Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River (Alaska Book Adventures (Epicenter Press))

Velma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival: Haul water from the Yukon. Kill a moose. Chop firewood. Feed the sled dogs staked around the cabin. Run the trap line. Catch salmon. It is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun.

The once-migratory family has settled at the confluence of two rivers, surrendering much of their language, culture, and religion to white teachers, traders, and missionaries. A knot of silent pain remains from flu epidemics that claimed many loved ones. There is much drinking when the monthly government checks arrive. That is when the pain comes out of hiding.

When Velma Wallis is twelve, her father dies. She and her siblings fend for themselves as their mother descends into depression and alcoholism. Velma follows her own path, a journey of persistence, recovery, reconciliation, and ultimately of finding her own strength.