Temple's Longtails and Fur

  My oldest is an aspiring Dall Sheep hunter.  I failed to realize there was a youth early season, and couldn't figure a place to take him that wouldn't be a circus on such late notice.  So we decided to go caribou hunting by river boat.   This particular venture was with an old beer can 18 foot Ouachita flat bottom, powered by a thirty five horse Swamp Runner longtail. The start of the trip was pretty uneventful, though the kid let the boat float into the river when I bumped it off the trailer.  I had told him to grab the anchor line so that very thing wouldn't happen when dumped it from the trailer, but thankfully we had an on beach wind.  Could have gone very differently if the wind wasn't so favorable.    We spent two days motoring nearly 120 miles from the ramp.  It was pretty smokey, was a bit disconcerting, but not enough to stop us. It was really nice when it cleared up.  This spot here yielded several grayling that made...

  Canoeing with The Boys, picking blueberries.      My name is Temple Dillard.  Though I'm of the millennial generation I'm a bit anachronistic.  I don't care for a lot of modern country, it's awful close to rap, of which I only enjoy a narrow, narrow selection from back when I was a jogger.  I wear a $15 Casio instead of a smart watch, it took me years to figure out how to use an iPhone and just when I got'er figured they update or compel me to upgrade.  I'm disinterested in Tiktok, Pokemon Go, and video games, though I had a proclivity for that Wii hunting game from Cabela's.  I admit a weakness for Facebook, and Instagram has grown on me, and though I'm a regular poster on YouTube I don't seem to be getting much traction.  I'm a 36 year old father of three, I work full time at the U, and I spend every minute I can drag myself and my family away from the screens outdoors trying to fill our freezers with wild organic meat, fish, and ber...

 Alaska Native Contemporary Art Beaver and Lynx hat, "malagg'ay" in Yugtun Pronunciation here Sewn by Temple Dillard, in Fairbanks, circa 2020          My own bewilderment at how Alaska Native art isn't considered American therefore isn't considered Western aside, I feel I would be remiss in my own...endeavor to perpetuate that part of my culture upon which I do have a grasp if I didn't toot my own horn here.  I've thus far failed to perpetuate the language and dance, and am struggling to teach my children about subsistence.  I have been...Westernized in many aspects.  Saying it turns to ash in my mouth but despite the invaluability of that half of my heritage I have placed value on certain aspects of it, and the effort I place into those aspects is reflective of their value to me and the value placed by my family on my ability to practice those aspects as I was growing up.  It wasn't very important to my Yup'ik speaking family that...