“An Alaskan Moment” for November 9th, 2020
Download or Stream “An Alaskan Moment” for the week of November 9th, 2020.
https://apradio.org/mp3/2020-11-09-analaskanmoment.mp3
Today is Monday, November 9th, 2020
Welcome to
“An Alaskan Moment”
from Aleutian Peninsula Broadcasting in Sand Point
This week in Alaska History:
November 9, 1929 – Carl Ben Eielsen and Earl Borland were killed when their plane was wrecked in Siberia.
November 10, 1897 – The Skagway post office was established.
November 11, 1863 – Hudson Stuck, who became an Episcopal priest and the author of several books on Alaska, was born in England.
November 12, 1910 – The steamer Portland, known as the “Gold Ship” was wrecked at Katalla, a total loss.
November 13, 1913 – The bark A. J. Fuller, loaded with Alaska canned salmon, was rammed by a steamer at Seattle and sunk.
November 14, 1938 – The Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, with track from Cordova to Kennecott, discontinued operation.
November 15, 1907 – The business section of Cleary near Fairbanks was destroyed by fire.
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Now for your poem.
Richard Dauenhauer was Alaska’s sixth Poet Laurate, from 1981 to 1988. He worked as a program director at the Sealaska Heritage Foundation from 1983 to 1997, and with his wife edited the foundation’s highly regarded Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature series. He also became a professor at the University of Alaska Southeast until retiring in 2011
This piece is from “Frames of reference : poems”
Published by Black Current Press, Haines, Alaska, 1987
“Between the Openings – (Excursion Inlet Packing, July 1986)”
by Richard Dauenhauer
XIP: humongous
seiners from Hoonah
tie up at the float, unload
extended family–
old folks, young folks,
teenage boys and girls.
For a moment
I am here in 1940.
Against the sunlight
on a summer day
I see my wife,
my in-laws,
Grampa Willie,
his parents,
Aunty Anny still alive.
I smile, returning
to back deck dishes
on a slow day at the dock.
Some families
are still doing it,
some children still
growing up that way.
Three cheers
for the Hoonah fleet!