Our Nelson Island Stories

In this volume Nelson Island elders describe hundreds of traditionally important places in the landscape, from camp and village sites to tiny sloughs and deep ocean channels, contextualizing them through stories of how people interacted with them in the past and continue to know them today. The stories both provide a rich, descriptive historical record and detail the ways in which land use has changed over time.

Nelson Islanders maintained a strongly Yup'ik worldview and subsistence lifestyle through the 1940s, living in small settlements and moving with the seasonal cycle of plant and animal abundances. The last sixty years have brought dramatic changes, including the concentration of people into five permanent, year-round villages. The elders have mapped significant places to help perpetuate an active relationship between the land and the people, who, despite the immobility of their villages, continue to rely on the fluctuating bounty of the Bering Sea coastal environment.

Alice Rearden is the primary translator for the Calista Elders Council. She translated Paitarkiutenka / My Legacy to You by Misaq / Frank Andrew, Sr., among other bilingual works. Ann Fienup-Riordan is the author of many books on the Native peoples of Alaska, including Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies.