Books by Alaska Native authors - for Alaska Book Week: Home

In the spring, the bear returns to the forest, the glacier returns to its source, and the salmon returns to the fresh water where it was spawned. Drawing on the special relationship that the Native people of southeastern Alaska have always had with nature, Blonde Indian is a story about returning. Told in eloquent layers that blend Native stories and metaphor with social and spiritual journeys, this enchanting memoir traces the author's life from her difficult childhood growing up in the Tlingit community, through her adulthood, during which she lived for some time in Seattle and San Francisco, and eventually to her return home. Neither fully Native American nor Euro-American, Hayes encounters a unique sense of alienation from both her Native community and the dominant culture. We witness her struggles alongside other Tlingit men and women--many of whom never left their Native community but wrestle with their own challenges, including unemployment, prejudice, alcoholism, and poverty. The author's personal journey, the symbolic stories of contemporary Natives, and the tales and legends that have circulated among the Tlingit people for centuries are all woven together, making Blonde Indian much more than the story of one woman's life. Filled with anecdotes, descriptions, and histories that are unique to the Tlingit community, this book is a document of cultural heritage, a tribute to the Alaskan landscape, and a moving testament to how going back--in nature and in life--allows movement forward.

The elders' gifts to each of us, Native and non-Native, is their guidance and support. Howard shows us how their attention can sustain and nourish us throughout our lives. This support is the basis of our "luck" and the reason why "respect" is so important to Howard. He believes that his respect for elders is the basis of his success and is the message that he wants to impart to the rest of us. [from the back cover]

Born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children, Velma Wallis comes of age in a two-room log cabin in remote Fort Yukon, Alaska. Life is defined by the business of living off the land. Chopping wood. Hauling water from the river. Hunting moose. Catching salmon. Traping fur. Taking care of the dogs. For a thousand years, the Gwich'in clan had followed migratory animals across the north. But two generations before, the people had settled where the Porcupine River flows into the Yukon. Now, the Wallis family has a post office box and an account at the general store, and Velma listens to Wolf Man Jack on armed forces radio. The author discovers that her people have surrendered their language, traditional values, and religion to white teachers, traders, and missionaries. Flu epidemics have claimed many loved ones. Village elders seem like strangers from another land, and in a way they are. There is much drinking when the monthly government checks come, and that is when the pain comes out of hiding. RAISING OURSELVES is a gritty, sobering, yet irresistible story filled with laughter even as generations of Gwich'in grief seeps from past to present. But hope pushes back hopelessness, and a new strength and wisdom emerge.

"Emily Ivanoff Brown - Ticasuk - tells the story of her life and that of her family's along Alaska's Bering Sea coast. Handed down from parent to child to grandchild, this story tells of Eskimo customs and taboos, and of attempts to Westernize a proud culture." [from the back cover]

In his dramatic autobiography, Alaskan elder Sidney Huntington, half-white, half-Athabascan, recounts his adventures, tragedies, and ultimate success.

The life and times of Native Eskimo Madeline Solomon of Koyukuk.

Autobiography of Athabaskan elder from Tanana, Josephine Roberts.

"Perhaps the longest of the Koyukon traditional narratives (kk'edonts'ednee), it recounts the epic journey of a traveler, strong in spirit power, who traverses the North. As K'etetaalkkaanee follows his destined path, he effects the transformation of animals, establishes customs, defines features of the physical world, and illustrates practical wisdom."

This book is an introduction to Tlingit social and political history. Each biography is compelling in its own merit, but when all are taken together, the collection shows patterns of interaction among people and communities of today, and across the generations. By combining historical documents and photographs with accounts gathered from living memory, the book also enables the present, living generations to interact with their past. The book features biographies and life histories of more than 50 men and women, most born between 1880 and 1910, including a special section on the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Additional lives are described tangentially. Each biography or life history follows a standard format that includes vital statistics, genealogical information, names in Tlingit and English, and major achievements. But each is also unique. Like the lives they describe, all vary in length, detail, and style, depending on authorship and available human and archival resources. To the fullest extent possible oral and written material from the subjects and their families has been incorporated. Some is more anecdotal, some historical. The appendixes include previously unpublished historical documents and Tlingit texts with facing translations. The lives in this volume show how individual people both shaped and were shaped by their time and place in history.

Discover the stories of a remarkable 109-year-old Eskimo woman who grew up on the Bering Sea in northwest Alaska.

Children's picture book in Tlingit for use by Tlingit speakers and students in Tlingit language programs.

Explores the four core cultural values of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian of Southeast Alaska.This book is part of Baby Raven Reads, an award-winning Sealaska Heritage program for Alaska Native families with children up to age 5 that promotes language development and school readiness. Baby Raven Reads was awarded the Library of Congress's 2017 Literacy Awards Program Best Practice Honoree award.

Graphic novel retelling of the story of Strong Man, the Tlingit hero Dukt'ootl.

In the dark months of the Far North, a group of women decide to meet regularly and tell stories about the times and people of their youth. Each story delivers universal truths about family unity, respect, grief, and overcoming challenges.

An Athabascan Indian of Alaska's Yukon flats, author Velma Wallis retells a classic legend wherein two old women are abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine and must survive on their own or die trying. A wise and simple story now in paperback. Winner of a 1993 Western State Book Award.

A collection of Yupik stories, most credited to elders from Hooper Bay

This book is about the migrations of the Tlingit people interspersed with legends, stories from the Native perspective, how various tribes developed, branched, and acquired new names and identities. The period covered was hundreds of years.

History of the Northern Koyukon, Western Gwich'in, and Lower Tanana.

Juneau has not always been the capital of Alaska. In fact, Juneau has not always been Juneau. But the place nestled against the slopes of Mount Juneau and Mount Roberts, originally named Dzantik'i Heeni, has always been picturesque and welcoming. After a successful strike triggered nearby mining claims in the 1880s, a makeshift camp grew on the waterfront to serve the needs of adventurers and gold-seekers. As numbers increased, the settlement was called Rockville, then Harrisburg, and finally named after Joe Juneau, one of the prospectors who, guided and advised by Tlingit leader Kowee, had made the original strike. In spite of efforts to move the capital to a central location, Juneau has remained Alaska's capital since 1906 and continues to invite settlers, adventurers, and explorers to visit and appreciate its beautiful setting and rich history.

Stories recorded in Dinaakk'a, here transcribed and translated into English.

A Dena'ina Legacy is a fascinating collection of 147 bilingual Dena'ina-English writings by the self-taught writer and scholar, Peter Kalifornsky of Kenai, Alaska.

The life of Katherine Joseph, of Fort Yukon, is told in Gwich'in in the first half of the book, and then in English in a loose translation.

Essays with direct translations from Dena'ina to English, with accompanying audio CD.

Walter Johnson of Old Iliamna Village and Homer is an expert in the Iliamna dialect of the Dena'ina language. The fourteen texts in this collection are supplemented by an audio CD in which Walter narrates and comments on his stories, traditional legends, and personal remembrances. The text is in Dena'ina with English translations.

In Iñupiaq and English, "Maniilaq is the name of a man that is held in very high regard by the older Iñupiaq Eskimos of the Northwest Arctic...and to some of the elders in the area, he was an Eskimo prophet." [from p. vi of the text]

Traditional stories in Yup'ik and English.

Oscar Kawagley is a man of two worlds, walking the sometimes bewildering line between traditional Yupiaq culture and the Westernized Yupiaq life of today. In this study, Kawagley follows both memories of his Yupiaq grandmother, who raised him with the stories of the Bear Woman and respectful knowledge of the reciprocity of nature, and his own education in science as it is taught in Western schools. Kawagley is a man who hears the elders’ voices in Alaska, knows how to look for the weather and to use the land and its creatures with the most delicate care. In a call to unite the two parts of his own and modern Yupiaq history, Kawagley proposes a way of teaching that incorporates all ways of knowing available in Yupiaq and Western science. He has traveled a long journey, but it ends where it began, in a fishing camp in southwestern Alaska, a home for his heart and spirit.