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TETLIT'ZHEH/FORT MCPHERSON
It was muskrat hunting time in the Mackenzie Delta when Mary Teya was born 74 years ago.

Her family lived in a tent along the Husky Channel as they did every May, said Teya.

Mary Teya was born in the Mackenzie Delta's Husky Channel. Since then, the 74-year-old Fort McPherson resident has seen many changes. - Photo courtesy of Mary Teya

In those days, each season brought different jobs and responsibilities. Summer meant long days spent catching, cleaning and drying fish. Dog teams were the only means of transportation and making sure the dogs had enough to eat was a full time job, Teya said.

"We had to work hard to make a lot of dry fish for the winter dog feed," she explained.

Teya's parents checked the nets and Teya helped to scale and dry the fish.

"We were waking up in the morning early," she said. "It was a lot of work, besides other house work."

Teya also helped her mother cook, clean, make bannock and gather firewood for both household use and for the smokehouse.

While days were busy, there were often a few free hours in the evening for boat rides or to play games.

Teya said she also took advantage of the rare and precious opportunities to skip work and have fun.

Late one summer evening after cutting fish all day, Teya asked her mother if they could abandon the task and go berry picking instead.

"So that's exactly what we did, we just left the fish," she said. "We come back at one in the morning, and there was our dessert."

Even though camp life could be hard, Teya said the family worked as a team and shared jobs to help make work easier.

"We did things together, we shared in the chores that we had to do or we rotated the chores," she said. "So that way, our parents always encouraged us and so it wasn't too bad."

Teya went to residential school in Aklavik when she was nine years old until she was about 15 and returned to her family's camp. She got married in 1956 and lived on the land until moving to Fort McPherson in 1968.

Teya got a job cleaning for the health department before taking training to become a community health representative in 1979. She retired almost two decades later.

Though she moved into town, life was still a little tougher than it is today, Teya said. When she started her first job, Fort McPherson didn't yet have electricity.

Water was still carried in from a local creek and gas lamps provided light. Wood still had to be chopped and fires had to be maintained.

"When I started work in 1968, I was still hauling wood with a dog team and hauling ice from the river for water," Teya said.

Soon, town life began to transform.

"Some people started having phones and then TV came in," she said. "I just saw a lot of change."

Teya said she is happy to see Gwich'in people helping to run Fort McPherson.

"Every office in our community, our own people are sitting there, so that's one good thing I see," she said. "Our own people being leaders and resource people."

Still, Teya said she misses camp life. She said living and working closely together in the bush created strong bonds.

"Family were together and they worked together, they communicated out there at their camps," she said. "A lot of people were happy."

Teya said while living in town has benefits, she believes many families aren't as close as they were when living on the land. Drugs and alcohol are especially hard on relationships, she added.

"That interferes with family life," she said. "Whether you drink or not, you're affected somehow."

Teya said while she spends most of her days in town now, she still travels to her small camp about 10 kilometres outside of the community.

"Every once in a while I make fire and sit back and listen to the fire crackling away and having nice hot tea," she said. "It's so healthy to live a life out there."

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