Remembering the Reindeer Queen

Abstract

She had been one of the most powerful women in the Arctic and news of her death traveled quickly. A group of men volunteered to hand-hew her coffin. They placed it on a sled and pulled it to a small cemetery. As the Eskimos gathered to pay their respects, the coffin was lowered into a grave cut in the ice. Throughout Alaska in 1949, newspapers carried the story that the Reindeer Queen had died. She had affected the lives of many people during her long life, but perhaps none more than her granddaughter. Esther Agibinik has saved, underneath some moose hides in her sewing pack, an old photograph. It is a picture of a woman with almond-shaped eyes, raven hair, and a chin ornamented by black tattoos. want to remember her the way she looked in the old days. She was beautiful. When I was a girl, I'd sit with her and brush her hair and listen to her stories, says Agibinik, looking at the weathered photograph. Agibinik's grandmother was Mary Antisarlook. She became known by many different names; her most common was Sinruk Mary. We used to call her Queen Mary in those early days, recalled an Eskimo herdsman. He lived near the mouth of the Yukon River and did business with her. She's a famous lady, he added. But her fame rests with those who remember her, and there are few still alive.