Old Crow,

Christmas, 1945.

My Dears, both Esther and Roy –

Last Christmas,-sheer distance alone made it seem enchanting to write you from Old Crow. This year events make me feel like shouting Happy Christmas from the top of our Crow Mountain !

To think that meanwhile we have experienced the great realisation of war's end!

From V.E. Day forward we flew our flags to shreds in these Arctic gales.

When the natives returned, in late June, from their ratting season on Crow Flats, they said the first sight of the flags - from across the river told the news, and that they were beautiful to behold. Since then life here, with its key-note of happiness goes on as before. It seems almost as though some implicit faith in ultimate good is the guiding star, for despite the war clouds, these people lived happily, and so they do now, despite the peace clouds. I find myself taking courage from them - from their simplicity. Actually they have so little - there is the everlasting struggle in such a cold climate, for the absolute necessities of life - but they always manage somehow.

So, to think season's greetings in the spirit of Old Crow, is my best way of reaching you across the miles.

Love, Mary

Once again, Hello Folks,

Doesn't seem a year ago, does it, since we sent you our first Christmas letter? - but time flies even here at Old Crow, and we must be sending you our heartiest Good Wishes for the Xmas season. May it be a real happy one for you!

We have now been through a whole round of one year's activities here; we have seen our boat load of supplies coming in and have got lots of kick out of some of our new things - just as the natives do. We have seen our boats beached in the Fall before the river freezes up. The natives going on their caribou-hunt, coming home with plenty of fresh meat which is a very important feature as we have no butcher here and depend almost entirely on caribou meat. Then in the winter we have seen the men (and women) go out to their trap lines with their dog-teams. Christmas brought its round of festivities, its dances by the natives - always very picturesque -and ‘potlatches'. Later oh, in the spring they were off again out to the musk-rat trapping-grounds. This literally is their harvest and everybody, except the very old and the sick leaves with high hopes of a good catch. It is an interesting sight to watch them leave, too. Out by dog-team; in a month or so back again in boats made of canvas. Then the resulting rush and bustle of counting and packing the skins; the natives' pleasure in getting new things and of course the inevitable ‘fresh oranges, apples and eggs'. So – as I said, we have seen all this and although naturally, we have our anxious moments even up here, yet there is no little thrill to it all.