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I spend a lot of time in Alaska. So, I really enjoyed this story.

Most of my time is spent along the Yukon and I have been to a lot of these villages. One thing I learned the first day! Don’t call any Eskimo an Eskimo. To them, that is kinda sorta the same as calling a black guy the N word!

We keep our mouths shut and mind our own business around the Native Alaskans. And!, we lock everything up! They have no white guy lower forty type compunction against stealing.

We generally won’t camp within 5 miles of a Native Alaskan Village. If you do, somebody has to stay up all night guarding your VERY valuable stuff.

But since there is no dark in the summer, only midnight to 4 am dusk, guard duty is not so harrowing.

All I can say is I live in Alaska, over 20 years; and only thing the Indians have ever hijacked off me is alcohol. I call the interior home, all Athabaskan. Knowing Indians from up and down the river into Canada, and all over the interior has been a good experience. I'm actually closer to the local Indians than local Whites. I hunt with them, end up at all the potlatches, even have had the santa suit on a time or to at xmas party at tribal hall. When their Canadian cousins come downriver, they often stay over at my place; the Canadian Indians are really high class, have good careers, and know so much more about hockey than I, ha.

After being the only White Boy in Nativeland for a year, I've never felt any racism at all from local Indians. I believe it's how us Whites carry ourselves around Indians, that makes them respect us or not.