Our Voices

Storytelling is a precious, vibrant tradition among the Native peoples of the Far North. Collected here for the first time are stories from the communities of interior Alaska and the Yukon Territory. These are the tales the people tell about themselves, their communities, and the world they inhabit.

 

Our Voices showcases twenty storytellers and writers who represent a full range of Athabaskan and related languages of Alaska and the Yukon. Both men and women recount popular tales of ancient times that describe the origins of social institutions and cultural values, as well as meaningful, sometimes intimate stories about their own lives and families or the history of their people. As representatives of an art transmitted through countless generations and now practiced with renewed interest and vigor by people reclaiming their cultural heritage, these narratives create a broad, brightly colored, richly detailed picture of the world of the Far North, present and past.

James Ruppert is a professor of English and Alaska Native studies, and John W. Bernet is a professor emeritus of English, both at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Ruppert's books include Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction.