In the summer of 1978, seven teenagers and several staff members from the Fairbanks Native Association-Johnson O'Malley program set out to record some of Alaska's past by interviewing a number of older Alaska Natives and writing their biographical sketches. Some of the students spent a week along the Yukon River taping and photographing people; others travelled to Homer for the same purpose. This book is the result of that project. The sketches about nine native Alaskans present a picture of life as it was in the early years of this century. Oliver Amouak tells of the sled the caribou hunters used to transport meat; it was made from a curved tree trunk with the jawbones of the bowhead whale serving as sled runners. Kitty Harwood tells how she helped her mother during the fish runs by pulling her boat upstream to the family fish wheels. Lilly Pitka tells of the 1949 flood in Ft. Yukon when she sat on a neighbor's roof and watched her home float away. Some of the tales describe seal hunting, fishing, mining and trapping; others tell of coming of age ceremonies, of superstitions associated with that time, and of celebrations like the blanket toss and potlatches. Some folk medicines are mentioned, including stinkweed as a cure for stomach cancer. Concluding that although the times were hard, they were good, some of the old people regret the loss of the old ways, of respect for older people, and of the quiet times of the days gone by. (DS)