Alaska’s Daughter: An Eskimo Memoir of the Early Twentieth Century

Description

Elizabeth B.
Pinson shares with us her memories of Alaska’s emergence into a new and modern era| bearing witness to history in the early twentieth century as she recalls it.
She draws us into her world as a young girl of mixed ethnicity| with a mother whose Eskimo family had resided on the Seward Peninsula for generations and a father of German heritage.
Growing up in and near the tiny village of Teller on the Bering Strait| Elizabeth at the age of six| despite a harrowing| long midwinter sled ride to rescue her| lost both her legs to frostbite when her grandparents| with whom she was spending the winter in their traditional Eskimo home| died in the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Fitted with artificial legs financed by an eastern benefactor| Elizabeth kept journals of her struggles| triumphs| and adventures| recording her impressions of the changing world around her and experiences with the motley characters she met.
These included Roald Amundsen| whose dirigible landed in Teller after crossing the Arctic Circle; the ill-fated 1921 British colonists of Wrangel Island in the Arctic; trading ship captains and crews; prospectors; doomed aviators; and native reindeer herders.
Elizabeth moved on to boarding school| marriage| and the state of Washington| where she compiled her records into this memoir and where she lived until her death in 2006.