50 Horse-Power Motors

When I start to feel overwhelmed by how stressful life can be, I think about how much harder my grandma had it when she was growing up. While we have the luxury of electricity, running water, internet, satellite tv, heat, higher education, 50 horse-power motors, boats, cars, trucks, four-wheelers, and good-paying job opportunities, we often forget to show gratitude for how good we have it.

I remember my grandma telling me about how she used to have to walk upriver in the winter, towing a sled behind her, to haul large ice chunks that would be thawed out for fresh water for her family. When they would go out to partake in subsistence activities in the summer, they wouldn't go out for just a few hours like we do now. Instead they would spend the whole summer at Egavik (12 miles north of Unalakleet) gathering berries and fish that would last them the whole year.

Lomen's Egavik Store, storage and living quarters about to fall into the Norton Sound-Photo taken summer 2015

Some families were lucky enough to have 9-horse-power motors, while others had to pull their boats upriver. As you can imagine, it took all day just to get to the fishing holes. Now, we can use our fast, high-tech boats to get upriver in an hour or less so we can fish for just a few hours and get home in time to cook dinner. 

Kids these days don't know the struggle and would rather stay home and play video games and check their Facebook instead of doing subsistence with their families. My grandma's generation didn't have the option to not do subsistence activities. It really was a way of life: the ONLY way of life. They didn't have AC shelves stocked with all the western foods that we do now. They relied on salmon, caribou, moose, seal, various birds, and other local animals to fulfill their nutritional needs. I asked my grandma what she did for fun as a kid. She said they didn't have time to play. All her time was spent helping out around the house and doing subsistence activities with her family.

My grandma's generation didn't have the healthcare that we have today. They didn't get sent to bigger cities to deliver their babies. Many women in her day delivered babies in their own homes. In my grandma's case, she delivered one of her sons all by herself, when my grandpa ran to get help and didn't return in time. Women endured the pain that came with childbirth naturally. Epidurals, IV drugs, and labor inductions were not an option to women back then. Now, women are so quick to opt for labor pain drugs without even reading up on the negative side effects. This may be a reason for all the new disorders that keep showing up (ADHD, autism, etc). 

My grandma didn't get to finish high school because there wasn't a local high school in our village. Her family didn't have the money to send her to boarding school so she stayed behind and helped her parents with subsistence. She may only have an 8th grade education, but she is one of the smartest and hardest working women I know. 

I have to remind myself that my life is so easy compared to my grandma's and her generations and the generations before her. I have to remember to be grateful for how simple my life is. My washer, dryer, heat, electricity, television that records all the episodes of Gilmore Girls and Seahawks games, my job, antibiotics, Amazon, my truck, my Jeep, running water, daily airplanes that deliver mail and bring us to bigger cities, our regional clinic, health aides, our physician, two well-stocked grocery stores, our 50-horse-powered Lund, the refrigerator, the internet, and the list goes on. Next time I feel overwhelmed about how hard life is, I will remind myself that my life today doesn't even come close to what my grandmother went through.