Alaska From the Inside Out- Memories of Suzanne Nuyen Henning

by Sally Maheiu

From a small town in West Michigan to the wild bush country of Alaska is a long way, but that’s where Suzanne Henning ended up. Armed with only a teaching degree from Western Michigan University, she set off with her new husband for Alaska. Starting in Sitka, where there were no teaching jobs available, she took whatever work she could find from hotel maid at the Sitka Hotel to a secretarial job at Sheldon Jackson College. She helped her husband, a surveyor for the Alaska Aviation Division, make ends meet. When she finally landed a teaching position in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, life began to change. She was teaching a first-grade class of Siberian Yupik children. The the kids didn’t speak English, and Henning didn’t speak Siberian Yupik. She taught their lessons with the help of two bilingual aides, Apiyeka and Sunqaanga. Both teacher and class reaped benefits from this teaching method and learned a lot from each other. This began a twenty-three-year odyssey of teaching in the Alaskan bush, and along the way, she picked up many skills that would help her deal with a new way of baking her own bread in an oil stove how to cook walrus liver, seal meat, and other tasty Eskimo treats the ins and outs of riding a three-wheeler (more difficult than it looks) having only one community phone to the outside and being at the mercy of the phone operator of the day Henning loved her students, and they returned that love. She became a well-respected Alaskan educator, earning not only the famous Milken Award but also the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.

239 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 10, 2016

Reviews

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good memoir of Suzanne Nuyen Henning's life in Alaska. She was a teacher and taught in some of the native peoples schools. She and her husband had many adventures in Alaska.

[Dana Tipken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This inspiring memoir is a must to read. I truly felt like I was experiencing Alaska with Suzanne. She and her husband experienced the unknown and looked at each new situation as a challenge. The way they lived, cooked, shopped for groceries, met new people, learned new languages, cultures, etc., is something that most people could not fathom or handle themselves. Instead of thinking negatively, both Suzanne and her husband looked at each challenge positively and took the bull by its horns. This is a book that I would recommend to anyone that wants to read an encouraging and inspirational memoir that shows the faith of two people venturing into the unknown.