Raising Ourselves
Description
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.
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About the Author
Velma Wallis is one in a family of thirteen children, all born in the vast fur-trapping country of Fort Yukon, Alaska, and raised with traditional Athabascan values. A writer and avid reader, she lives in Fairbanks.
Reviews
"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
"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
