Speaker is from Anchorage, AK; he is an American Indian man, age and education unknown. The interview took place in 1968, by DARE’s founder and former chief editor Frederic G. Cassidy.
CASSIDY: The. . . soapstone carvings. Are those done, have you done any of those?
INFORMANT: Yes.
CASSIDY: You have, mm-hmm.
INFORMANT: It’s pretty much like ivory carving only it takes more care—
CASSIDY: More care.
INFORMANT: —to work on, uh, soapstone.
CASSIDY: Why, why should it [xx]?
INFORMANT: Because} it is brittle.
CASSIDY: Oh, it is.
INFORMANT: And, uh, very soft. Uh, you, you can hack on, uh, ivory, but you can’t do that on soapstone. It’d chip too easily.
CASSIDY: Uh huh, well then you have to use your files on those.
INFORMANT: Yes.
CASSIDY: And then once you’ve done the filing and so on, how do you smooth it down?
INFORMANT: Uh, we, I use, uh, fine [file] to finish it up and then use, uh, sandpaper or emery cloth.
CASSIDY: Mm-hmm. I think you said that, um, quite often the thing that is carved is determined by the shape of the piece of stone that was [that’s] carving.
INFORMANT: Yes, uh, sometimes, uh, uh, an ivory carver or a soapstone carver will take advantage of the shape of the stone and, uh, try to visualize what it’d look like, uh, maybe a polar bear or wolf. He’d make it just the way it is.