Black Ducks and Salmon Bellies: An Ethnography of Old Harbor and Ouzinkie, Alaska

by Craig Mishler

Black Ducks and Salmon Bellies presents a comprehensive look at two Kodiak archipelago villages with a rich cultural history that extends from prehistory to Russian America to the present day. Author Craig Mishler spent over ten years visiting these rural Native Alaskan communities in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, illuminating such diverse topics as local history, demography, political organization, kinship, and expressive culture. Documenting the changes in these two communities over recent years, Black Ducks and Salmon Bellies paints a portrait of economic development amid a distinctive, vital way of life, as interviews with elders allow readers to hear a multiplicity of voices and identities when the Alutiiq people tell their own fascinating stories.

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2003