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Walter Harper, Alaska Native Sonilluminates the life of the remarkable Irish-Athabascan man who was the first person to summit Mount Denali, North America's tallest mountain. Born in 1893, Walter Harper was the youngest child of Jenny Albert and the legendary gold prospector Arthur Harper. His parents separated shortly after his birth, and his mother raised Walter in the Athabascan tradition, speaking her Koyukon-Athabascan language. When Walter was seventeen years old, Episcopal archdeacon Hudson Stuck hired the skilled and charismatic youth as his riverboat pilot and winter trail guide. During the following years, as the two traveled among Interior Alaska's Episcopal missions, they developed a father-son-like bond and summited Denali together in 1913.Walter's strong Athabascan identity allowed him to remain grounded in his birth culture as his Western education expanded, and he became a leader and a bridge between Alaska Native peoples and Westerners in the Alaska territory. He planned to become a medical missionary in Interior Alaska, but his life was cut short at the age of twenty-five, in thePrincess Sophiadisaster of 1918 near Skagway, Alaska.Harper exemplified resilience during an era when rapid socioeconomic and cultural change was wreaking havoc in Alaska Native villages. Today he stands equally as an exemplar of Athabascan manhood and healthy acculturation to Western lifeways whose life will resonate with today's readers.

The Arctic Council is the primary forum for fostering cooperation and addressing concerns in the Arctic, yet few know of its work. The Model Arctic Council (MAC) is a simulation of the Arctic Council designed to address this awareness deficit. It places graduate and undergraduate students in roles as Arctic Council delegates, challenging them to collaborate to tackle the Arctic’s most pressing issues. This article explains the MAC initiative and the MAC 2016 event held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). It evaluates participants’ qualitative comments and survey responses from the MAC 2016 and finds that the program was effective in developing student knowledge of the Arctic; increasing student understanding of Arctic Council objectives and processes; preparing students for leadership roles in the circumpolar north; and encouraging student-faculty collaboration among University of the Arctic (UArctic) institutions. To improve future MAC programs, the organizing committee should strengthen the pre- and early program training sessions, clarifying Arctic Council processes and norms and stressing effective communication skills and cultural sensitivity. El Consejo Ártico es el principal foro dedicado a fomentar la cooperación y a abordar diferentes cuestiones en el Ártico; sin embargo, pocos conocen su labor. El Consejo Ártico Modelo (Model Arctic Council, MAC) es una simulación del Consejo Ártico concebida para dar respuesta a esta falta de concientización. Otorga a los estudiantes de grado y posgrado funciones como delegados del Consejo Ártico, y se los desafía a colaborar para hacer frente a las problemáticas más urgentes del Ártico. En este artículo, se explica la iniciativa del MAC y el evento MAC 2016 que tiene lugar en la Universidad de Alaska Fairbanks (University of Alaska Fairbanks, UAF). Se evalúan los comentarios cualitativos y las respuestas de la encuesta del evento MAC 2016 de los participantes, y se concluye que el programa fue eficaz en cuanto a la profundización de los conocimientos de los estudiantes sobre el Ártico; el aumento de la comprensión por parte de los estudiantes de los objetivos y procesos del Consejo Ártico; la preparación de los estudiantes para funciones de liderazgo en el norte circumpolar; y el fomento de la colaboración entre estudiantes y profesores en las diferentes instituciones dependientes de la Universidad del Ártico (University of the Arctic, UArctic). Para mejorar los futuros programas del MAC, el comité organizador debe reforzar las sesiones de capacitación previas al programa e iniciales de este, elucidar los procesos y las normas del Consejo Ártico, y hacer hincapié en las habilidades de comunicación eficaces y en la sensibilidad cultural.

Swedish missionary Albin Johnson arrived in Alaska just before the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of miles from home and with just two weeks' worth of English classes under his belt. While he intended to work among the Tlingit tribes of Yakutat, he found himself in a wave of foreign arrivals as migrants poured into Alaska seeking economic opportunities and the chance at a different life. While Johnson came with pious intentions, others imposed Western values and vices, leaving disease and devastation in their wake. Seventeen Years in Alaska is Johnson's eyewitness account of this tumultuous time. It is a captivating narrative of an ancient people facing rapid change and of the missionaries working to stem a corrupting tide. His journals offer a candid look at the beliefs and lives of missionaries, and they ultimately reveal the profound effect that he and other missionaries had on the Tlingit. Tracing nearly two decades of spiritual hopes and earthbound failures, Johnson's memoir is a fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing world in one of the most far-flung areas of the globe.

Back at Tanana, Walter Harper spent several days preparing thePelicanfor the summer season, with Robert Tatum’s help. Walter tuned the engine while Tatum repainted the rooms on the boat. The Denali expedition had made fast friends of the two, and Tatum regretted that in the fall Walter would be headed Outside, to attend school.¹ During most of July 1913 Harper and Stuck traveled the Yukon and Tanana Rivers, visiting fish camps and Episcopal missions. Late in the month Harper returned to Tanana to see his sisters before leaving for school.² He remained in Tanana a full week before

Denali—the Great One—was the highest mountain peak in the Athabascan people’s homeland. They called its companion peak Sultana—His Wife.¹ The British explorer George Vancouver mentioned seeing Denali in 1794 from the Gulf of Alaska; he was the first European to note the landmark.² In 1878 Arthur Harper and his trading partner Al Mayo traveled up the Tanana River and saw a “great ice mountain to the south,” Harper later reported.³ Denali and Sultana inspired awe in the Native people, but it was the “hunter’s paradise” of their foothills, not their eternally snow- and ice-covered peaks, that enticed

When Walter Harper arrived in the world in December 1892 at Nuchelawoya, his parents, Jenny Albert and Arthur Harper, had been married eighteen years.¹ She had borne seven other children—five boys followed by two girls. The family had traveled extensively along the middle and upper Yukon River, establishing trading posts at sites near gold discoveries. Jenny and Arthur’s relationship bore the strains of many separations during his long prospecting journeys. Jenny and the children suffered separations from one another as well. Arthur sent each child Outside, as Alaskans called the continental United States, to boarding school in Ross, California,

Lighthearted and thrilled to be heading home, Harper made the most of the journey. He mingled with fellow travelers, relished the wide-open landscapes, and reveled in the delights of city life. Their route to Alaska in July and August 1916 took Harper and Stuck by train across the continent and by boat to Skagway. The highlight of the homeward journey was a trek through Yellowstone National Park. Episcopal pastor William Thomas joined the two in Chicago. The twenty-seven-year-old was heading to Alaska to work as a missionary and teacher. Stuck had lectured the year before at Christ Church in Xenia,

The winter circuit of Alaska’s Arctic coast would be a unique journey for both Harper and Stuck. The treeless landscape along the coast, the shifting sea ice, and the high winds would be new sensations. The sea and land mammals that inhabited the northern coastal region seemed mysterious. Felling a polar bear stood at the top of Walter’s list of aims for the trek.¹ The circuit would offer the seasoned outdoorsman exotic experiences. Walter had slept out in the open many times in Alaska’s Interior, creating shelter with skins or tarps, but he had never built an igloo of ice

“I am here alive, very well and happier than I have ever been in my life,” Frances Wells wrote her father. “I expect you know by now who is responsible for all this happiness.” Walter Harper would soon be going to New York to enlist in the aviation corps. Afterward he would make a “bee line for Germantown” to introduce himself. “I know you will think the world and all of him,” she assured her father, adding that she hoped Walter would win over others who might have reservations about his “Indian blood.” The couple was not sure when they