Wayback Christmas! A Chistochina Story By Sy Neeley, As Told In 1996

CHRISTMAS IN COPPER RIVER COUNTRY 

Chistochina Lodge before burning down. (Archive photo, Country Journal) 

Those Were Happy Times...

Everybody Came In From The Traplines  

By Sy Neeley, Remembering Chistochina 

In 1996, Sy Neeley, who grew up at Chistochina Lodge, remembered what it was like during  Christmas time, back when he was a boy on what was to become the Tok Cutoff. He told the story to the Copper River Country Journal: 

I remember one Christmas, Philip Charley – Walter Charley's boy – and I, we played two ladies. We were dressed up. I was in my mother's fur coat and high-heeled shoes. I was Hedda Cabbage. And he was Ima Blank.

(I can't remember for sure – maybe it was the other way round.)

Everybody always came to the Christmas plays, whether they had kids in the school or not. It was the only live play all year round.

Each one of the lodges always had a Christmas party and a New Year's party. Every Christmas and New Year's we had free films. One for the kids and one for the adults. Those were happy times.  Everybody always came. 

Before we had the movies at Chistochina, there was always a dance on New Year's Eve. There were very few kids in the valley. It was all adults. Everybody came in from the traplines, and gathered together.