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Publicity
" Lone Eagle Flies Again "
I:
Meterik
as
reported by Rhonda McBride
Reprint
from KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska 12-99
Bill Wilkinson
I
first met Bill Wilkinson and his family two summers
ago when I tried my hand at kayaking. He patiently
taught me the watercraft and skills like how to
turn by dragging my paddle to one side. Wilkinson
lives just a few miles from the Bering Sea in the
village of Kwigillingok, called Kwig by locals.
It's almost constantly windy there, but my lesson
was on a rare dreamy evening where the wind relented,
letting the water reflect the rich red sky.
"The
evening was just like this, but a couple of hours
earlier," says Wilkinson in remembrance. Twenty
years ago, in a village not far from here, he snapped
a photo of two girls crossing a pond in their grandfather's
kayak. It was a defining moment in his life.
"You
could hear the oars bumping the side of the kayaks,"
Wilkinson says. Voices came across the water, laughing
and giggling. A short while later the girls' grandfather
set out in the kayak. Wilkinson didn't have a camera,
but the snapshot stayed in his mind.
"I
knew right there and then," Wilkinson says. "I just
thought, 'I better stop and watch this, because
I'll never see another Yup'ik elder in a kayak,'
and I didn't. And he got in his kayak without a
wiggle, just as straight as an arrow."
From
that day on, Wilkinson dreamed of building his own
kayak. First came his marriage to another teacher,
Mary Ann Andrew; then came busy years raising three
children. In the end, Wilkinson's instincts were
right. In the crossing of that elder he witnessed
a magical moment, the sunset of an era never to
be completely be reclaimed.
Less
than a hundred years ago, all the materials for
the Yup'ik kayak came from the land and sea. Craftsmen
learned to select driftwood, which they carved and
bound together without nails or modern tools. Those
remarkable techniques, thousands of years old, died
in less than two generations.
The
change took place quickly as powerful motor boats
swept the kayak aside. By the 1950s no Yup'ik made
them anymore. The modern aluminum skiff was an easier
way for hunters to honor a more important Native
tradition, sharing food with others in the village.
Today, only bleached kayak skeletons remain, rickety
relics on classroom walls. The Wilkinsons know the
story well: Mary Ann's father Frank Andrew has his
own kayak, mounted on a wall.
Andrew
is one of the few elders left in Kwig who knows
how to make kayaks the old way. He's taught Wilkinson
the forms of construction, such as how to correctly
tie squid line to a kayak's frame. After hanging
onto a dream of a Yup'ik kayak for nearly 20 years,
Wilkinson now has enough pieces of knowledge to
begin accurately building his own traditional boat.
"As
a child, I used to have this dream where just before
I'd be waking up in the morning, I could just move
my arms just right and I'd get the sensation that
I was flying," says Wilkinson. "I'd be looking down
and seeing ripples on the water below me, and kind
of sparkles coming off it."
The
Wilkinsons
Frank
Andrew pared Wilkinson's Yup'ik name to help bring
back those childhood dreams. Originally Wilkinson's
the name meant lonely eagle; Andrew changed it to
the more dignified Metervik: simply, eagle. It helps
the two family members share another connection.
the eagle has been Andrew's family crest for two
generations. Now these two eagles fly together,
trying to bring the traditional craft back to Kwigillignok.
"I
think when I get in the kayak and when I paddle
across the pond, it's going to be identical to the
sensations of the flying aspirations not found as
a child," Wilkinson says. "To become an eagle. I'll
have the same sensation of an eagle flying across
the water. You know, it's something deep inside
of me."
Next
Text
adapted from newscasts by Rhonda McBride; photography
on linked subsite by Jeff Walsh.
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