Chad horner, Raymond Woods, Riley Scott, Jaelyn Cleveland, Blanche Sun and Herbert Wood work on digging through the ice to construct a mud-shark trap. - Photo Provided / for Alaska Newspapers
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Caught on the Kobuk: Kobuk students and elders build a mud-shark trap
December 23rd 3:54 pm | Katie Harken
Last week the students of Kobuk School joined local elder, Elmer Ward and Northwest Arctic's Bilingual Coordinator, Raymond Woods, to learn how to construct a mud-sharktrap. The high school students worked hard on Thursday afternoon. They chopped logs and hauled them to the site along with chopping the ice to prepare for the split log fence.
The students learned how to maximize their energy while using an axe on the ice. All the students gave it a try and much progress was made. The students also learned that it was essential to understand the current of the river in order to angle the trapcorrectly. "Making the boxes in the ice and putting in the cottonwood to make the wall was the most interesting part," commented Eva Horner, a 10th-grade student.
Elmer Ward has been making mud-shark traps on the Kobuk River for most of his life. Raymond stressed to the students how important it was for them to learn from Elmer, so that they would be able to construct a mud-shark trap on their own someday.
Friday afternoon the middle school and elementary students joined in the work too. The work included: splitting logs, shoveling ice and snow, hauling logs, and putting in the log fence. Blanche Sun, a fifth grade student commented, "Chopping the ice was hard but the most fun."
In the classroom, Ms. Cannon's middle school science students are creating diora- mas to show the different steps in building a mud-shark trap. The knowledge they gained while working on the trap with Elmer has helped them with this project. The students are also using, "Kuuvanmiut Subsistence" as a resource for information in order to build their dioramas.
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