154 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 217 



The Indians at OJd Crow 



At Old Crow about 170 Indians form the only village now in the 

 territory of the Vanta Kutchin (Osgood, 1936; Leechman, 1954). 

 The nearest settlements are Fort MacPherson, Herschel Island, and 

 Fort Yukon, about 140 miles east, north, and southwest, respectively. 

 Southward about 300 miles are the settlements on the upper tributaries 

 of the Yukon. Old Crow had only three cabins and a store when 

 Neil McDonald came there in 1913 but many of the residents are 

 probably derived from the Vanta Kutchin of the Porcupine Valley, 

 who were once more numerous. Long geographically isolated, their 

 old people were nevertheless great travelers, the Porcupine being 

 an ancient trade route between the Yukon and the Mackenzie. In 

 winter now some of them travel great distances to hunt or trap, and 

 to work or visit at MacPherson and Fort Yukon. Recently the prices 

 of fur have been so low that little beside muskrats is taken, but 

 although their price is cheap the numbers taken in spring on Crow 

 Flats provide the principal cash support of the village. 



The present chief, Charlie Abel, was elected in spring of 1958 to 

 succeed Charlie Peter Charlie, who had been elected in 1953. The 

 two former chiefs, each served for more than ten years, Peter Moses 

 from about 1940-1953 and Joe Kay from about 1925-1940. All have 

 demonstrated the high quality of strong leadership which seems to 

 have been common among these Indian people. In addition a detach- 

 ment of two Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constables administers 

 law with the skill and wise concern for the people for which that force 

 is noted. An Anglican preacher operates the church to which prac- 

 tically every villager belongs. A recently established Eoman Catholic 

 Mission has not acquired an Indian following. 



Disturbed only by a monthly mail plane from Fort Yukon, and 

 under the wise and strong guidance of their chief, the police, and the 

 preacher, the community seems to be a well ordered and a more co- 

 herent body than most Eskimo villages, in which the regulatory power 

 of the council is small and where families join to make a village on a 

 very informal basis of sociable inclination. For sustenance, some fish 

 are obtained in spring, but the caribou which cross the Porcupine in 

 spring and fall migrations provide the principal source of natural 

 food. For many years the caribou had usually been available, but 

 in the autumn of 1957 their migration passed so far west of Old Crow 

 that shortage of dog food reduced the range of hunting and prevented 

 preparation for trapping in the next spring season. The people rose 

 to this serious situation with increasing exertions at hunting but they 

 were severely handicapped by the reduction of their radius of opera- 

 tion through the impairment of canine transportation. 



