Charles Eikland (b. 1940)

Charles Eikland was born at Fry Pan Lake, about three miles from Tazamona Lake. There was only the Eiklands and Bill Blair’s family living there in log cabins in the 1940s. Charles’ parents trapped in the winter and his father, Peter Eikland, placer mined in the summer. They got their supplies from Dawson and Charles’ father went there about two times a year from Snag (about fifty miles away) to get goods like dried milk, dried eggs, tea, flour, and sugar. The families dried meat and fish. Sometimes in the summer they pulled up the moss and put fish on the permafrost to keep it fresh. The Eiklands moved to Snag in 1945, and Charles remembers the black American troops building the highway – he was three at the time. Most of the First Nation children from Snag were sent to mission school at Lower Post during that time. The Eikland family moved to Haines Junction in 1949, and the children went to public school there. The family moved to Beaver Creek in 1953 or ’54.¹⁾