Stories from Our Elders

My name is Karen Katelnikoff. My dad was Charlie Solano. My mom was Katie Solano. And the day before the oil spill I went to Valdez with my husband and Jack Kumkok Jr. And we were landing down here at the beach, I had a premonition of a big wave rolling in and I could actually see it coming over this way. And at night, I plum forgot about the vision. And then the next morning I ran into my 11-year-old nephew, Jerry Solano Jr, and he said -- auntie, did you hear about the oil spill? They spilled a 50-gallon drum. And all I thought was, it has to be more than that because people kept telling me about a big oil spill. And later on, I found out it was the Exxon Valdez. And it was right outside of [Blatt] Island where they hit that reef.

But anyway, later on that day we had all these planes coming in, right and left. And there were reporters from all over the world. All over -- Japan, Norway, England, you name it. They were all there. Including people from down the States like New York. And we just had a whole bunch of reporters.

But anyway, next day, my dad had some fish he needed done. So, we were on the back porch filleting... Oh, he was filleting, and I was cleaning and putting them away. And then he told me, he said, Dee, takes us over to the point and dump the guts and the tails and the backbones. And he was going to fish smoked fish that we just got through cleaning.

And my niece Kelly Kumkok went with me, and all of a sudden, she screamed -- Auntie, look! -- and there was a couple of reporters chasing us. [laughs] And I took one look at Kelly and said, run! And we ran full speed. And they ran, they ran just as fast at us, caught up with us.

And -- what are you doing? I said, we're dumping fish guts, we do that every year, because the water will either wash it out or the eagles will eat it.

But anyway, we had... By the end of the week, we had [Tatitlek] village [IRA] consul was putting out notices that they were hiring people to wash oil off the beaches.

And there was a whole long line, just about everybody here that could work, was up there lined up. And about two weeks later, everything finally came through. They had all these ships that were volunteering. We were on the Colombian. It was like a tour boat. We ended up on the Colombian. And we started, the first thing we did when we went out to clean the beaches was, we had to gear up in raingear, gloves, we couldn't take them off, and then we'd hose the beaches down. And then when we got done, we'd come back and there would be a person designated to hose off everybody before they could step inside the boat. They'd hose all the gear off, the raingear, the boots, and they'd hang them in a certain spot. And then we'd walked barefoot to our room. We were all assigned rooms on the Colombian.

That went on till the end of the summer, maybe into middle of September, they finally quit because fall was already setting in. And the next year they had just a handful. Just a couple of people from here were rehired to go do some more hosing. And after next year, at the end of summer, that was the end of the jobs.

But the pay was really good, was over 1,000 a week. We had... They fed us good food. And if we wanted to take a break and go home, we'd call a plane and come to [Teklek] Some people would take a boat.

And I know the second year, they did more work down Chenega because they got more oil than we did, because the day that that happened, the wind sprung up and blew all the oil all the way down to Chenega, Kodiak, out into the sound beaches. And I know they had cleanups down Kodiak, and I'm pretty sure it was [Nunmoluk] too.

And after that, everything was done. And the next 10 years we had all these biologists, marine biologists, they come here and do water samples and ask us if we run into any, like, octopus or clams and cockles, sea cucumbers, mussels, the things that we ate. And for about the first ten years, we hardly had any octopus, it totally wiped them out. And it was just not long ago, maybe about five, six years ago, they finally started coming back.

And then we had one person designated here to collect any kind of fish that had like bumps on them, or sores, and we have to send them into Fish and Game so they can be analyzed.

And cockles and clams didn't come back for a while. The sealions, the seals. But other than that, everything was pretty much normal. The only thing that was missing was seafood that we couldn't eat anymore for a while.

But now, today we have the octopus, the clams, and cockles. They're finally multiplying again. The only thing that we don't really have right now are the sealions. They get plenty of seal, but no sealions hardly. Every once in a while, though, they'll catch them, and they have to kind of go far. And now they're starting... I know they caught porpoise not long ago. I didn't hear them say too much about the porpoise declining, but I'm sure it did.

I forgot to mention too, they had a cleaning place up there in Valdez for oiled eagles, ducks, any kind of seabirds, sea otters. And they bring them up to this place up here in Valdez they have to wash the oil off of them.

-- Chenega -- Chenega was hit bad. And we had these marine biologists, and they take out one of the elders and drive around the sound, and they'd find these oiled-up ducks. And maybe about six or seven years later, they decided to dig down into the sand. And maybe about a foot down, there was still traces of oil. So...

There were people arguing saying, oh, the water will wash it away, but it didn't wash it away for a long time.

[interviewer] Yeah, 10 years. That's a long time.

Because we're kind of sad. And even the herring didn't come back for a while. But when they did... We used to have spawns over here all the time by the ferry dock. And the last time was maybe -- I'd like to say 2015.

But it didn't bother me. We grew up... We ate ducks, geese, cranes, bear, seal, sealion, codfish, bass, herring, all the silvers, reds, humpies, dogs, and all different kinds of inter-tidal creatures, like the octopus and clams and cockles, mussels. We grew up eating mussels off the beach.

[interviewer] Seems like such a rich environment.

Yeah, I remember whole bunch of us would go over there just to eat mussels right out of the shell. And not only that, but... Do you know how these spruce tips that turn green? We'd even eat those. It was kind of a piney sweet taste. And the young salmon berry branches when they're real nice and tender, we call them [gungums] and [aliute] and we'd even eat those.

Trying to think of what else...

[interviewer] Are people getting back to more subsistence, do you think? Since it's coming back? Or is it not the same?

After it died out for a while and a new generation growing up, they have no interest. Sometimes we'll just have to put these kids to work -- come on and help. "No, I don't want to do it." So, they don't do it.

Five years after my husband, he would, like, catch a salmon or bass, or halibut, and they would have some kind of sores on them. And my dad would say -- if you find anything like that, toss it.

Because we ran into quite a few. And I'm thinking maybe that oil gave them cancer or something. And we were even kind of scared to eat like the ducks and the geese, because they feed on the inter-tidal, little creatures.

And we've seen it so many times over the years, since I've been here, like, we go berry picking, and the eagles and seagulls, and probably other birds too, we'll find cockles and clam shells way up there in the meadow. And there's little hole right on top of the shell. So, they know where to kill the cockle or clam.