During five long visits to Alaska's remote northwest coast to sketch and paint, the late Claire Fejes became guest and friend to the Native inhabitants there, learning their ways and customs. A personal narrative in text, drawings, and paintings, People of the Notatak concerns the people of two villages--Noatak, the summer settlement of a nomadic tribe that lives mainly in the wilderness interior, and Point Hope, whose economy centers around the hunting of the great bowhead whale.

Claire eloquently captures the life of the Native Inupiat in Northwest Alaska, before...

Young Claire Fejes was a promising sculptor and painter in New York City when her husband gave in to "gold fever." She held the unconventional view that her career was as important as his. But in those days, a woman followed her husband, so Claire did--to Fairbanks, last stop on the Alaska Railroad, in the heart of the immense northern territory, where Joe Fejes intended to mine for gold.

In a refreshingly candid memoir, Claire describes a remote outpost where the young couple joins a hard breed of Alaskans who transform loneliness into powerful friendships and where the artist...

The late Claire Fejes, a resident of Alaska for more than thirty-five years, one of the state's finest painters--and the author of People of the Noatak, a sensitive portrait of Native Alaskan life--once again takes us on a journey exploring the tradition and cultures of Alaska.

In Villagers, she embarks on an extended voyage up the Tanana and Yukon rivers to visit Native Athabascan villages along the way--New Minto, Galena, Koyukuk, Fort Yukon, Nenana, Kaltag, Rampart. She faithfully records in paintings and drawings, but above all in the words of the...