Vo l . 2 , N o . 1 II. Then you’ve got your Bering Sea land bridge, you know-- long time ago. Same thing. Somebody’s got a screw loose with that one. Where did they come up with that idea anyway? They must think we walk everywhere we go. We didn’t need no land bridge to get here from Siberia. We got boats in summer. Always did. We got sleds and dogs in winter when the Bering Sea is ice. How far do they think it is anyway? It’s not that far. Hell, I got relatives over there on the Russian side, right now. Do they think we trudged through the mud dragging our stuff behind? On a good day you can see all the way across that water. What is it, maybe, 58 miles? If you can go by boat why would you walk? Figure it out. Add to that the way we know ice --the way we read ice. Hell, water and ice never held us back. Not for a minute. Land bridge, phooey to that. I know what they did – them boys in Washington, or in some college. They never came out here to take a look. I could have taken them out there to size it up. They looked at a map and made something up That’s what they did. Holy cow!
23 Why didn’t you ask us natives before you came up with all this garbage? Now everybody’s got it wrong. Once you say something, they believe it and pass it on like fact. None of these young guys have the balls to say “Ridiculous!” Now, I’m not saying there was no land bridge way back when. Maybe there was. Who knows? I am saying it didn’t help with traveling. It would be a hindrance. How could we climb over mud and rocks, cliffs and landslides? Besides that all your greenery -- willows, snares and whatnot, bogs you can’t cross without a lot of trouble. More likely your bridge slowed us down as we came over, went back so many times, pulling sleds, hunting, fishing, whaling from skin boats, dying out there sometimes. It’s all home to us. It’s our back yard. And our graveyard, too, I guess. Can you see how it was back then or is your mind already made up? That’s the question I have for you. Can you listen to reason or not? What do they teach in those schools, anyway? Honest to God, I don’t know. Locks in stupidity, that’s what I think. Locks it right in.
Janet Levin