Raising Ourselves / Edition 7

by Velma Wallis

Overview

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

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780972494472
Publisher:	Epicenter Press (WA)
Publication date:	09/01/2003
Edition description:	7th ed.
Pages:	218
Sales rank:	672,020
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.63(d)
Lexile:	980L (what's this?)
Age Range:	11 Years

About the Author

VELMA WALLIS and her husband, Jeffrey, who have lived offthe land intermittently for much of their lives by hunting, fishing, and trapping, divide their time between Fairbanks and FortYukon, Alaska. They have two children.

Table of Contents

	Fort Yukon Map	2
	Yukon Flats Map	154
	Acknowledgments	9
	Family Tree	10
	Preface	12
Chapter 1	Fort Yukon	15
Chapter 2	Itchoo	25
Chapter 3	Nina	35
Chapter 4	Pete	41
Chapter 5	Hannah	49
Chapter 6	Mae	59
Chapter 7	Siblings and Seasonal Friends	67
Chapter 8	Uptown and School	83
Chapter 9	Life in the Sixties	97
Chapter 10	Times of Change	115
Chapter 11	Turning Points	123
Chapter 12	Back and Forth	133
Chapter 13	Back Home	145
Chapter 14	Neegoogwandah	157
Chapter 15	Learning New Skills	167
Chapter 16	Struggles	175
Chapter 17	Going to Oregon	185
Chapter 18	Back to Fort Yukon	195
Chapter 19	Barry	201
	Epilogue	210
	Afterword	214

Editorial Reviews

"This book made me laugh, cry in anger, feel elated, and awakened in me again the sometimes sleeping, but always-fighting spirit to be myself as an Indian …the reading was an evening of pure joy."

--Long Standing Bear Chief, Blackfoot Nation

"Velma Wallis gets applause for good-hearted and courageous honesty in a good book that contributes to the understanding of a little-understood part of America."

--Cedar Rapids Gazette

"Velma tells a kick-ass story of growing up Gwich'in. If you want to know the truth about being Indian in a white-dominated world, read this book."

--Duncan Sings-Alone, Cherokee storyteller, author of Sprinting Backwards

From the Publisher