Raising Ourselves

Velma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival: Haul water from the Yukon. Kill a moose. Chop firewood. Feed the sled dogs staked around the cabin. Run the trap line. Catch salmon. It is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun. The once-migratory family has settled at the confluence of two she is born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival: Haul water from the Yukon. Kill a moose. Chop firewood. Feed the sled dogs staked around the cabin. Run the trap line. Catch salmon. It is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun.