Yup'ik Eskimo Love story

There are often stories that are told by parents and granparents of how they first met. Some are more elegant than others. In our Yup'ik Eskimo culture, there are stories of those that were matched; to marry someone they hardly knew. Some were matched even at a very young age. It was understood by the family that someday the two would marry.

There was one story that was told to me by an elder. When she first met her husband to be, she very much disliked him. In order to not bring embarrassment to the family, she reluctantly agreed. She continued to say that it took some time for her to "like" him and eventually grew to love him. They ended up having several children after some time.

This story is different compared to the other stories that I have heard. My mother grew up in a small village called Nunacuaq (meaning a little land). The village was located in between two villages in the Southwest region of Alaska, Kasiguq and Nunapicuaq. The village no longer exists. There are several villages that have been constructed since. The origins of these villages derived from Nunacuaq.

My father, who used to work for a cannery in Bristol Bay, learned of a proposed marriage or a match that was going to be addressed to my mother at the end of the season. My father must have thought long and hard that evening and must have stayed up all night when he learned of the proposal. The following day or thereabouts he flew from the Cannery in Bristol Bay to the village where my mother resided. He proposed the marriage, married my mother immediately than the following day flew back to the Cannery.

My father must have been determined. He must have known beforehand that he wanted to marry my mother and was not about to let her "escape". I am happy he married her. They soon had my older sister and now there is six of us, they also raised our youngest who was my older sister's first born. We have recently lost our older sister to covid. She will never be forgotten.

The same sister that passed from covid also had an arranged marriage. She married her husband from the same village. I remember when he first started coming around. I didn't realize at the time that they were courting or betrothed. Not long after, they got married.

I was once asked by a family. They had talked with my uncle and my uncle spoke to my mother and in turn she spoke to me. She told me they came from a good family. I had absolutely no clue who these people were, I absolutely refused. My mother was understanding because she told us of a proposal that she refused. Every time they came to pick her up in her village, she would run and hide at her best friends house. I am glad she was understanding.

It is a rare occasion that there is an arranged marriage these days. You don't really hear of any, at least I don't anyway. Maybe they still do in some villages. Times have changed that last 100 years. 1959 is when Alaska became a state. In 1867 Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia for 7.2 million dollars.

I have just learned recently that my mother's father's father was Russian. They had many brothers which extend all the way up river on the Kuskokwim and throughout the region. We have many cousins. My father also has many relations throughout the Yukon. He was born at on old village across from Pilot Station, Alaska. I have many cousins in the Yukon. I don't know many of them.

Well this story is a love story. I saw this picture of my mother and thought that this must have been about the time that my father must have proposed and married her on the same day.