Neerihiinjìk / We Traveled from Place to Place Edited by Craig Mishler with Kenneth Drizhuu Frank & Crystal Frank Welker

Johnny and Sarah Frank’s lives were steeped in the old ways of survival in the upland boreal forest of northeastern Alaska. Constantly on the move in search of game and other wild resources, sharing the harvest with others around them, and passing on their skills and cultural values through a rich tradition of oral literature, the Franks are vivid examples of how the Gwich’in people survived as a nation. Neerihiinjìk: We Traveled From Place To Place (Alaska Native Language Center, 2026) is a narrative of Johnny and Sarah’s life together. Both lived well into their nineties, and, through their abundant social warmth and manifest intelligence, they had an extraordinary influence on the lives of people around them.

The stories told by Johnny and Sarah in their native language are presented here with English translations on facing pages. The finished texts were transcribed from more than thirty-five hours of tape recordings. Johnny’s tales are focused on the days of long ago, the adventures of Indian warriors, and the feats and songs of powerful medicine men. Sarah, on the other hand, shapes her stories around her own daily life and her useful knowledge of the environment and its resources. Together, they present a balanced view of the Gwich’in world – the masculine and the feminine, the spiritual as well as the practical.

Craig Mishler has been doing ethnographic field work in rural Alaska since 1972. He taught at Anchorage Community College, and was a research professor at the Alaska Native Language Center, University or Alaska, Fairbanks. He also worked as an historian with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and as a subsistence resource specialist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence. Craig is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books, including Crooked on the Stretcher Board: Collected Essays on Gwich’in History, Language, and Folk Culture.

Kenneth Drizhuu Frank is an elder, storyteller, singer, drum maker, translator, author, and teacher. He’s also a fluent speaker of the Gwich’in language and the grandson of Johnny and Sarah Frank. A former long-time village resident of Venetie and Arctic Village, he now lives with his wife Caroline in North Pole, Alaska. In 2014 Kenneth was a recipient of the Oscar Kawagley Indigenous Scholar Award at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Crystal Frank Welker, the oldest daughter of Kenneth Drizhuu Frank, is one of the youngest speakers of the Gwich’in language in Alaska. She’s currently a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lives with her husband in Arctic Village where she was raised.