Kwethluk: Two Years on the Bad River

Kwethluk: six hundred miles from the nearest highway, fifty-below winters, generator electricity, no running water (except in the school and teacher housing), no doctors, no dentists, no veterinarians, no restaurants, no malls nor movie theaters. Here, we'd begin our teaching assignments for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, white people-kass'aqs-working for those who in another time and place had helped to kill Crazy Horse and Geronimo for their lands. But this time, to paraphrase the BIA's official mission, we'd come with a cavalry of books to save the natives from themselves.