Nesting on the Nushagak

‘Caribou!’ Our skiff rounded the next bend of the Nushagak. Hundreds of caribou were jumping into the river ahead of us and swimming powerfully across to the other side. ‘A migration!’ Our boat powered into the middle, splitting the herd. Reaching the water’s edge, they bounded with huge leaps from the water, breaking up as they tried to get away.

Having recently married the man she met online, Emma Stevens, a Kiwi, follows her American husband, Gary, to a teaching post in a remote Yup’ik Eskimo village in southwestern Alaska. In this harsh climate she joins the local people in their subsistence way of life, gathering and storing food during the extended summer daylight hours in preparation for the grim realities of the bitter cold, semi-darkness and isolation of the long Alaskan winters. Inspired by renowned New Zealand educator, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, and using valuable knowledge from the Yup’ik elders, Emma creatively establishes connections between learning and local culture, drawing her first grade children out of their instilled mode of silence ‘not to scare the game away’. Written with humour in the face of unexpected and at times life-threatening situations, Nesting on the Nushagak, the sequel memoir to the popular Walking on Ice, transports the reader deep into the heart of the Alaskan wilderness and the people who live there.