Richard Slobodin (1915-2005).(Obituary)(Biography)

Richard Slobodin, premier ethnologist of the Dene and cosmopolitan scholar, died on January 22, 2005, six weeks before his 90th birthday. Born and educated in New York City, he earned BA and MS degrees from the City College of New York. While he was teaching in the city's school system, an opportunity arose for a canoeing adventure that would prove to be the start of his career in anthropology. In May 1938, two of Dick's friends left from New York City on a canoeing trip that was planned to terminate at Nome, Alaska. Dick joined them at Winnipeg and with Robert Fuller proceeded northward, "hitchhiking, freight grabbing and canoeing," arriving at Fort McPherson in September. Dick writes of this first field trip as follows:

 
    Although the trip was not undertaken for the purpose of serious 
    ethnographic work, an attempt was made, with some success, to 
    acquire the rudiments of the native language and to learn something 
    of the folk lore and obsolete and obsolescent techniques. Some 
    demographic notes were also made during this visit. (Slobodin, 
    1962:11) 

In May 1939, after spending the winter around Fort McPherson. Slobodin and Fuller travelled by dog sled and later by canoe over the mountains into Alaska. "We waded through water running with broken ice for many…