Lifeways in Southwest Alaska today remains inextricably bound to the seasonal cycles of sea and land. Community members continue to hunt, fish, and make products from the life found in the rivers and sea. Based on a wealth of oral histories collected...

When Chris McCandless, immortalized in "Into the Wild", headed into the Alaska wilderness, one of the books he took with him was "Tanaina Plantlore", which he used to identify edible plants. While the book and subsequent movie has brought attention t...

For centuries, the Akulmiut people – a Yup'ik group – have been sustained by the annual movements of whitefish. It is a food that sustains and defines them. To this day, many Akulmiut view not only their actions in the world, but their interactions w...

This is a multidisciplinary study of the early contact period of Alaskan Native history that follows a major hunting and fishing Inupiaq group at a time of momentous change in their lifeways. The Amilgaqtau yaagmiut were the most powerful group in th...

Join Julia Tinker – avid explorer, angler, and artist – in her travels as she recounts her multi-year journey captaining her boat through the beautiful waters surrounding Ketchikan and Prince of Wales. Her mission is to delve into the diverse ecosyst...

"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...

Ninety years ago, Knud Rasmussen's popular account of his scientific expeditions through Greenland and North America introduced readers to the culture and history of arctic Natives. In the intervening century, a robust field of ethnographic research...

This bilingual collection shares new translations of old stories recorded over the last four decades though interviews with Yup'ik elders from throughout southwest Alaska. Some are true qulirat (traditional tales), while others are recent. Some are w...

Shem Pete (1896-1989), a colorful and brilliant raconteur from Susitna Station, Alaska, left a rich legacy of knowledge about the Upper Cook Inlet Dena'ina world. Shem was one of the most versatile storytellers and historians in twentieth century Ala...

For millennia, "the North" has held a powerful sway in Western culture. Long seen through contradictions – empty of life yet full of promise, populated by indigenous communities yet ripe for conquest, pristine yet marked by a long human history – it...