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Village elder Sidney Huntington talks about his thoughts on the school system at PERS and the rest of the Yukon-Koyukok School District at the Project Education Residential School (PERS) in Galena, Alaska, on Tuesday morning, December 3, 2002. The school, which is at capacity with just more than 70 students, is located on the old Air Force Base on the outskirts of the Yukon River village. Students come from all over the state to take advantage of the programs at PERS, which is in its sixth year of existence
Sidney Huntington of Galena waits to give the waits to speak at the Alaska Federation of Natives/First Alaskans Elders and Youth Conference at the Carlson Center Monday Oct. 18, 2005. The 90 year old Alaskan gave the keynote address on education the the Elders and Youth Conference.
Former governor Jay Hammond, right, shares a laugh with Sidney Huntington during a break at the Conference of Alaskans, held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Wood Center Wednesday afternoon, February 11, 2004. Huntington was born in 1915 in Hughes, a village on the Koyukuk River.
Sidney Huntington speaks to the Gathering of Wisdom keepers Friday May, 4, 2001 in Skarland Hall on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. This is the first time that Alaska Native UAF honorary degree recipients from around the state have gathered.
Village elder Sidney Huntington talks about his thoughts on the school system at PERS and the rest of the Yukon-Koyukok School District at the Project Education Residential School (PERS) in Galena, Alaska, on Tuesday morning, December 3, 2002. The school, which is at capacity with just more than 70 students, is located on the old Air Force Base on the outskirts of the Yukon River village. Students come from all over the state to take advantage of the programs at PERS, which is in its sixth year of existence
Sidney Huntington of Galena waits to give the waits to speak at the Alaska Federation of Natives/First Alaskans Elders and Youth Conference at the Carlson Center Monday Oct. 18, 2005. The 90 year old Alaskan gave the keynote address on education the the Elders and Youth Conference.
Former governor Jay Hammond, right, shares a laugh with Sidney Huntington during a break at the Conference of Alaskans, held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Wood Center Wednesday afternoon, February 11, 2004. Huntington was born in 1915 in Hughes, a village on the Koyukuk River.
Sidney Huntington speaks to the Gathering of Wisdom keepers Friday May, 4, 2001 in Skarland Hall on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. This is the first time that Alaska Native UAF honorary degree recipients from around the state have gathered.
Trapper, author and education advocate Sidney C. Huntington has died.Â
FAIRBANKS - Sidney C. Huntington, a trapper, education advocate and author of well-known Alaska autobiography "Shadows on the Koyukuk," has died.
Huntington died Tuesday afternoon at age 100 in the Yukon Koyukuk Elder Assisted Living Facility in Galena, according to his daughter, Agnes Sweetsir.
A memorial service is planned for Friday morning at the community school that bears his name.
"He was definitely a patriarch in town. If you're not related to him you consider him a father figure anyways. I think that's how we all feel. Like we've lost dad or uncle or grandpa," said Tim Bodony, the news director at Galena radio station KIYU, who was in the process of writing a eulogy for Huntington on Wednesday morning.
"But he was 100 and had been in poor health for a long time, so there's a lot of relief that's going along with it also that he's running a new trapline in the sky, so to speak," he said.
Huntington was born in the village of Hughes, the son of a white gold miner father and a Koyukon Athabascan mother. His autobiography, written with Jim Rearden and published in 1993, describes his family's struggles in unforgiving wilderness, including Huntington's life running a trapline as a teenager and caring for his younger sister alone when Huntington was 5 years old.
Huntington went on to found the Galena school district, which now operates regional charter school Galena Interior Learning Academy. He operated a fish processing business in Galena and served on the Alaska Board of Game for 17 years.
The memorial service is at 10 a.m. on Friday, followed by a snowmachine caravan to a burial at Galena's cemetery, which is not connected to the road system, Bodony said. A potlatch is planned for 6 p.m. at the school.
Contact outdoors editor Sam Friedman at 459-7545. Follow him on Twitter: @FDNMoutdoors.