Don Rearden - The Ravens GIft

Early praise for The Ravens Gift

Reardens fresh, new voice is a kaleidoscope of cultural collision and the astonishing landscape of the heart.

Ron Spatz, Editor, Alaska Quarterly Review

A many-layered Alaskan intrigue which is gritty and engaging and an absolutely good read all in a world, that Alaskan worldwhich I could believe.

Ron Carlson, author of The Speed of Light,

Five Skies, and News of the World

Don Reardens writing is captivating and new. This is a writer who has many books in him. I predict he will be widely read, well respected, and greatly admired.

Jo-Ann Mapson, author of bestselling novels

Bad Girl Creek, The Wilder Sisters, and Hank and Chloe

Take a remote Alaskan village, add a dedicated teacher, toss in a plague. The Ravens Gift is a page turner with a message: We Alaskans are lost if we cannot find our own way.

Bill Streever, author of Cold:

Adventures in the Worlds Frozen Places

In The Ravens Gift, Don Rearden has created a kind of allegory for a people and place at risk, a generous and honest portrait of Yupik communities. His Alaska is one you wont yet have seen.

David Vann, author of bestselling novels

Legend of a Suicide and A Mile Down

PENGUIN CANADA

THE RAVENS GIFT

DON REARDEN grew up on the tundra of Southwestern Alaska. He is a produced screenwriter, a published poet, and assistant professor of Developmental Studies at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where he shows young writers how to develop their creative voices. His experiences with the Yupik Eskimo culture shape his writing, and he considers the Alaskan wilderness a major influence in his work.

The

RAVENS

Gift

Don Rearden

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published 2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Copyright Don Rearden, 2011

The excerpt on page 1 is from Intellectual Culture of the Copper Eskimos by Knud Rasmussen, published by Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 1932.

The excerpts on pages 3, 115, and 201 are from The Eskimo About Bering Strait by Edward Nelson, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1899, 19 83.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Rearden, Don

The ravens gift / Don Rearden.

ISBN 978-0-14-317333-5

I. Title.

PS3618.E32R38 2011 813.6 C2010-905204-8

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

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For Dan and the Real People of the Kuskokwim River and of course for you, Annette

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have dreamt of the day I would write these words since ellangellemni, since I became aware that writing and stories would forever be a part of my life. And since this has been such a long dream in the making there are too many people to thank, and for that very fact I am so grateful.

Still, I must name a few important souls.

First I must thank the Yupik elders, tradition bearers, and families I have learned so much from, including the late George and Martha Keene, Dr. Oscar Kawagley, the Slims, Moseses, Ivans, Angstmans, Lincolns, Hoovers, Hoffmans, and Morgans (to name just a few).

Quyana to Mikngayaq Selena Malone for her photography skills and Yupik spelling assistance, and to Piunriq for always finding the right answers.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Yupik scholars and anthropologists Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade. Without their work and the work of so many others dedicated to recording the elders wisdom, too much would have already been lost.

To all those haunted by the initial drafts of this novel, I thank you for the advice, criticism, and optimism. Special thanks to Shane Castle, for the incredible insight and calling me dirty names on that first copy of the manuscript. To Ben Kuntz for the killer notes and for not letting me end the story a little past Haroldsens. To Helena for her unending optimism and enthusiasm. To Sarah for catching, so, many, comma, errors. To Shannon for coffee walks, Arctic whaling, and zany poetic distractions.

I have had some incredible teachers along the way. Id like to thank Ronald Spatz for pushing me and for teaching me to slow down. A heartfelt thanks goes to Sherry Simpson and Jo-Ann Mapson for always caring and always believing in my work.

Thanks to Jodi Picoult for the advice and for insisting I direct my writing efforts toward the novel.

Of course this manuscript would have died a quiet digital death in some file on my laptop if not for my amazing agents. So I offer a huge thanks to Adam Chromy for all his effort and expert advice and to Danny Baror for helping me catch a penguin and making this dream a reality.

And to Adrienne Kerr, my editor extraordinaire, writers dream of having an editor like you who understands and shares their vision. I cant thank you enough for your guidance and your faith in this story.

Thanks to Daniel Quinn for being my coach and for daring to save the world with Ishmael. With this story, I am doing my best to become B.

To my amazing family and to Annette, thank you for never doubting me.

Finally, quyana to the people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta for sharing with me the way of the human being.

PROLOGUE

Dont you hear the noise? It swishes like the beating of the wings of great birds in the air. It is the fear of naked people, it is the flight of naked people! The weather spirit is blowing the storm out, the weather spirit is driving the weeping snow away over the earth, and the helpless storm-child Dont you hear the weeping of the child in the howling wind?

BALEEN, COPPER ESKIMO SHAMAN, 1920s

PART I

The

Bones

of the

Mammoth

The bones of the mammoth are found on the coast country of the Bering Sea and the adjacent interior the creature is claimed to live underground, where it burrows from place to place, and when by accident one of them comes to the surface, so that even if the tip of its nose appears above the ground and breathes the air, it dies at once