is a collection of stories about his unique experiences related to living in an Arctic Circle, Inupiat Eskimo population. Recalling the Rethinking Alaska post about the mosquitoes, Jans is a great story teller.
He described the beauty of the Brooks Range as a place where “distant peaks sometimes appear inverted above the horizon, where you could walk for hours toward a hill you’d guessed was a mile away, where the sun rises at all points of the compass and sometimes casts pale ghosts of itself…” (p. 9).
“Fire at us” yelled a former Jans student. Jans described the tragedy of a house burning down in such a remote place. “There is no fire department in Ambler, no truck; only a few coils of hose and a large chemical extinguisher. In an emergency, people must depend on their neighbors and themselves.” “Fill all the pots and pans you can find!” he yells and then races 300 yards with his load of water (p. 174).
He described the reality of change when looking down from a plane over the Red Dog Mine, “I recognized the place I’d hunted caribou years before, and then the hill where I’d broken down once [on the snow machine], and another where I’d seen a sow grizzly with three cubs. All three spots were in sight of the road [leading to the mine]. I looked over at Paul [the pilot], muttering to himself under the engine’s roar. It’s just a road, I told myself. The country’s still there. I turned my face to the window and neither of us said anything more” (p. 207).
The author offered an in-depth sense of what life was like living among the Eskimos in the Brooks mountain range. It’s probably the best book on life in Alaska that I’ve read yet.
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