail. There is a story about a herd of horses being chased into Rampart by a man on a dog team. Lloyd Charlie says he was mushing his dogs and came upon farm animals. The horses were startled by the dogs&#8217; barking and the horses started running up the trail. A goat jumped off the trail into deep snow&#160;with only his head sticking out. The dogs chased the horses and finally the horses were out of sight. Lloyd said, &#8220;Those darn horses were waiting at the end of the airstrip for me&#8221;. The dog team chased the horses through Rampart. They still tease Lloyd about that. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Dog team home alone. When dogs get loose they usually run as fast as they can all the way home and leave the musher needing to walk many miles alone. Once when Lloyd was mushing through Old Minto, he hit the pole off of an old cache by the trail. It broke the bridal-line and the team took off running back towards home without him. Pretty soon Lloyd&#8217;s friends noticed the dogs laying in front of his place and assumed he needed help. They left to find him. He was glad to finally see his friends and ride back home with them. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Read by Clayton

Moose were often on the dog trails. One Thanksgiving, Lloyd was heading down the trail and ran into a moose. That moose kicked up about three of the dogs. He had to shoot the moose and it fell into the sled. Some days, a Thanksgiving moose would just fall into your sled. That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Read by Kanye

Dogs were for work. They used the dogs for hauling wood and trapping. They also used them to travel. Once they had to take someone to a medivac in Nenana. It was -50 degrees. Lloyd said, &#8220;Dogs took care of us.&#8221; That&#8217;s just the way it was.

Name

Safari may block some audio or video from playing automatically and ‘read to me’ will skip these. You can configure this in Safari’s preferences.