Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son - Softcover

Ehrlander, Mary F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496236904 ISBN 13: 9781496236906

Verlag: University of Nebraska Press, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

2018 Alaskana Award from the Alaska Library Association
2018 Alaska Historical Society James H. Drucker Alaska Historian of the Year Award

Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son illuminates the life of the remarkable Irish-Athabascan man who was the first person to summit Mount Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. Born in 1893, Walter Harper was the youngest child of Jenny Albert and the legendary gold prospector Arthur Harper. His parents separated shortly after his birth, and his mother raised Walter in the Athabascan tradition, speaking her Koyukon-Athabascan language. When Walter was seventeen years old, Episcopal archdeacon Hudson Stuck hired the skilled and charismatic youth as his riverboat pilot and winter trail guide. During the following years, as the two traveled among Interior Alaska’s Episcopal missions, they developed a father-son-like bond and summited Denali together in 1913.

Walter’s strong Athabascan identity allowed him to remain grounded in his birth culture as his Western education expanded, and he became a leader and a bridge between Alaska Native peoples and Westerners in the Alaska territory. He planned to become a medical missionary in Interior Alaska, but his life was cut short at the age of twenty-five, in the Princess Sophia disaster of 1918 near Skagway, Alaska.

Harper exemplified resilience during an era when rapid socioeconomic and cultural change was wreaking havoc in Alaska Native villages. Today he stands equally as an exemplar of Athabascan manhood and healthy acculturation to Western lifeways whose life will resonate with today’s readers.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mary F. Ehrlander is a professor emeritus of history and Arctic and Northern studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She won the 2018 Alaska Historical Society James H. Drucker Alaska Historian of the Year Award. Ehrlander is the coauthor of Hospital and Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton and Clara Burke in Northern Alaska (Nebraska, 2023) and author of Equal Educational Opportunity: Brown’s Elusive Mandate.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Nebraska Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1496236904
• ISBN 13: 9781496236906
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 277
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar