Arts and Entertainment

Books: Finding refuge, companionship with Gwich'in elders

Dreaming Bears: A Gwich’in Indian Storyteller, a Southern Doctor, a Wild Corner of Alaska

By J. Michael Holloway (Epicenter Press, 208 pages, 2014, $17.95)

Like many Alaskans, J. Michael Holloway didn't arrive here intending to stay. A young medical student in South Carolina, he, along with a friend and his younger brother Ted, traveled north in 1961 for what was intended to be a lone summer of adventure. What happened when they got here was one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions that can change a life forever.

In "Dreaming Bears," Holloway tells of his meeting with Gwich'in elders Johnny and Sarah Frank, the many years he spent in a close relationship with people he came to view as grandparents and the course his own life took as a result. It is also the story of the Franks themselves, particularly Johnny, a spry octogenarian when Holloway met him, who was filled with stories, skills and a generosity of spirit that drew the young man toward him.

Holloway and his companions met the Franks due to a couple of chance encounters. The first occurred in Circle, where they had the opportunity to charter a flight to Venetie, while the second happened in that Native village when Chief Abraham Christian advised that the young men travel to a place called Gold Camp to meet the couple.

The trio jumped at the opportunity and were soon trekking overland to the Franks' homestead. There they were warmly greeted and wound up spending the summer learning the couple's subsistence lifestyle and assisting them in their daily chores. They also reveled in Johnny's exhaustive stories about his life and the greater Gwich'in cosmology. Although a convert to Christianity, he had been a medicine man and still maintained a very close connection to the land he had spent his life on.

The lure of the north

The summer affected all three men deeply, but none so much as Holloway, who found himself uncomfortable when he returned to his previous life in the South. It's a feeling many Alaskans can relate to. Having spent time on the land and far from the rush of American life, returning whence they came is rendered impossible, and efforts at getting back to the north overwhelm all else.

For Holloway, it wasn't quite that simple. He returned to Alaska the following summer, again with Ted, as well as another friend. More weeks were spent with the Franks and the bond grew tighter. There was still medical school to finish, however, and after that he joined the Peace Corps.

ADVERTISEMENT

Two years in Latin America resulted in a wife, but Alaska never left his mind. In 1967, he accepted a residency with the Indian Health Service in a hospital near Dillingham. This gave him the chance to visit the Franks yet again, and to introduce them to his son, to whom they would become godparents.

There would be further residencies elsewhere, and Holloway wouldn't return to Alaska for good until 1973, when he took a job as an orthopedist at the Alaska Native Health Center in Anchorage. From this point onward, his trips to Gold Camp would increase, often during the frigid Arctic winters.

Along with his own story, what Holloway presents in this book is a close look at a way of living that even when first encountered was rapidly slipping away.

'The land, the land!'

The Franks had been born at a time when white people were scarce in Interior Alaska and most Western technologies unknown. In the stories that Johnny Frank told Holloway, and he in turn retells here, readers will hear about times when food was scarce and the people of the Arctic were on the verge of starvation. They'll learn about the ravages of tuberculosis, influenza and other diseases that were introduced with the arrival of white settlers and that ravaged Native populations. They'll also learn of how the Gwich'in lived off the land, of hunting, trapping and log home building.

Every time Holloway went north, he partook in the hard work of daily existence that kept the Franks busy until nearly their final days. He explains the tasks well, recounting both the rewards and frustrations of such labor. Peppered throughout the book, meanwhile, are the folk tales of the Gwich'in, which Johnny Frank would share at random and often without prompting. The stories, like the work, were both a routine and an essential part of his existence.

As Holloway weaves back and forth between his time with the Franks and his professional life in the city, it becomes easy to see how he found refuge with the couple. The contrast is stark, but by living in both worlds he was able to help the Franks and Gwich'in in ways that someone who only dwelled in one never could have done.

As the 1970s progressed, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the subsequent Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act worked their way through Congress. Holloway became a lobbyist working on behalf of Alaska environmental groups and Gwich'in interests. He played a key role in conveying to Outside environmental groups the importance of whaling to the Inuit. He was pivotal in stopping proposed oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to protect the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd that is so vital to Gwich'in subsistence. There is good history in his firsthand account of this period.

Mostly, this book is Johnny Frank's, however. Holloway recorded him and his voice and speech cadences are lovingly transcribed. "This is my homestead," Frank once told a government agent. "Money is your god! If you get foxy (smart like a fox), you don't need money. Just caribou, moose and rabbit ... Me, I'm stakeholder in Alaska. Every Eskimo or Indian is stakeholder in Alaska. Lose money quick. The land, the land! We need it!"

David A. James is a Fairbanks-based writer and critic.

David James

David A. James is a Fairbanks-based freelance writer, and editor of the Alaska literary collection “Writing on the Edge.” He can be reached at nobugsinak@gmail.com.

ADVERTISEMENT