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Ghosts of the Tundra: Revisiting Mother's Alaskan Childhood Home

The harsh tundra holds old family secrets steeped in loss and traditions for a mixed-race Native Alaskan who grew up in the city

By Jennine Janet Stebing, Pacific News Service

UNALAKLETT, Alaska - Feb 17, 2005 - I visit the small village of my people to find out what makes the likes of my mother have such tough skin. I return to Unalakleet, Alaska, uncertain of what lies ahead.

My sisters, my mother and I pile into my grandma's old jeep, with seats covered in dog hair. We ride bouncing over the dirt road. The smell of dried fish hangs in the air and the whines of the husky mutts fill my ears.

My grandma's house has chipped red paint, a fish house out front and her four-wheeler next to the gas tank. Her little garden is in the back yard. It can only produce small radishes because the land is too brittle and hard for vegetables to grow. She prides herself on having one of the nicer houses in the village.

With a population of about 1,000, whites are the minority in Unalakleet. The majority are the Inupiaq Native Alaskans. Rolling hills surround the village. In the summer there is berry-picking, fishing, four-wheeling, boating and playing until twilight. There are no trees, but the daylight is strong in those short three months. Very few leave their homes during the cold winter. Those who do, hunt and fish for food. The only food available in the village is herring, salmon strips, trout, reindeer, whale, seal oil and pre-packaged goods from the two grocery stores.

There is always a lot of meat. "Eat," everyone says. "Eat more." The vegetables and fruit in the store are droopy and brown. They are at least two weeks old.

Pain suffocates the air, but the people manage to breathe. Children are tormented as children and adults are tormented from their childhood. It does not help that the village is by itself, away from the rest of the world, in a peninsula surrounded by the sea. The lands around it remain barren. All that survives is tundra.

My people have lived in the same unchanging permafrost tundra for thousands of years. Their bodies are buried in the land. The tundra recycles itself from one generation to the next. My grandmother was born and raised in the village. She was married before she turned 19, and had 11 children. She matured as the presence of the white man grew. Children were bred to work and if they did not, they were punished with the belt.

When booze came to the village, there was no way stop it. It spread like cancer. It has almost ruined my family and me. My aunt lives alone in California, unable to return to the village. Every night she goes to the liquor store and then drinks by herself.

The bottles at my aunt's house in Unalakleet are all gone. The two-bedroom house has not been repainted for years. My cousin's baby sister runs through the house screaming and crying. I do not know why. Words fill the minds of children. They are told not to succeed, to stay in the village. So many secrets are kept that I cannot decipher them. I just listen to what I am told.

Next to my grandma's home stands the bluish gray house my mother grew up in. People tell me the old house is full of demons and that strange things occurred there. Passing by it makes my heart beat fast. I dare not to look into the windows. Perhaps it will never fall for it holds many secrets of the past.

Cigarette butts litter the dirt roads throughout the village. The tiny Covenant Church at the edge of the village, near the river, is filled with beautiful chants in the high voices of the old Inupiaq women who mourn the dead.

They chant for my uncle who was killed in a fire in a drunken stupor, my grandpa, the village magistrate, and other relatives who haunt the village. Their spirits are always felt. My grandma knows my grandpa visits her. Only a few months after his death she felt his presence near her bed.

Everyone's past relatives are connected; we are all one, bound by the same blood of eight and nine generations between the prominent four families. The women chant for the loss of innocence of the children like my cousins and me, who drank with my aunt and mother.

They call me "city girl" meaning I am not Native enough for them because I have grown up in the city and I am of mixed race. My accent changes when I enter the village and I try to fit in. As I linger though the aisles in the Native store, the old man at the register stares at me as if I am some exotic foreigner from across the world. Inside I recoil and hide.

Every time I go there I tell myself that I will never go back to the unchanging place that my mother left years ago. I follow my mother back, but I will never understand what she has been through. All I can do is try.

PNS contributor Jennine Janet Stebing, 20, originally wrote this piece for SNAG magazine (www.snagmagazine.com), which is written and illustrated by Native American youth.