Posted on by Andrea Badgley · 2 Comments

Andrea Reads America: Alaska

Andrea Reads America Alaska book map
Andrea Reads America: Alaska

I have to tell you, I was really excited when I realized my reading tour of the US would take me to Alaska in winter. I love cozying up with icy books when it is cold outside – I reread The Shipping News nearly every winter – and Alaska literature has not disappointed. I’ve gone back and forth between shivering, swearing “I’m reading a warm book after this!” and succumbing to the wild brutality of Alaskan winter, my thirst for its realness and its close-to-the-earthness unquenchable. Reading books populated with marten and wolverine, bear and fox, glaciers and tundra, I’m learning a new vocabulary: breakup (aka Spring, when the ice breaks up and avalanches downstream), ptarmigan (grouse), and babiche (rawhide strips used for cording, as in making snowshoes). I am scribbling descriptions of ice and snow and the piercing cold because the frosty words paint pictures of a place that is exotic, full of a wonder and wildness I will never experience here in Virginia.

While my Alabama reads dealt with social themes – racism, community, and doing the right thing – my Alaska reads contend with themes of wilderness, survival, legend, and the strong pull of the natural world. The landscape is as much a character in each book as the humans are, and I was pleased to find books set not only in isolation in the far north of Alaska and inland on a homestead, but also one set in more populated areas, on the raw coast. I’m a sucker for coasts.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey book cover on andreareadsamerica.comNovel: The Snow Child
Author: Eowyn Ivey, raised in Alaska
Setting: 1920s Alaska homestead
Categories: Literary fiction, Pulitzer Prize finalist

I didn’t think I liked magical realism, but it turns out I just hadn’t found the right book to pull me in, ground me in a reality, then sprinkle magic in a way that is wondrous and enchanting, and leaves you puzzling throughout – is it magic or is it real?  The Snow Child was this book for me.

Set in the wilderness of 1920s interior Alaska on the Wolverine River, The Snow Child is the story of a aging couple who have moved west from Pennsylvania to homestead in Alaska in an effort to escape the emptiness left by their stillborn child. A two hour horse ride to the nearest “town” and then a train ride away from Anchorage, Mabel and Jack become isolated even from each other, grieving while they labor separately to make workable land from wilderness. One night, they succumb to the magic of a snowfall, and in laughter and joy, they build a child from snow. The next morning, the snow figure is gone, and a wildling girl appears in the forest.

The Snow Child chronicles the growing affection between Faina (the wildling) and the elderly couple, who over the years grow to think of her as their own, though she comes and goes without notice, and though they live with opposing stories of her flesh-and-blood father who Jack buried and the idea that Faina is a snow maiden of their creation, as Mabel read about in a Russian Fairy Tale.  A tale that never ends well.

The magic in this book isn’t just the obvious fairy tale quality of it.  The magic is in the crystalline descriptions of Alaska in winter.  Author Eowyn Ivey may not be Eskimo, but I would argue she has a thousand words for snow.  Her descriptions are like snowflakes on the tongue – delicate, feathery crystals that sting in their loveliness:

“The December days had a certain luminosity and sparkle, like frost on bare branches, alight in the morning just before it melts.”

“Dawn broke silver over the snowdrifts and spruce trees.”

“The child was dusted in crystals of ice, as if she had just walked through a snowstorm or spent a brilliantly cold night outdoors.”

“The cranberries were tiny red rubies against the white snow.”

“Around the curve the valley opened up, and in the distance spires of blue ice glowed.”

This is a biting and beautiful book of love: love for neighbors, of husband and wife, for children, and love for the wild pull of the land, the forest, the snow, and the wilderness. It is one I will come back to when I want the magic of winter.

For more posts about The Snow Child, please see It was November, and I was afraid.

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis book cover on andreareadsamerica.comNovel: Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival
Author: Velma Wallis, Athabascan Indian, born 1960 in a remote village near Fort Yukon, AK
Setting: The tundra of northeastern Alaska
Categories: Native American literature

Two Old Women, a tale of Athabascan Indians written by Velma Wallis, a native Athabascan author, takes place north of the Arctic Circle in the interior of Alaska. It tells a tribal legend passed orally to Wallis by her mother, of two elders who were abandoned one lean and brutal winter by their tribe.

“That day the women went back in time to recall the skills and knowledge they had been taught from early childhood. They began by making snowshoes.”

At the time they were abandoned, the old women depended on the youth of the tribe to care for them. Because of this dependence, with The People on the brink of starvation, the Chief determined the women were holding the tribe back, threatening the survival of the many for the demands of the few, and he left them to die, old, crippled, and alone on the open tundra. The two women could barely walk, even with canes, when they were left behind, but the taste for survival was sharp in their mouths, and they gathered their strength and elder-wisdom to stay alive. They made snowshoes from babiche a grandson had left them, and used the shoes to trek to a safe winter-over spot; they caught rabbits in snares; they slept in snow pits they dug with gnarled hands and lined with spruce boughs for bedding.

What I love about this story, aside from a portrayal of the very real struggle for survival for indiginous people living without permanant shelter – nomads north of the Arctic Circle – was the focus it places on elders. The elders in our communities have seen much more than the youth have. They know more, they have lived more, they are wiser. It is easy for young ones, in their arrogance and vigor, to toss the old aside, thinking they are outdated, their knowledge obsolete, their presence a hindrance holding the young ones back rather than a source of wisdom that could propel them forward. Wisdom that could nourish and equip them for the unknown that lies ahead.

I imagine this story would be powerful as an audiobook, told with native Athabaskan inflection and in its traditional, oral story form.

The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley book cover on andreareadsamerica.comNovel: The Woman Who Married a Bear: An Alaskan Mystery
Author: John Straley, resident of Sitka, Alaska since 1977
Setting: contemporary Sitka, Alaska
Categories: Mystery, crime fiction

How can I resist a novel that leads with a haiku?

My head is a cup left out
on a stormy autumn night;
half full of water, and a spider.

The fact is, I can’t. Especially when the novel is a murder mystery set in October in the port town of Sitka, off the raw southeastern coast of Alaska. Unlike the previous Alaska books I read, which were set in isolation in the interior of the state, Staley’s novel portrays peopled coastal regions in Alaska: cities with pubs and coffee shops, police departments and wharfs. Eskimos and other natives populate scenes in diners, bars, and airplanes, always reminding the reader you’re in Alaska.

Since it’s a mystery novel, I won’t go too much into the plot, except that it involves a murder (duh), Tinglit Indian legend, and Cecil Young, an alcoholic private investigator with a penchant for poetic thought

“Her skin was as white as a sea anemone, and as soft as the pool of warm air you pass through while rowing across the bay.”

and a knack for nailing scenes

“As the bottle got lighter our gestures became wilder, our eyes widened and we imagined were were expanding into our own stories.”

“The landscape seemed to press in and make Juneau seem like a smaller, less sophisticated town than it really was.”

“The water boiled with little silvery fish dense on the surface like a trillion dollars in quarters spilling onto a sidewalk… There was a massive exploding breath and the damp smell of fish and tideflat… Whale. Humpback whale, feeding on herring.”

I read this as winter descended on Blacksburg, Virginia, and it was a perfect curl-up-on-the-couch cozy mystery read. The language in this book is beautiful, enough so that I was intrigued by a mystery writer who wrote so poetically, and I discovered that Straley has studied poetry and was the Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2006 to 2008.

The Woman Who Married a Bear is the first in a series of Cecil Young mysteries.

For further reading in Alaska

Books I’ve read and recommend:
Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner (For more on Ordinary Wolves, please see Favorite Quotes from Alaska Literature or click the title for my Goodreads review.)
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction)

Books that have been recommended to me but I have not yet read:
The Raven’s Gift by Don Reardon
Two in the Far North by Margaret E. and Olaus Johan Murie (nonfiction)
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
The Only Kayak by Kim Heacox (nonfiction)
Journey to a Dream by Mary Lovel (nonfiction)
My Name is Not Easy by Debbie Dahl Edwardson
Don’t Use a Chainsaw in the Kitchen by Rosalyn Stowell

In the summer of 2013, my parents packed up their RV and took the adventure of their lifetime: the two of them and their yellow lab, Blondie, drove from Georgia to Alaska and back again. Mom wrote and photographed their journey on her blog, Wandering Dawgs.

I am reading America: 3 books from each state in the US with the following authorships represented – women, men, and non-Caucasian writers. Follow along on Goodreads and here at andreareadsamerica.com.

The authors’ original words do their work more justice than any book review I write, and when grouped together, the quotes become atmospheric of the state they are set in. I hope you enjoy this addition of a “Favorite Quotes” series to my Andrea Reads America coverage.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey book cover on andreareadsamerica.comFrom The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

“All afternoon the clouds remained high and thin, the wind ripped dead leaves from the tree branches, and daylight guttered like a candle. Mabel thought of the terrible cold that would trap her alone in the cabin, and her breathing turned shallow and rapid.”

“November was here, and it frightened her because she knew what it brought – cold upon the valley like a coming death.”

“The December days had a certain luminosity and sparkle, like frost on bare branches, alight in the morning just before it melts.”

“Dawn broke silver over the snowdrifts and spruce trees.”

“Whenever the work stopped, the wilderness was there, older, fiercer, stronger than any man could ever hope to be.”

“The child was dusted in crystals of ice, as if she had just walked through a snowstorm or spent a brilliantly cold night outdoors.”

“A December grave was hard-earned in this place.”

“She seemed to him both powerful and delicate, like a wild thing that thrives in its place but withers when stolen away.”

“The cranberries were tiny red rubies against the white snow.”

“She inhaled the green scent of new leaves and studied the sharp line along the mountaintops where white snow met leafy forest.”

“In the evenings, when the snow-capped mountains went periwinkle in the twilight of the midnight sun, he would walk the fields alone… He would go down the perfect rows of lettuce and cabbage, their immense leaves green and lush. The earth was soft beneath his boots and smelled of humus.”

“The riverbed was blown clear of snow, and Garrett could see where the white blue ice had buckled and froze into great swells and dips.”

“Around the curve the valley opened up, and in the distance spires of blue ice glowed. It was the river’s source – a glacier cradled between white mountains.”

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis book cover on andreareadsamerica.comFrom Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis

“That day the women went back in time to recall the skills and knowledge they had been taught from early childhood. They began by making showshoes.”

“Freezing their lungs was another worry.”

“The women dug deep pits in the snow and filled them with spruce boughs [for bedding].”

“I realized the importance of being with a large group. The body needs food, but the mind needs people.”

“Now they realized that because the two women had lived so long, surely they knew a lot more than The People had believed.”

“The People showed their respect for the two women by listening to what they had to say.”

The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley book cover on andreareadsamerica.comFrom The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley

“I’ve tried other hangover cures besides haiku.”

“Her skin was as white as a sea anemone, and as soft as the pool of warm air you pass through while rowing across the bay.”

“As the bottle got lighter our gestures became wilder, our eyes widened and we imagined we were expanding into our own stories.”

“The landscape seemed to press in and make Juneau seem like a smaller, less sophisticated town than it really was.”

“If you live in southeastern Alaska and are used to being stared down at by the mountains with your back against the ocean, the country around Anchorage is a reprieve.”

“The water boiled with little silver fish dense on the surface like a trillion dollars in quarters spilling onto a sidewalk… There was a massive exploding breath and the damp smell of fish and tideflat… Whale. Humpback whale, feeding on herring.”

Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner book cover on andreareadsamerica.comFrom Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner

“The ice tasted like frozen breath and wet caribou hair.”

“The cold sky turned crystalline, dark blue glass, in reach and ready for one thrown snowball to bring it shattering down.”

“People along the Kuguruk River hated sport hunters and guides as much as they did schoolteachers. Frequently they were one and the same.”

“Down at the river it was minus a lot. My nose kept freezing shut on one side. The dogs… shook frost off their faces. They stood on three legs, melting one pad at a time while the other three quickly froze.”

“Beside his family I knew I looked like a diseased seagull among glossy ravens.”

“I can’t leave till I get white wolf. Tat one got face jus’ like moon. He look inside you.”

“We swept the floor and the cracks between the boards and behind the stove with a goose wing.”

“He cut the nectarine into quarters on the top rail. Where his knife cut it tasted like dirty penny and rancid seal-hide sheath.”

“Breakup was all the holidays combined into one… Grinding, three-foot-thick ice pans peeled back snowbanks and crushed dog stakes and willows and trees.”

“Mr. Standle, one of the new teachers, said any life I chose would need grammar, but he was a States person, and it sounded like they spent too much of their lives doing the paperwork, getting prepared to live.”

Posted on by Andrea Badgley · 3 Comments

It was November, and I was afraid

Teepee art shanty on frozen lake in Minnesota on andreareadsamerica.com
Teepee art shanty on frozen lake in Minnesota

“November was here, and it frightened her because she knew what it brought – cold upon the valley like a coming death, glacial wind through the cracks between the cabin logs.” – Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

When we left Florida on November 1, 2009 to make the drive north to Minnesota, our station wagon packed so full of belongings that we couldn’t see out the back windows, the grass was lush and green, butterflies flitted at the mouths of hibiscus blooms, and the air conditioner was running in my in-laws’ Sarasota home. When we arrived in St. Paul four days later, the world was brown and grey, and bony branches rattled in the cold breath that chilled the city. We wore hats, coats, and gloves when we stepped out of the car onto our new driveway.

Once we unpacked our moving Pods and got our home in order, I remember lying in bed one night next to my husband, listening to a wintry wind whistle through naked tree limbs and catch in corners under the eaves. I felt a panic come on, and I turned to my husband.

“I’m scared,” I told him.

“Of what?” he asked.

“Of winter.”

Having grown up in the mild state of Georgia, I did not know true winter. I did not know frozen earth and scoured limbs, months of barrenness, and shivering as soon as I turned the shower off day after day after day.  I knew live oaks dripping with Spanish moss – oaks that kept their leaves year round – and Christmases that sometimes allowed for a crackling fire, and sometimes required short sleeves and shorts.  I knew azaleas that bloomed in early March, not snow that lasted into June.

I was afraid of how I would handle the blanket of snow that would shroud the earth from November to May.  I felt suffocated by its eternal coverage. I was afraid of the bleakness, the lack of color. I was afraid of cabin fever, and the madness that the endless repetition of dressing and undressing might bring: 20 minutes of layering and wrapping and covering and zipping and mittening and booting to leave the house, and 20 minutes of shaking off snow and stomping out boots and unwrapping and uncovering and unzipping and unmittening when we came back in. Life was so much easier where it was warm. So quick to skip out the door, hop in the car, and go.

One morning, my husband crawled out of bed in the dark, dressed in his winter running clothes, and stepped out into the silent -10° blackness. I lay in bed under the down comforter, cozy and warm, until I started thinking about all the things that could happen to him out there.  The rest of the city still slept – he often did not see another soul on his pre-dawn runs – and I thought about the ice out there in the darkness, and the fact that if he slipped and fell and broke his leg, nobody would find him before the cold got him. And this is what gave me shivers despite our down comforter.

We lived in a place that could kill us.

Over time, I was surprised repeatedly by how Minnesotans embraced this deadly cold. Winter didn’t drive Minnesotans in, it drove them out. Our first winter we bought sleds, I bought snow shoes, my husband bought skis, all four of us bought ice skates, and no matter which equipment we chose each weekend, we’d see dozens of flushed cheeks, glittering eyes, and North Face logos on the backs of shoulders as other folks sledded, or snowshoed, skied, or ice skated too. Golf courses switched to cross country ski routes in winter, and local parks flooded plank-walled ovals for outdoor skating rinks. Some of them even had hockey goals.

On a brilliant sunny Saturday under a thin azure sky, we walked out onto a frozen lake to visit an art installation: Art Shanties.  Local artists erected and decorated ice fishing shacks, from a traditional fishing shelter complete with a hole cut in the ice to show its thickness to a Nordic Immersion shanty where we made lanterns out of snowballs. The activities included a bicycle race on the lake, and as we walked among the bundled entrants, a Ford F-150 drove by us on the ice. The thick, crystal skin popped and cracked under the weight of the truck, and fear took my breath away. But in Minnesota they know how thick the ice has to be for the weight of their vehicles – this is the type of knowledge that is useful in a place like Minnesota – and so we did not fall through to the icy blue depths below.

Art swap shanty, Minnesota, 2010
Ice fishing hole, Art Shanty, Minnesota, 2010
Swedish lanterns, Nordic Immersion Art Shanty, Minnesota, 2010
Walking on a frozen lake, Art Shanty exhibit, Minnesota, 2010

Another weekend we explored snow sculptures at the state fairgrounds, sculptures that included towering vikings, Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence, and a maze we entered at one opening and navigated through to the end. Another weekend we drove downtown at night to see ice sculptures of crystal dragons and diamond palaces glittering in the white lights strung through giant spruces in the park. We even witnessed lawn mower ice racing. And I can tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve watched the Minnesota Lawn Mower Race Association skid around tight turns on a frozen lake on lawn mowers.

After that first year, I didn’t fear winter anymore. We all survived it, and I grew to love the crystalline beauty of ice, the soft silence of snow. But being among people, and neighborhoods, and buildings, and festivals is a different thing altogether than being alone with your spouse in a handbuilt cabin on a homestead in Alaska where, “Whenever the work stopped, the wilderness was there, older, fiercer, stronger than any man could ever hope to be.”

I am both inspired and envious of Jack and Mabel’s story, and how over time, they too overcame their fears. Only they did it alone. Without neighborhoods and buildings and winter festivals. I was surprised that I grew to love the piercing beauty of winter in Minnesota, and reading The Snow Child makes me ache for the wilderness Eowyn Ivey writes. But if I’m to be honest, I am not made of as tough of stuff as Minnesotans or Alaska homesteaders. As much as I think I would love to brave an Alaska winter, to live in the wild beauty Ivey brings to life on her pages, I’m pretty sure I’m more content cuddling in our Appalachian home, blowing steam from my hot cocoa, safe on our snug sofa instead of scorching my eyes and lungs, isolated and alone in a landscape that could kill me.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey book cover on andreareadsamerica.comThe Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. “Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone–but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees…”(Goodreads blurb)

This was originally published November 28, 2013 on Andrea Badgley’s Butterfly Mind.