Lena Sidney, Séel.áat, nee Bob (1930 – 2024)
Lena Sidney was Yanyeidi Sháa, born in Teslin to Charlie Bob Yéil Doogóo (Deisheetaan Clan) and Ida Jackson Daxlá (Yanyeidi Clan), the oldest of eleven children. Lena grew up around Teslin, Fish Lake, Johnston Town, Wolf Lake, and Second Beaver Creek and spent time on the Aces and in the Englishman Range. She had her own dog team by the time she was ten. A story she loved to tell with a laugh was when she got tired while mushing and climbed into her canvas toboggan to have a nap. She woke up to hear her parents concern when they didn't see her and thought she had fallen off.1)
The family boated down from the Wolf and Fish Lakes area around June and fished for salmon in the Teslin area in July. Tlingit was Lena’s first language. Lena attended the summer day school at the old Anglican rectory but taught herself how to read and write in English. She had books from the Catholic priest, Father Drean, and would read by light from the trapline campfires. She circled words she didn’t know and ask him about them when she got back to Teslin.2)
In August, the family went up to the Wolf and Fish Lakes area and they were picking berries in the 1940s when they saw their first plane. The Alaska Highway was built through Teslin when Lena was twelve and the family was cutting wood for the steamboat at Timber Point when they encountered the US Army builders for the first time.3)
Lena and George Albert Sidney Sr. were married in 1949 in Teslin at the Catholic Church. George was an accomplished bushman and a good provider and they had ten children. Lena helped George guide hunters and she strung the snowshoes he made. The family lived by Haa Kusteeyi, Our Way of Life.4)