Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People

This book is not one I would have chosen on my own, which makes me very grateful I belong to a book group. The author's style makes the reader feel as if they are sitting down beside him while he weaves the threads of his life together in true storyteller fashion. The abillity to see Alaska and his people through his eyes rather than my own feels like a treasure. This is a book I know I will go back to again and again over the years and will no doubt always find new things to love about it.

William L Iggiagruk Hensley has had an amazing life, and in this memoir he describes his childhood, teen years, and then the realizations that led to his activism and political work. This man led an amazing and fascinating life, and when this was published in 2009, he was an elder. The book is written in a very direct and linear way and is very easy to understand, with 2 sets of photos included. An adult book, but definitely YA friendly.
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As a child he and his sister were taken from their alcoholic mother in Nome by her cousin--who took them back to his parents in Kotzebue. They raised these two children--in addition to their own large family--as their own. In many ways this book is a paean to his great aunt and uncle. They show more raised all of their children in the traditional Inupiat ways--in Kotzebue for the winter, and out in the bush for the summer. They trapped, hunted, fished, and gathered to put away food for the long winter. They dried, smoked, and fermented everything. They ate traditional delicacies like whale skin and walrus. He had a wonderful childhood.

Hensley himself wanted to go to school, so he went. And he loved it, and went on to boarding school in Tennessee and then college. He served in the Alaska legislature, and worked in DC. He was instrumental in the Alaskan Native Claims, helped found NANA, and worked for an Inuit corporation. He helped found the Alaska Federation of Natives, and helped found/fun high schools in the far north so students no longer have to go to boarding school. Later in life, he came to the realization that as much as he loved school and education, a standard American education (let alone a boarding school education) has helped (intentionally) destroy native cultures, and he convinced the Inupiak to work to collect and share and educate the younger generations before the language and culture was lost. show less

Here's what I wrote about this read in 2018: "Alaskan native story. Living during times of tumulutous change in a subsistance environment. A historic story by a leader of changes that were needed for people to adapt and thrive." Quotations in the comments section are my exact (5) Kindle highlights.

Booklist 12/01/08
Publishers Weekly 10/27/08

Kirkus Review 10/15/08
School Library Journal 03/01/09

Library Journal 11/15/08
Wilson's Senior High School 06/01/10

New York Times 01/25/09