Stanley Roberts (b. 1909)
Stanley Roberts was born and raised in Moosehide, the son of Robert Charley from Eagle and Sarah Jane James from Dawson. Stanley's sisters were sent to Chooutla Residential School in Carcross but Stanley and his brother stayed behind to help hunt and fish. Stanley went to the church and school at Moosehide where most classes and church services were held in Gwich’in, the Peel River language. He remembers that the school being not much warmer than outside in the winter.1)
At Moosehide, the women looked after their families, helped with church activities and with fishing, hunting, and trapping. The men hunted, trapped, and fished, and sometimes worked in Dawson. The men gambled occasionally but their game was poker. Stick gambling was not done by the Hän but was a Northwest Coast game that came in with the native traders. Christmas was big event, and people came from Dawson and the bush to celebrate.2)
Roberts worked as a deckhand, longshoreman, labourer, hunter, trapper and fisherman. He was paid two dollars a day as a deckhand on the steamers but he had fun travelling to Whitehorse, Carmacks, Fort Selkirk, and Stewart. The men would sometimes go ashore to sing, play guitar, play poker, and socialize. Stanley worked as a longshoreman in Dawson, unpacking freight off the barges.3)
He spent a few years working for miners on Miller Creek for $5 a day and it was hard work. Moosehide people did not mine much but they had huge traplines - especially the ones with good dog teams. Fur prices were low but so were food prices and they dried fish for themselves and their dogs and grew vegetables at Moosehide. With four good dogs, Stanley made a trip to the Sixtymile and back in six days.4)