Inupiaq Ethnohistory: Selected Essays by Ernest S. Burch, Jr.

It took more than a century for colonialism to reach Alaska after the first Europeans set foot in what would become the continental United States. The complex society of the Iñupiaq, settled at the very top of the world, remained unknown and undisturbed longer than many other Native tribes in America.  Ernest S. Burch Jr. dedicated most of his life and career to understanding this precolonial period and the lives of Northwest Alaska Natives. Iñupiaq Ethnohistory finally collects in one place Burch’s critical research in this area, bringing to light work that had once been buried in scholarly books or scattered across journals. It is a fascinating and accessible window into a now-vanished world.