Introduction

I was born in a small village in Alaska called Seldovia. Seldovia is a small fishing town, built on the bay. The business section and all the canneries were built on the waterfront.

When I was young, only about 450 people lived in town. Most of the people were native Alaskans mixed with Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, and English. In my grandparents’ generation, mostly the women were native and the men were from other countries.

The transportation to Seldovia when I was young was by boat and by sea plane. Later a small airport was put in, but the landing was quite bumpy as the runway wasn’t paved. We had an amphibian plane and some small pontoon planes. In the winter they put on skis and landed on the snow.

The town was the most scenic of Alaskan towns, the boardwalk built mostly over the water, the tides coming in and out under the boardwalk. The walk went around the hills from Look Out Point, near where my great aunt Florence lived, to a block or more in front of the cemetery.