Once Upon an Eskimo Time

by Edna Wilder

The author of this book is from Bluff, Alaska. Her mother, locally known as Grandma Tucker (Eskimo name of Nedercook), was a native born in the 1850's in a small village community called Rocky Point, on the Bering Sea. Nedercook grew up in the village following the "old ways". She did not see a white person until she was an adult. They lived a subsistence lifestyle hunting, fishing and gathering berries, making all their clothing and necessities. In this book, the author relates a year of her mother's childhood, as it was told to her. It is a quiet story full of everyday home life, close observations of nature, gratitude for the land that supported them and family members who were close. Its tone reminds me a lot of A Child of the Northeast and of course it is also reminiscent of Julie of the Wolves (which was one of my first exposures to Inuit lifestyle). But each small native community so far north, had its own individual community and this story carefully details them: from codes of conduct and taboos children must follow, to festival dances, songs and superstitions. Many stories that were passed down verbally through generations are here in written form. Some of them puzzled me, they were so foreign and had no explanation. Others sounded delightful. I especially liked the tale of the woman who was carried away by an eagle husband. Most of the book is just about home life, but there are exciting moments too- such as when Nedercook was lowered over a cliff to gather bird eggs and nearly got stuck on a small ledge. She seemed quite young to be killing animals for food, but survival of the village depended on what all members could provide, so I guess it was normal for kids to be out hunting in that setting. The introduction states that this book is the first of a "long awaited saga on the life of Grandma Tucker" so I looked to see if other volumes followed: yes, The Eskimo Girl and the Englishman is a sequel which I'd now like to read some day.

Rating: 3/5               183 pages, 1987