Book review: In ‘Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof,’ accounts of Alaska Native heritage and triumph along the Iditarod Trail

“Ten Ft Tall and Bulletproof, Alaska Natives: Blazing the Iditarod Path”

By Judy Ferguson and the Yukon-Koyukuk College District; Epicenter Press, 2020,2022; 240 pages, $19.95

As of late the Iditarod is not only Alaska’s signature sled canine race. It’s a extremely aggressive skilled sporting occasion that attracts entrants and followers from everywhere in the world. When the primary Iditarod was run in 1973, nevertheless, it was a minimally-funded, barely-organized scramble throughout the roadless expanse of Alaska, using the normal technique of winter journey over lands that had been residence to Alaska Natives for tens of hundreds of years. Contestants needed to depend on themselves, one another, and the residents of the tiny, predominantly Native communities alongside the route. It’s not shocking, due to this fact, that in its early years, the race was dominated by Athabascan mushers who knew that land and how one can traverse it higher than anybody else.

Whereas organizers of the race nonetheless reference its Native roots, this facet of the Iditarod has been largely misplaced on the general public. In an effort at compensating for this oversight, in addition to to encourage younger Alaska Natives to embrace their heritage, Judy Ferguson, Alaska’s most outstanding oral historian, has teamed with the Yukon-Koyukuk College District to provide a quantity of tales from 13 Athabascan women and men who’ve accomplished at the least one Iditarod. The result’s a e-book that mixes private histories with tales from the race that may maintain readers on the perimeters of their seats.

“Ten Ft Tall and Bulletproof, Alaska Natives: Blazing the Iditarod Path” — the title originates in a quote from Yukon-Koyukuk College Board member Fred Bifelt — is shorter than a few of Ferguson’s earlier works, however follows what has grow to be a well-known format for her. Apart from a quick introduction and no matter background info is essential to understanding the context of every story, Ferguson acts as editor quite than creator. The accounts listed here are advised within the voices of those that shared their tales. It’s an method that results in extremely readable narratives that really feel like the private conversations they started as, quite than the composed summaries of a reporter working from notes. Readers come away feeling like they’ve met the people whose tales she brings us.

Most of the 13 contributors gathered on this assortment had been early entrants within the Iditarod, and their tales are of a really totally different race from at the moment’s high-tech occasion. Within the Seventies, when the race was nonetheless a brand new thought, the boundaries to admission had been low. Notably the entry price, which at the moment is all however prohibitive for anybody missing important sponsorships. This made it comparatively simple for village residents to construct sleds, assemble groups, and present up on the beginning line. The race itself was extra of a tenting journey than a contest, and lots of the entrants knew one another from their every day lives in rural Alaska. Earlier than the worldwide media took curiosity and large cash began flooding in, it was a uniquely Alaskan occasion with a small-town really feel, and this was in no small half as a result of Native heritage that it integrated.

This heritage is what Ferguson zeroes in on. Whereas the adventures that every of the contributors had on the path are the hook that may draw readers in, how they open up about their very own lives and the lives of their dad and mom and grandparents is the place the actual worth of this e-book lies. Most of the narratives start with prolonged household histories that situate the tales being advised within the historic context of Athabascans discovering themselves newly ruled by a overseas tradition that had moved into lands they’d lived on for millennia. We find out how they made their method by means of this upheaval.

Nowhere is that this seen extra vividly than within the story advised by Rose Albert. The primary Alaska Native lady to each enter and end the race, Albert tells of her dad and mom’ divergent methods of coming to phrases with American tradition. She triumphed on the path, and hers is maybe the most effective of a number of thrilling race tales. However she subsequently confronted tragedies and critical challenges in her private life earlier than discovering solace in artwork and religion. That is the place we uncover her true power.

Jerry Riley, the 1976 champion, begins his story in 1910 together with his dad and mom, then tells of his adolescence dwelling hand-to-mouth within the villages of Alaska, overcoming hardships that cast his character and gave him the dedication to win. His tales from the path additionally sparkle with pleasure.

The opposite accounts share this mix of household background, private struggles, and action-packed race recollections. The result’s a e-book that expands our understanding of twentieth century Athabascan historical past, whereas offering contemporary perception into the early Iditarod. “There have been numerous Natives,” Ken Chase recollects from these days. “It was a great time of joking, sharing, tenting, and having numerous enjoyable.”

A phrase on Judy Ferguson. I’ve lengthy admired her work and have been notably vocal about her efforts on behalf of Alaska Natives, now unfold throughout three books. She has collected and transcribed a whole lot of their tales, incomes the belief of her topics by together with them in each step of the method from her preliminary interviews to the ultimate enhancing, guaranteeing that their tales are advised of their phrases, as they need them to be heard. Then Ferguson has introduced these tales to the printed web page, typically at her personal expense — this e-book, printed by Epicenter Press, is an overdue acknowledgment from a writer of the significance of her work.

Ferguson won’t ever come near financially recouping all that she has invested in her quite a few books, whereby Alaskans from all walks of life are capable of share their tales with the world. Lengthy in spite of everything of us are gone, nevertheless, historians can be consulting her collected works to higher perceive how Alaska’s historical past was skilled by those that lived by means of consequential occasions. This can be a priceless present. I can’t consider one other individual in Alaska who has devoted a lot time and vitality to such an effort. We’re tremendously lucky to have her.