To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

The only living creature spotted so far this side of the mountains is a raven that passed overhead

Adornment suggest the garment was owned by a man of high status. Atypically opened down the front as in the style of a European jacket.

Damage: bullet hole left upper torso, staining front and back.

No!

Her letter leaves me to wonder, for whom do I write these pages?

The day I received it, I crumpled her letter, threw it to the flames of the campfire. I regret it now. Have I misunderstood her words? If I could read it again, would I find something to soothe my anger?

Pruitt shows signs of advanced scurvy. It was brought to my attention when he spat out one of his teeth during our evening meal. Upon further inquiry, I discovered that his legs & torso are covered with large blackish lesions. I have no doubt as to the cause. In addition to scarce & poor-quality food, we have worn the same clothes since March 20 & suffered extreme exposure.

Native children were abused for many years by missionaries and teachers at territorial government schools. How do those effects trickle down through generations? How do we help families get out of patterns of alcoholism and addiction and domestic violence? These are real problems. But when we use terms like subjugation and loss and the desire to “preserve culture,” it devalues and limits people in a way that I don’t think is accurate.

Another example: I have a group of friends who formed a band and they use traditional Wolverine River language, music, and dance but interweave them with modern sounds and influences. They performed at the birthday party of one of our elders, who was turning 100, but even though they meant it to honor her, she was upset by it. She is devoted to her church and was raised to believe the old ways are backward and evil.

It’s humanity. We’re complicated and messy and beautiful.

I remarked that any man who has spent time in Alaska should be nothing if not humble.

Mrs. Lowe confided in me that her husband has fathered a child with a young Innuit woman, is gone more than he is home. She believes he has taken the native woman as a kind of second wife.

—Sometimes I fear that our prayers are not strong enough for this wild place, she said.

—That is a comfort, isn’t it? he said.—Each day, we rise. Wash in cold water. Gather wood for the fire. Eat to stay alive. The next day, do the same again. Maybe it can be simple enough when so reduced.

Agree

It’s as if that day I entered hell itself, &, God help me, I cannot find my way back out again. He began, then, to weep openly. —Forgive me, Colonel. Forgive me, he said. It is not for me to forgive him. Who on earth can? A boy like him was never suited for war. It

Written aboard the steamboat Yukon, bound for the coast of Alaska August 1, 1885 My dear Sophie,

Wow they made it

did not cry. Anger was all I could comprehend. Your letter cut me deeply, Sophie. How could you so belittle me as to think that I would abandon you or lose my love for you because you suffer some ailment beyond your influence? In so few words, you lessened every act of love between us.

Im crying!!!

Can you then know how much your letter robbed of me, not just to learn that we will not have a child, but to know that you could doubt my love? Did you believe that I loved you only for a mother you might be, rather than the woman you are? When I looked up to see you in a treetop with the schoolchildren, I fell in love with your courage & intellect & sweet voice.

I asked again if he would fare well alone, to which he replied that it was his last hope, as he could no longer find such hope in humanity.

Only a few outbuildings remain of the Russian fort. The way these structures are set out on this small point into Norton Sound, with long views in all directions over seascape & vast, treeless land, the ocean wind whipping at it, it is as if we have reached the edge of the world.

I mounted a print of it with parlor paste to cardboard and placed it in a simple gold-leaf frame I had purchased in Portland. When I presented it to Evelyn, wrapped in a set of white linen pillowcases that Charlotte had embroidered with Evelyn’s initials, I was not sure how she would respond.

am reminded of something the trapper Samuelson said of Alaska’s wild country. Here, I have found the passage in my diary:—She always keeps a part of herself a mystery.

This example, however, is unusual for its small size: 3 inches in diameter.

the Indians believed the witch doctor had not in fact died but instead had taken up residence in a spruce tree on Byers Island, in the form of a black bird.

As for Sophie’s photographs, the Anderson Museum burned in 1965. The family had donated her photographs, plates, and camera equipment to the museum, and all of it was destroyed. What you have there is all that’s left.

Willow Ptarmigan Nest, Near Nome, Alaska, 1915. Photograph by Sophie Forrester

waters.… To the Bright Edge of the World is a moving, surprising story. The Arctic addict in me is very grateful that Ivey wrote it.” —Chris Bohjalian,

I trust this author!

Is To the Bright Edge of the World primarily an adventure story, a love story, historical fiction, a mix of all three, or a different genre altogether?