The Connection of Camp ~ Salmon Life

YUKON RIVER—Pulling up to camp is like pulling up to home and family, even when no one is there. The buildings, nestled by towering cottonwood and black spruce trees, contain stories within them. The trees encircling the camp are like family members providing protection, comfort and solid presence. Rooted. Established. Strong.

The ground and the water around these buildings supported generations of life and their stories continue today. Salmon has been taken from the muddy waters of the Yukon River and cut, dried and smoked. Cut, dried and smoked. Cut, dried and smoked. This place, for Ben Stevens and his family, has provided. Fish is food. And the byproduct of connection to family and the earth is a benefit highly valued in the chase for food. It’s this connection that has Ben returning, year after year, with his own children.

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"If you asked me what I did, I did it all."

Ben Stevens grew up spending the entire month of July at his family’s fish camp 30 miles upriver from Stevens Village, on the upper Yukon. A month spent with five to seven families in this place provided a year-long supply of fish for each family. Raised by his grandmother, Hilda Stevens, Ben helped with the entire operation from setting nets to hauling smoked and dried bales of salmon to the boat. “If you asked me what I did, I did it all,” Ben said of the days helping his family. “I packed water, chopped wood, gutted fish and rotated the fish in and around the smokehouse.” He said the one thing he didn’t do, and still does not do today, is taste test the fish.

“As the fish are starting to dry, we take a piece to an elder and say, ‘Naqh.’ It means here..."

“That, I bring to an elder. We have to test,” Ben said. “As the fish are starting to dry, we take a piece to an elder and say, ‘Naqh.’ It means here. They would taste it, chew it. It’s kind of a quality assurance thing.”

One time he got to the fish camp and found that the snow had caved in the roof of the smokehouse. “The fish were already in the river, so just for temporary measure we threw a tarp over and started fishing,” he said. “Later I brought a piece to an elder and she nibbled on the fish and said, ‘Hm. It tastes like your smokehouse is a little warm. Or hot. Do you have a tarp on your smokehouse?’ I was blown away,” he said.

"I learned a lot about the way our ancestors walked on the earth."

Ben is also struck by the amount of work done “by those that have gone before us.” Yet when reflecting on his time as a child, spending his summer at camp, he thinks of peace. Family. Place. He feels a connection to his grandfather, Winthrop Silver, and the uncles who came around. They’d tell stories while working. They’d tell stories by the fire pit. “I learned a lot about the way our ancestors walked on the earth,” he said of his childhood. And the connection is the reason why Ben continues to bring his son and nephews to the fish camp.

“They need a connection with their ancestors, and the ground they walked on,” he said. So a few times each summer, Ben travels the five hours from Fairbanks to take a few teenage boys to his family’s camp. They set the net. The boys gut the fish. They make and tend to a fire. They hang salmon in the smokehouse. They don’t catch nearly as many kings as they used to. They can’t, even if they wanted to. But he still takes them. It’s simply in him to launch the boat. To travel the 30 miles upriver from Stevens just like he used to as a child. To show the young men how to fish. How to provide. Ben tries to do for the boys what his grandpa and uncles did for him.

“I see a sparkle in my son’s eye when we’re cutting and he wipes fish blood off of his nose,” Ben said. “He’s learning something new – the way I was taught.”

"We connect to things that are important to us. It brings a calm and a peace in a way nothing else can."

Ben realizes he’s also giving his children a connection to a place. To the earth. “Being so close to the land and the animals brings a calm to one’s soul,” he said. “It’s so messed up when you’re in the cities and you’re distracted by all those things that are not real. We look at the TV and we see images and we see things that are not necessarily all that important. So when we get away from all that, we connect to things that are important to us. It brings a calm and a peace in a way nothing else can.’’

One day Ben ran into an old lady who knew his grandma Hilda. He told her he was sad his kids aren’t growing up and receiving love like he did from his grandma. He wishes they could feel a fraction of it. He said the old lady looked at him and said, “They do feel that love. They get it through you.”

So he will continue. Each summer Ben will gather the boys, his old dog Sheenjik, and pack his truck. They’ll drive to the river and launch the boat. They’ll boat upriver, past Stevens Village, and on to the place that means so much to him. The place that is nestled by towering cottonwood and black spruce trees. The place where fish blood has spilled and where stories are shared. The place where his son’s eye twinkles when he gets to use the sharpest knife on the cutting table. The place where salmon is cut, dried and smoked.

Salmon Life

The Connection of Camp

The Story of Ben Stevens

Generation to Generation

Give Me a Life Jacket and a Paddle

The Connection of Camp

The Story of Ben Stevens

Generation to Generation

Give Me a Life Jacket and a Paddle

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