by Jane Blaile

Tom is the manager of the Safety roadhouse. He’s there for Iditarod and in the summer. Originally, he comes from King Island in the Bering Strait; currently, he lives in Nome. When I heard him talking about hunting walrus, I started asking him about it. He hunts them by boat. His boat is 26 feet long. In past times, his boat would have been described as 2 ½ skins long, walrus skins, that is. He then said his grandfather had a boat 4 skins long. When he gets a walrus, he takes all he can to use and eat. Tom commented that kids today don’t know enough about how to get things; he titled the thesis for his anthropology degree “Trading in Your Harpoon for a Shopping Cart”. So, he is a college educated man. His family moved to Nome in the 1940s when the school on King Island was taken away. Although he used to visit there, no one lives there anymore. His was a whaling community along with Wales, Waiwright, Barrow, and a few others. Each whaling village was allowed a specific amount of whales, walruses, etc. to catch for subsistence living. He explained that when he attended school, he used to get hit on the knuckles for speaking his native tongue. So, he and his cousin made a vow to preserve and use their language, which they did. Furthermore, he can understand Eskimo people across Northern Canada and Alaska. His children love their native ways, even though they don’t all live nearby anymore. When he can, he sends them boxes of native food: seal, walrus, greens collected from the area. Oh, and here’s another interesting fact about Tom. His eyes are blue. When I mentioned that I’d noticed he has blue eyes, he just laughed and said, “That happens sometimes.” Meeting Tom was the highlight of my day. Nice to meet you, Tom.