Moments Rightly Placed: An Aleutian Memoir (Alaska Book Adventures (Epicenter Press))
Starkly rugged volcanic silhouettes, rusted and ghostly remains of wartime outposts, a decaying Orthodox church, arctic flowers in a muddy bog, the blinding light off a bay--these are the views and visions of the Aleutian Islands presented by Hudson, a teacher who lived there from 1964 to 1992. The grasses that Hudson gathers, dries and turns into baskets are the metaphorical threads of his narrative. Weaving a basket is a slow process, one that allows Hudson to gracefully combine the nature and culture of the Aleutian islands and the voices of Aleut people, such as his teachers, weavers Anfesia Shapsnikoff and Sophie Pletnikoff. While Hudson lived in the Aleutians for a quarter of a century, this book concentrates on the first 10 years, during which Unalaska first changed from a small, largely Aleut village to a town of immigrants employed by fisheries. Hudson has preserved the voices of the Aleut people, their real accomplishments and tall tales; public history and private lives; the fights won and lost; the survivors and the dead. Hudson provides plenty of the history of a region exploited variously by Russians and Americans since the 18th century, but mostly he has created a collection of illuminations: gentle, flowing, full of knowing detail. Hudson's love for this determined and traditional people coping with various conflicts of transition has shaped a deeply moving testimonial, a public gift to a people he very clearly adores.Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.