Fort Yukon girls basketball team has warm feelings about Juneau tournament despite record storm
- Klas Stolpe
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Players discuss life on the court, culture and resilience of village life at minus 60°F
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
With their final game over at the George Houston Capital City Classic basketball tournament last week, the Fort Yukon Lady Eagles were asked what they felt about Juneau’s weather, which at the time entailed unusually high snowfall amounts.
“It is minus 60 right now,” Fort Yukon senior Kylee Carroll said of her hometown. “We feel pretty warm here. It is warm.”
“I thought it was going to be really warm,” senior Jane Ward added. “Because of how cold it is in Fort Yukon, but the school here is cold (she laughs), except in the gym.”
The Lady Eagles arrived at the tournament expecting to see the glacier, tour the Capitol and enjoy the sights, but the winter storm essentially kept them housed in their JDHS accommodations.
“We want to see the whale,” Carroll said on their final day. “We are going to walk down to the whale. We want to see the whale sculpture at least.”
Their means of travel to Juneau included a 9 a.m., nine-seat bush plane flight to Fairbanks — 145 air miles away — and taking Alaska Airlines from there to Anchorage and landing at Juneau International Airport at 9 p.m.
There are no roads out of Fort Yukon, population 411.
The Yukon River is only ice-free from late May to early September and travel to and from the village is by plane, or river in the summer.
“We are the only village in our area with a basketball team so we joined the Golden Heart Conference,” Carroll said. “So we don’t have roads out anyway and are too far away for snow-gos (snowmobiles) so we fly in small bush planes.”
Said Ward, “Everybody in our school district, in their high schools they probably have five or some schools have maybe 10. In our high school we have 20 students and the only basketball team so we have to fly. And it is hard getting home games because it is expensive.”
The farthest trip to play is at Point Hope. They went to a team camp in Oregon last summer to play.
The winters in Fort Yukon, located at the confluence of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers, are full of simple routines for the team.
“We practically just go to school,” Carroll said. “Then practice and by the time we are done with that it is dark. So we have to go home or just visit each other.”
Virtually every family has a snowmobile.
“We drive snow-go (snowmobiles) to get around,” sophomore Heidi Cadzow said. Her family used to have sled dogs and her father, coach Joshua Cadzow, raced in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race in 2010 and 2011.
“We don’t have them now,” she said. “We sold them a couple years ago when he started coaching. They were part of our family, but they needed more attention, they deserved to be running more.”
Said Ward, “Any time it is, like at least negative 20, any time it gets warm, she (points to Cadzow) will pick us up with her snow-go and we’ll put the sled on, and there will be be at least 10 kids in the back, and we’ll drive around for two hours at least. No matter how cold it is. That is the only thing we do pretty much in the winter except for basketball.”
Both snowmobiles and dog sleds are used for hauling wood.
“We go out to the wood out of Fort Yukon,” Ward said. “And cut trees down and bring it home and cut it up. That is another good way for us, when we are busy with school and practice, because we can’t work so we can sell it… and right now it is negative 60 so hauling wood helps. Heating oil runs out fast. In December and January, it is 50 below all the time.”
Most team members are related and hang out to watch game film even from years past.
To get to practice, coach Cadzow picks all 12 players up because often their families’ vehicles won’t start in the weather.
“Coach picks up the four downtown kids first,” Ward said. “Drops them in the gym and then travels to get the uptown girls next.”
“Some weekends we do weekend games at our gym,” Carroll said. “We play against the women of Fort Yukon.”
The gym is also where Doyon, Limited meetings are held. Like many small villages, the gym serves the community. Gwichyaa Zhee is the Gwich’in name for Fort Yukon. Most village residents are descendants of the Yukon Flats, Chandler River, Birch Creek, Black River and Porcupine River Gwich’in Athabascan tribes.
Being alone is not recommended.
“In the winter you have to worry about walking around town, too, because of wolves,” Ward said. “Wolves are bad they are always around…They will eat dogs.”
The Lady Eagles are the two-time defending 1A state basketball champions for a reason — they are not afraid of competition. Which was evident in their three hard losses here to 3A state title contender Monroe 48-37 on Dec. 29, 4A JDHS 44-33 Dec. 30 and Monroe 49-38 Jan. 1.
The team left on Friday and played that day against 4A North Pole, winning 39-37. They played Saturday against 4A Lathrop and fell 38-30. They next play 4A West Valley on Jan. 8. Their Golden Heart Conference tournament - one of 11 conference 1A tournaments — is usually held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but this season will be at Tri-Valley High School.
“We go to open gym all summer,” Carroll said.
“We play against the boys,” Cadzow said. “We’ll play anybody.”
A community Summer Youth Employment program helps provide connections to jobs during the summer.
“Literally all summer, since we live by the river, the girls’ team and whoever wants to go will drive out to the sloughs and go fishing,” Cadzow said. “Or if our parents let us we take a boat ride.”
Fishing means something different now.
In recent years, Yukon River king salmon runs saw historically low returns due to warmer oceans and rivers stressing salmon migration, size and egg production. Bering Sea and Alaska Peninsula commercial fisheries bycatch also took salmon headed for the Yukon.
In 2024, fisheries managers in the United States and First Nations Canada implemented a seven-year agreement for king salmon stock rebuilding, allowing only limited cultural harvest and banning most sport and commercial fishing in the Yukon River.
According to data collected by the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), Alaska Natives living along the Yukon faced a 70% increase in prediabetes, a 50% increase in malnutrition and a 25% increase in diabetes after the salmon collapse, which had been first widely notable among Indigenous peoples some 20 years before it intensified in 2000, severely declined in 2019 and resulted in the 2024 closure.
“We are only allowed very few salmon for ceremonies,” Ward said. “Salmon used to be, like, two-thirds of the food here.”
“In the fall we go moose hunting, almost all of our food is harvested,” Carroll said.
“It is really expensive at the store,” Ward said. “Like, if we don’t have to travel too far, like if we go to Fairbanks, Josh will make sure to bring moose meat because we don’t want to eat McDonalds or fast food the entire time.”
On the final day of the GHCCC tournament, Juneau referee Ron Taug brought the team smoked king salmon to eat and take back to Fort Yukon.
“That was really nice,” Carroll said. “We used to hang and smoke salmon. In the spring we hunt birds, like geese or ducks. We all hunt.”
Said Cadzow, “Moose is my favorite to hunt probably. We usually go out in the fall. My family has a cabin and we’ll stay out there for a week and a half. It takes three hours upstream by boat to get to our cabin.”
Carroll prefers hunting moose also, but ducks and geese are a close second.
“We go to my dad’s camp at Christian River,” she said. “We all went up there this year. All of us and my brothers. We got three moose in one day.”
Added Ward, “That was fun, it was, like, in a one-mile stretch too…Geese are my favorite to hunt. Moose are hard because you have to sit there and be quiet.”
The three quieted for a moment. They all said they enjoy playing away from Fort Yukon but long to return from those trips.
“I miss my bed when we travel,” Cadzow said.
“My house, the log cabin,” Ward said.
“The log fire,” Carroll said.
They all said they missed Native foods and snow machines.
“Anything with moose meat,” Ward said. “Like moose soup.”
“Pan-fried moose, or dried moose, literally all those things,” Cadzow said. “We can get white fish and stuff, but just not too much king salmon.”
There is nothing outside Fort Yukon they really desire to have.
“When we leave it is a good break from the cold,” Carroll said.
All said they would like to go to college, but their passions are different.
“Yeah I guess college would be fun,” Carroll said. “I would want to, but there are some things I still want to do here with our community. Right now my passion is hanging with friends and hunting.”
“I like doing things that include our cultural stuff,” Ward said. “Like hunting, or jigging, or Native music, that is fun. But our culture is slowly slipping away from Fort Yukon. If we travel to other villages in the Interior who are stricter with Gwich’in cultural we try to learn more.”
“It is sad because people are not going to go to those things unless it involves alcohol and stuff,” Carroll said.
“We try to get a lot of people to play basketball in the high school so they stay away from bad stuff,” Cadzow said.
“But there is wifi now so it is like a drug,” Ward said. “They just, like, watch stuff live and don’t go out.”
“I still have a few years left to play,” Cadzow said. “But I would like to go to college. I don’t have a major really, I am still trying to figure it out.”
Traveling to Juneau were seniors J. Ward, K. Carroll, Nellie Ward, Jewel Mahler, junior Karli Thomas, sophomores H. Cadzow, Shandace Carroll and coach/athletic director Joshua Cadzow. Assistant coach is Twila Strom. Other players include junior Lacey Peter, sophomore Leveah Savage and freshman Faye Alexander.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@gmail.com.
