Bøger udgivet af University of Alaska Press

Iñupiat of the Sii is a firsthand account of Wanni and Douglas Anderson's lived experiences during eight field seasons of archaeological and ethnographic research in Selawik, Alaska, from 1968 to 1994. This study traces the Selawik village's history, compares their past and current lifeways, studies the interfacing of the traditional with the modern, and explores how specific events in the Selawik past continued to shape their lives. This fascinating book records, preserves, and contributes to the knowledge of the history and cultural lifeways of the Siilaviŋmiut people using contextual and ethnographic writing styles that apply community-based, lived-experience, and sense-of-place approaches. The authors, who have remained in contact with Selawikers since the original research period, center Iñupiaq elders' and local Iñupiaq historians' continued commitments to historical knowledge about the past, their ancestors, and their vast repertoire of traditional cultural and environmental knowledge. They portray the particularity of Iñupiaq life as it was lived, sensed, and felt by Selawikers themselves, and as experienced by researchers. Quoted observations, conversations, and comments eloquently acknowledge Iñupiaq insiders' narrative voices. Providing one of few ethnographic reviews of an Alaska Native village, Iñupiat of the Sii will appeal to general readers interested in learning about Iñupiaq lifeways and the experiences of anthropologists in the field. It will also be useful to instructors teaching college-level students how anthropological field research should be conducted, analyzed, and reported.

Uncommon Weather is an eclectic mix of character-driven stories that delivers a panoramic picture of Alaska-- from the cold city streets of Anchorage to picturesque but emotionally treacherous small Alaska towns; from the rough-and-tumble commercial fishing world of the distant Aleutian Islands to a remote river in the Brooks Range, where the vast and unforgiving Arctic wilderness puts romance to a severe test. Richard Chiappone's characters hail from a wide range of socioeconomic strata, each one attempting to figure out the difficult question of how best to live among others. Odd connections abound. In the seriocomic title story, a lonely middle-aged woman, weary of her austere Alaskan life and her crumbling marriage, picks up a hockey stick and a younger man and tries to brawl her way to some better future. A man diagnosed with an apparently terminal illness is caught up in a catastrophic criminal undertaking masterminded by a precocious seventeen-year-old girl. A young boy, determined to fit in with his edgier peers, goes through a metamorphosis, becoming a strange new creature he's never seen before. With sometimes hilarious missteps, each character stumbles in and out of predicaments that are by turns tender, heartbreaking, dangerous, and even violent. Told with great empathy and often deeply ironic, wry, and sardonic humor, these stories are a counterpoint to the usual mythos, illuminating an Alaska not usually portrayed in books, on TV, or in movies.

This cheeky dictionary-shaped exploration is a genre-bending nonfiction lyric following one family through the years from the financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A collection of first-person narratives offering a vivid, nuanced look at the lived and shared experiences of Bering Strait communities in the COVID-19 era, Stronger Together is a unique collaboration between the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum in Nome, Alaska, and over forty community members, artists, and poets from across the Bering Strait region. The featured artists narrativize works inspired by the pandemic, from walrus ivory masks and sealskin face coverings to scenes of subsistence activities and informal family portraits. Full-color illustrations enliven the text with vibrant images of local community members, activities, and artwork from those who call this northern expanse of rolling tundra and icy seas home. These behind-the-scenes perspectives of how remote Alaskan communities endured the COVID-19 pandemic appeals to anyone looking for hopeful and redemptive stories of this time, as well as museum, public arts, and culture program administrators; student and scholars of Indigenous and Alaska Native languages and culture; the Alaska anthropology community; artists and art enthusiasts; and those with a general interest in Alaska.

This work is based on a list kept by collectors of customs at Sitka in the 19th century and now in the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. Information includes date, name and type of ship, records of damage, and the port to which each vessel was heading.

Identity and understanding are fluid and plural, yet the histories of violence and oppression influence and shape everything in the world because the past, present, and future exist in the same plane and at the same time. Gagaan Xʼusyee / Beneath the Foot of the Sun is a unique collection of Indigenous cultural work and Lingít literature in the tradition of Nora Marks Dauenhauer, and in the broader contemporary company of Joy Harjo and Sherwin Bitsui. Focused on the history of place and the Lingít and Haida people, who recognize little separation between life and art, these forty-six poems reach into the knowledge of the past, incorporate visions currently received, and draw a path for future generations. The collection is divided into four sections, based on how the Lingít talk about g̱agaan--the sun. Featuring some poems in English, some in Lingít, and some that combine the beauty of the two, Gagaan Xʼusyee / Beneath the Foot of the Sun displays an equal dignity in both languages that transcends monolingual constrictions.

When Captain Cook died on Hawaii in 1780, Britain was already at war with France and Spain, who had allied themselves with her rebellious American subjects. The new United States secured its independence in 1783 and, as peace resumed, all three rival European powers turned again to considering the opportunities revealed by Cook's work in the Pacific. Further expeditions were soon dispatched: some were successful, some disasterous, and the achievements of some are still too little known. This book looks at six of Cook's successors and their Pacific voyages: at Arthur Phillip, founder of the first British colony in Australia; the Comte de Laperouse, whose French scientific expedition vanished without a trace; William Bligh, first in the ill-fated Bounty but then successfully in the Providence and in a Spanish expedition forgotten in the oblivion of his later political disgrace; George Vancouver's controversial voyage to northwest America; and Matthew Flinders' charting of Australia and long imprisonment by the French on Mauritius.

"Cold Latitudes depicts, in precise and spare portraits, the landscapes, cultures, and animals of the circumpolar regions. McGuire's writing reveals the Arctic and Antarctic regions as environments bustling with lives and ways of life that are coming increasingly under threat by climate change. These essays add a refreshingly intimate and human side to a conversation dominated by the often-inaccessible language and perspective of environmental science. Though the observations are the highlight of this collection, each essay has narrative momentum to match its setting"--

"Arctic people live in and observe the Arctic environment year-round. Intimate knowledge of the environment and environmental changes is fundamental to their survival. They frequently depend on natural resources for their livelihood. This book presents a review of the capabilities, good practices, opportunities and barriers of community-based environmental monitoring programs in the Arctic, with a focus on decision-making for resource management"--

"In this book, close to one hundred men and women from all over southwest Alaska share knowledge of their homeland and the plants that grow there. They speak eloquently about time spent gathering and storing plants and plant material during snow-free months, including gathering greens during spring, picking berries each summer, harvesting tubers from the caches of tundra voles, and gathering a variety of medicinal plants. The book is intended as a guide to the identification and use of edible and medicinal plants in southwest Alaska, but also as an enduring record of what Yup'ik men and women know and value about plants and the roles plants continue to play in Yup'ik lives"--

"Cabin 135 exists as place and idea, abode and quirky companion. As place, the house offered abundant opportunities to explore and contemplate decisions made by previous residents. As an abstraction, the log-built cabin both anchored and propelled my speculative notions of time and place. Eventually, I looked outward, beyond the house toward the microcosms of garden and yard and on toward a wider terrain. Nature meanders through my life as an ongoing theme, whether semi-tamed garden, national park, or wild-seeming forest. My narrative journey samples history, gardening, and nature as well as grappling with a many-faced house. Within the thematic structure of this book, I learn to pay more attention to my surroundings-sometimes with a broad-brush approach such as considering a swath of vegetation, other times, contemplating only a small plot of forest or garden, or a patch of wall inside the house. While searching for narrative larger than myself, everything I experienced, pondered, and tinkered with became part of my story and I puzzled over how we change places in both minuscule and wide-ranging ways"--

The Whales, They Give Themselves is an intimate life history of Harry Brower, Sr. (1924-1992), an Inupiaq whaling captain, artisan, and community leader from Barrow, Alaska. In a life that spanned the profound cultural and economic changes of the twentieth century, Brower's vast knowledge of the natural world made him an essential contributor to the Native and scientific communities of the North. His desire to share his insights with future generations resulted in a series of conversations with friend and oral historian Karen Brewster, who weaves Harry's stories with cultural and historical background into this innovative and collaborative oral biography. Brower was deeply committed to Native culture, and his life history is a moving expression of the Inupiaq way of life. He was also influential in traditionally non-Native arenas in which Native and non-Native values sometimes collided. Acting as a mediator between Inupiaq whalers and non-Native scientists, Brower communicated a vast understanding of bowhead whales and whaling that became the basis for a scientific research program and helped protect Inupiaq subsistence whaling. He was a central architect of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation boundaries, and served for over twenty years as a consultant to scientists at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory. Brower's role in this collaborative research serves as one of the earliest and best examples of how scientists and Native experts can work together to advance knowledge. Such approaches are now promoted by researchers around the world. The Whales, They Give Themselves not only conveys Brower's life story, but also is a cross-cultural journey of wisdom and friendship. Whereas academic oral historians once strove to erase the presence of the interviewer in the name of objectivity, Brewster recognizes the influence her specific relationship with Brower had on the way he narrated his life. This volume is a major contribution to our understanding of northern peoples, and a testament to the immense value of collaborative oral history.

Whether the reader is a student of history or someone unacquainted with Adolphus Greely's ill-fated expedition into the Arctic during the early 1880s, Alden Todd's book will prove interesting and informative.

"In 1941, Anna Harker is attacked by an ax-wielding assailant in the gold-bearing ridges bordering the Alaska Range. It is this moment of savagery that propels the people of Wild Rivers, Wild Rose. Anna's lover,Wade Daniels, learns of the deaths of Anna's husband and their farmhand, and he rushes to the hills to look for Anna and hunt the murderer. As she lies dying on the tundra, Anna relives the major events of her Alaska life while searching her memories for what could have led to the violence. And, decades later, an outsider named Billie Sutherland steps into a community still haunted by the murders. Plagued by her own ghosts, Billie delves into the past, opening old wounds. In this gripping novel by Sarah Birdsall, lives are laid bare and secrets ring out in the resonant Alaska Range foothills"

"'No Natives or Dogs Allowed' blared the storefront sign at the young Tlingit Indian girl. The sting of those words would stay with Elizabeth Peratrovich all her life. Years later, a seasoned fighter for equality, she would deliver her own eloquent message. One that helped change Alaska and the nation forever. Tensions could not have been higher in Gallery B of the Alaska Territorial Senate. Alaska Natives and non-Natives pressed shoulder to shoulder or stood teetering on chairs to peer over the avalanche of heads that flowed into the hallway. They had come to hear debate on the first anti-discrimination bill in America, almost 20 years before passage of the United States Civil Rights Act. One speaker remained. Now thirty-three years old, Elizabeth Peratrovich placed her knitting next to her young daughter and rose. Dignified and confident in white velvet gloves, stylish green dress and matching hat, she made her way slowly down the crowded aisle. The audience strained forward, drawn by her calm but powerful presence. She turned to face the assembled legislators. Fighter in Velvet Gloves traces Elizabeth's life, from birth and adoption to leadership in a battle for civil rights now celebrated annually throughout Alaska on Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. Author Annie Boochever grew up in Juneau, Alaska. She and her family knew many of the Alaskans, including political leaders, who played key roles in Elizabeth's life and in the battle for Alaska Native people's equality. Written in collaboration with Elizabeth's eldest son, Roy Peratrovich Jr., Fighter in Velvet Gloves brings to life for readers, age ten through young adult, the story of an inspirational Alaskan and American hero"--Provided by publisher.

Mar Ka lives in and writes from the foothills of Alaska's Chugach Mountains. Be-Hooved, her new poetry collection, creates a layered spiritual memoir of her decades in the northern wilderness. The poems inhabit her surroundings--structured along the seasons and the migration patterns of the Porcupine Caribou Herd--and are wrought with a fine and luminous language. Entrancing, profound, and startling, this book is a testament to hope before change, persistence before confusion, and empathy before difference: all the world's light and all the world's dark / can fit into an eye into a heart.

Water Mask is an adventurous memoir from Monica Devine, an itinerant therapist who travels to villages throughout Alaska and builds a life in this vast, captivating landscape. She traverses mountains, navigates sea ice with whalers, and whirls two thousand feet above tundra with a rookie bush pilot; she negotiates the death of her father, and the near-loss of her family's cabin on the Copper River. Her journey is exhilarating--but not without reminders of the folly of romanticizing a northern landscape that both rejects and beguiles. Reflections on family, place, and culture are woven into a seductive tapestry of a life well-lived and well-loved.

With the first headlines that screamed "Gold! Gold! Gold!" the rush to the Klondike quickly became the stuff of legend. It was the Wild West all over again, the cowboy hero recast as prospector. Four key figures are linked to the gold that set off the stampede: George Carmack, his Tagish wife Kate Carmack (born Shaaw Tlaa), her brother Skookum Jim, and their nephew Dawson Charlie. Of these, Kate has received the least recognition, even though she played a pivotal role in the events that led to the Klondike stampede. In this recovery of a key historical figure, Vanasse explores the early life of Kate, the years she spent with George before the Klondike discovery, her meeting of almost every key figure in gold rush history, and the experiences in Washington and California that brought her into a world she could scarcely have imagined. Four years after he set off the rush, Carmack abandoned his wife at a California ranch. Illiterate and thousands of miles from her home, Kate fought for her wealth, her family, and her reputation. Through a fortuitous combination of correspondence, legal proceedings, ethnographic study, and the generosity of Kate's Tagish-Tlingit relatives, the story of Kate Carmack can finally be told. The first popular rendering of the Klondike Gold Rush from the perspective of those who were there first-, her biography gives voice to a survivor who, against all odds, ultimately reclaimed her true wealth. Vanasse brings a novelist's skill to a multifaceted and deeply researched story. Here is a complex portrait of an important historical figure overshadowed by the rush to Klondike gold.

Diversity has always been central to Alaska identity, as the state's population consists of people with many different backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences. This book opens a window into these diverse lives, gathering stories and poems about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer life into a brilliant, path-breaking anthology.             In these pages we see the panoply of LGBTQ life in Alaska today, from the quotidian urban adventures of a family--shopping, going out, working--to intimate encounters with Alaska's breathtaking natural beauty. At a time of great change and major strides in LGBTQ civil rights, Building Fires in the Snow shows us an Alaska that shatters stereotypes and reveals a side of Alaska that's been little seen until now.

Reaching 20,320 feet into the clouds, the peak of Denali is the highest and coldest summit in North America. In this novel of adventure and ambition, based on actual events, four men set out to conquer it.

Skijoring, or being pulled on skis by a dog in harness, is a sport in which almost anyone - and almost any breed of dog - can participate. This title covers what equipment is needed, how to teach a dog to pull, and how to work with your dog year-round. It also covers canicross, bikejoring, and other ways to work with dogs when there's no snow.

Collects twenty-three stories that show the evolution of the adventurer's work, from ducking avalanches near the Gulf of Alaska to searching for the most pristine tundra on the continent, and from writing haiku on Denali in the depth of winter to decrying oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.