Captain of my own ship

The Birkolator. My mom had an idea for us kids to make a sailboat. She has lots of craft books. My dad cut it out of birch wood on his table saw from the same trees he makes snowshoes from.

I varnished it and sewed the sail. I floated it on the small creek behind my yard.

Awesome smiling Sheldon

This is how I remember Sheldon. Here he is six months old. Then he moved to Nulato. What a cute baby who likes to laugh and everyone remembers his laugh here.
Now he is almost seven years old and lives in Fairbanks. I can't wait to see him. I want to be funny, tickle him and make him laugh like this again. It will be great to be friends with my nephew.
I hope Nummies and him will become pals and be so happy to have a brother. Now I have two nephews who are like my little bros!

Tub Floaters 2009

Me, still cruisin' at age 10, in an extra deep (2 1/2')

snowmelt runoff puddle. There is a "island' of spruce trees growing in the middle of it. It was just 5 feet wide. The puddle was like a moat.We had a boys only island. This is May 2009.

The next generation of Albert floaters

is Nummies, 4 1/2 years old.

Old fashioned Spring fun

I like to float in water created each Spring by snow melt. Below is at the end of our dirt driveway and it was May 2007. I was eight. I had come up with the idea when I was outside and I've always liked pirates. I just find a makeshift oar. This is a banged up galvanized wash tub. The kids in my family still take baths in a new tub like that if we don't take a shower at the laundrymat. We don't have running water in our log house. I can still float without sinking, but some of my friends can't. The far left photo shows me in 2008.

Nums and me

Here is a 2005 photo of my nephew, Vernon. He was about ten months old. His nickname is Nummies. About this age he would repeat "Num, num, num" when he was hungry. Instead of saying "yum."

I tried to draw his cute face. I usually only draw battles, pirate ships and alien monsters.

My life on the Yukon River

I am ten years old. I am a Koyukon Athabascan Indian and also Caucasian. That makes me a proud American who lives in Alaska. Look at the middle of a map of Alaska to find Ruby. This village started with miners during a gold rush. Then Indians came in from smaller villages and settled here. I am a regular American boy who does the same activities as kids in New York or Colorado-but I also participate in unique activities.

Today, an Elder asked me to bring up wood logs from her cellar to her wood stove upstairs. Her name is Nora and she turned 90 years old in August. She is Athabascan too and she had married a Scandinavian miner and had a big family here. She is the oldest person in Ruby. Here is a photo of her, my sister Katrina and Susan Butcher, the much loved Iditarod dog racer who passed away recently.