Favored by the Chief's Son

In one of the villages we were in on the Yukon River, I made a breakthrough with one of the sons of the traditional chief of the village. He opened up to me and later, he honored me, though I didn't realize it at the time. They had been catching lots of salmon on the chief's fishwheel, cleaning, drying, and smoking it for the winter. This is how they live when the harsh winter comes. In one batch they caught a large sheefish. I sat nearby as he cleaned the fish, the last of several he had cleaned. "Here, try this, it's good," he said to me. He was holding a raw egg-sac from the sheefish. "Sheefish caviar," he said. I later learned they treasure this as quite a delicacy. So I ate it. "Yum," I said. The taste stayed with me for three days. But still, it was quite an honor.