Dirt Under Our Fingernails Jaclyn Bergamino (bio) and Kori Hensell (bio) On Women Writing in Alaska by Women Writing in Alaska In the spring of 2016, two women in the MFA program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks sat down to discuss the culture of working and writing in Alaska—more specifically, the phenomenal Alaskan women changing the literary landscape. JB: Last summer, my partner Kris and I sat by the fire outside our cabin on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The sun, while it didn’t set, was dipping into the golden hour, which would last throughout that June night. We sat admiring the way that Mount Iliamna, just barely visible, glowed in that light. There was a crash in the brush behind us and for the first time, I was face-to-face with a moose. Not just one—three. A mother and two newborns. At first, I was in awe, excited and captivated by the sight. I was about eye-level with the babies. I could nearly have walked under the cow without ducking. The calves moved to nurse, but the mother saw us and stepped forward. My partner, a lifelong Alaskan stood up, moved between me and the moose. Her ears bowed backwards at us. “Move slowly behind the truck,” Kris said. I stepped as slowly as I could but within seconds I was inside the cabin, crying. I could not deal with how small I am, how fragile. KH: I’ve always felt inconsequential when it came to my place in the natural world, mainly because I was never really in it. I had no idea what I was signing up for when I made the decision to move the 4,087 miles from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Fairbanks, Alaska. I was one of those kids who read White Fang and from Jack London’s depiction of the arctic, all ideologies about the “wilderness” were [End Page 9] born. For some background, I am not an outside person. I am a person who doesn’t even goes outside to walk to the mailbox. I enjoy the comforts of air conditioning and heat, a good Wi-Fi connection, plumbing, and cable TV. My hands do not know real labor; they are soft. I am soft and afraid of the woods. It is under these conditions that I have lived my almost thirty years. That said, Alaska and all its challenges is making something new of me. I think it remakes everyone who survives a true winter here. By “winter,” I do not simply mean snow and cold. Here, winter means something different to us; it is a psychological obstacle course that must be maneuvered in the heart, and in so doing, we become rougher, kinder creatures. Alaska experiences between 21 and 24 hours of darkness come December, and it changes us. JB: Alaska is home to a rich literary community these days. There is so much to write about, so much work to be done countering the reality TV narrative of Alaska as a harsh man’s frontier. Writers such as Peggy Shumaker, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, and Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock have begun exploring what it means to be a woman in the largest, least populated state. As relative newcomers to the state, we can look to these women to help us understand the ways that the landscape is shaping us. Just this year alone, Rosemary McGuire, Linda Martin, and Eva Saulitis have examined these themes in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction respectively, giving us insight into the physicality of working, living, and dying in the Great White North. Rosemary McGuire. The Creatures at the Absolute Bottom of the Sea. University of Alaska Press, 2015. Rosemary McGuire’s recent short fiction collection, The Creatures at the Absolute Bottom of the Sea, builds on her experience as a commercial fisherman and her deep knowledge of Alaskan waters. This basis allows her to defy the idealization of the boreal wilderness and to give a clear, deep look at the ways in which Alaskans interact with the environment and each other. In her opening story “The Lost Boys Longline Co,” McGuire brings to light the connections between work, the body, and the...
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Aug 22, 2024
Matthew Coleman + 1
Open Access
