alaskadigitizationproject

I hope they all had (and maybe still are having) wonderful lives.

I wondered more about this family and found them enumerated as "Native Inhabitants" of St. George Island in Alaska in 1914, in a census published in the 1914 Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor (see page 81 of the report.) Do descendants of this family still live in that area? Do they know of this photograph?

For the one other person looking at this who's confused curious about the caption "Salting Meat For Foxes" ;) it turns out that the Blue Fox was available in significant numbers on the Pribilof Islands, and they were trapped during a short season in the early winter. The locals knew that winter conditions severely restricted the foxes ability to access food and survive. Accordingly, they would prepare reserve supplies of seal meat to feed the foxes during harsh winters. A detailed explanation of the process of salting meat for foxes is given on pages 88-89 of the Report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, 1921, including a description of "the pit" – which is the wooden structure to the right in the photograph.

Pixel Wrangler Thanks Pixel, I was wondering.