Charles Tega (1942 - 2025)
April 10, 1942- March 19, 2025
Longtime Kenny Laker Charles Tega passed away the morning of March 19th in Palmer AK.
Born in the Athabaskan village of Tanacross in the spring of 1942, Charles Tega would live the next 82 years in Alaska doing such a variety of things that you could never tell what his actual career was. He made close friends wherever he went, and his personality was infectious. Many say they never saw him unhappy and was always upbeat and great to be around.
BIA sent him off to different orphanages and boarding schools around the state in his youth, and later to New Mexico to become an artist, where he specialized in watercolor. He painted prints for many decades, beautiful paintings, and gave them all away. A high school starter during the heyday of Mount Edgecumbe basketball, he excelled at teamwork. He later worked milking cows at Creamer’s Field in Fairbanks as a young man, did some commercial fishing and even a little crabbing in western Alaska, worked at a huge lumber yard in Fairbanks, shoveled coal for the power plant at Ft. Wainwright, and had odd jobs everywhere. He fought many wildland fires around Alaska, working on fire crews from Fairbanks, Tok, and the Copper River area.
In the 1960s, he homesteaded next to his sister in Kenny Lake and built his own cabin next to a small pond. He greatly enjoyed eating off the land. Soon, he started trapping and moved even further into the mountains past Strelna each October and would come out in March with his season's catch. Those who visited him during the winter would occasionally eat their pancakes made with porcupine or wolf fat, and he soon got the nickname “Mountain Man.”
During the summer months, he was a laborer for his local 341, where he excelled at the shovel and jackhammer; he would joke. Those who hunted and packed with him were always impressed by the size of the load he could carry for an average-sized man, and at camp in the evening, everyone enjoyed his stew and bannick. Adventure never scared him away, and he always had a great attitude, even though he lived his life with a cleft palate, he never let it get him down or hold him back. Right to his last days, he was making new friends. His parents both passed of disease before he knew them, so he was an orphan from a toddler.
He was preceded in death by his brother Ed Tega in 1990 and his close brother-in-law Dean Wilson, with who he did so many things with for decades, including building cabins, cutting trails, shooting bears, moose, bison, running traplines, and working construction together. Dean died in 2010. Charlie is survived by his older sister, Ada Wilson, three nephews, Dell Wilson, Rick Wilson, and Dean Wilson Jr., and many great-nephews and nieces who cared for him in his later years and were his personal drivers to get his breakfasts. He will be missed by many around him and will be laid to rest at the family cemetery in Kenny Lake, May 10, after services at Kenny Lake Chapel at noon. A small potlatch at the Kenny Lake community Hall immediately following. All are welcome to attend. Donations for burial costs can be sent to his sister Ada Wilson, or a GoFundMe account has been created in his name at https://gofund.me/009e1d2d
