Praise for
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The fight to save the calving grounds of the caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the great environmental issues of our time. It is also a fight to save the Gwich’in – the northernmost Indians in North America – who depend on the caribou to sustain their way of life, which has existed since time immemorial. Mike Holloway’s book based on his experiences with an elderly Gwich’in couple illuminates the Gwich’in way of life and provides the reader with an understanding on why both the caribou and the Gwich’in need to be saved. John E. Echohawk Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund The next best thing to hunting bear (among other animals) at 55 degrees below zero above the Arctic circle with an elderly Alaskan Gwich'in named Johnny Frank may be to read about it, and much more, in J. Michael Holloway's captivating Dreaming Bears. In ways a coming of age journey, Dreaming Bears is even more an unfolding love letter from a non-Native doctor to Johnny and Sarah Frank, their extended Gwich'in family, and to their talents for survival, not to mention generosity. Johnny is the lodestar, a man who mixes Biblical and Gwich'in stories between an obligation to wrest any and every kind meat from the snow and tundra, and to find patience in existence.
Alison Owings Author of Native Voices, Listening to Native Americans |