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How Oscar was Named;

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Title	How Oscar was Named
Creator	Amason, Alvin Eli
Contributors	Works from Home and New Places, Geist Lecture Series. Terry Dickey (recordist)
Collection Name	Education Multimedia
Identifier	UAM-ED01-A01-001
Description	Amason, Alvin (artist). Audio, 2:36 minutes MP3 format. Alvin Amason talks about how he named his painting "Oscar Scared Him with His Icon" at a UA Museum of the North Geist lecture
Transcript	Anyway, every summer we used to go down and beach seine for red salmon for our smoke house and we'd charter a goose load ad fly back to Kodiak to process it. This day, or sometime around this summer, I think we were waiting for the plane. She had some clients fishing up at the head of the lagoon, so she said, "Al will you go up and get them for me." I walked down to the skiff and hopped in and I was priming the fuel tank and this local named Oscar comes up and says, "Where are you going?" and I say that I have to up to the head of the lagoon. He says, "Can I come?" and I say "Sure. Hop in the bow and tie her loose." So we took off. I got up to the head of the lagoon. I couldn't spot the people on the beach, and I looked up a little ways and there they were cooking salmon on the bank. It was much like a hill like this, and you can see those are low alders. The south end of the island has only low alders. It was heavily forested. Behind this row of alders there was a bear coming down. He was two hundred yards off. They could not see him because of the ridge of alders, but they were in my line of sight. So I-"Oh no." So, anyway, I stopped the motor and I yelled and I said, "Do you have a rifle." They said, "yeah" and I said, "well fire it because you have a bear coming for lunch." And so he had a pretty big rifle and he fired it and the bear stopped and got up. It was a beautiful bear. He looked and sniffed and got down and kept coming. I said, "Fire it again" and the guy fired his rifle again. The bear got up, looked, and got back down. He started walking straight for him. And I said" Oh no" I'd better get these ignorant ones off the beach. So I was running back to start the engine and Oscar says, "Wait." I turned around and from somewhere he had pulled out this little.22 pistol and he fired it in the air. It sounded like a cap gun. The bear got up and looked and took a whiff, turned around, and walked away. And I said, "Oscar, he must of smelled an Aleut huh?." Oscar says, "Well no, that's not what scared him, and he unbuttons his shirt, and he had a string around his neck. Attached to the string was this little Russian icon. He said, "This is what scared him." So I did this painting called Oscar Scared Him with His Icon. I think this one will get me to heaven.
Location	Fairbanks (Alaska)
Region	Interior Alaska
Time Period	1959 and later
Date.original	11/07/01
Type	Collection Sound recording
Language	English
Ordering and Use	Terms of Copyright and Use; http://www.uaf.edu/museum/molinet/copyright.html
Holding Institution	UA Museum of the North, P.O. Box 756960, 907 Yukon Dr., Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6960 mailto:UA-museumlearn@alaska.edu
Related Materials	Alvin Amason Oscar Story
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How Oscar was Named;

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