Two Old Women by Velma Wallis

On their way back to the camp, Sa' heard something skitter lightly along the bark of a tree. She stood very still, motioning her friend to do the same. Both women strained to hear the sound once more in the silence of the night. On a tree not far from them, silhouetted in the now-silvery moonlight, they saw an adventurous tree squirrel. Sa' slowly reached to her belt for the hatchet. With her eyes on the squirrel and her movements deliberately slow, she aimed the hatchet toward this target that represented survival. The animal's small head came up instantly and as Sa' moved her hand to throw, the squirrel darted up the tree. Sa' foresaw this, and, aiming a little higher, ended the small animal's life in one calculating throw with skill and hunting knowledge that she had not used in many seasons.

In Alaska, a band of Athabascans are struggling with the onset of winter. Without enough food to go around, and few opportunities to hunt, they make a difficult decision: to abandon two burdensome old women. Not only are the old women--Sa', meaning Star, and Ch'idzigyaak, meaning Chickadee--unable to contribute to the band's survival, they are always griping and complaining. Still, their children and grandchildren are among those who must move on as the old women are left in the snow, certainly to starve or freeze to death. But then, left to their own devices, the two old women decide they must commit themselves to their own survival, activating long-dormant lessons about how to hunt and survive in the difficult Alaskan winter, and soon they find themselves with a new passion for old ways.

Alaska Native writer frames Two Old Women as a story told to her when she was a girl, and it has the simplicity and straightforwardness of an instructive tale for children. By the time the band returns to their former hunting grounds, the situations have reversed: it is the women who have stored a cache of dried fish that they are generous to share with the larger band, who have only continued to struggle. The lesson is two-fold: one, in such difficult conditions, each member of the band must work together, and no one can be left behind; those you believe to be a burden may turn out to be an asset. It's easy to see how such a lesson, passed down from generation to generation, would provide important guidance for a culture that lives in some of the harshest conditions known to man. But the other lesson is that the old ways must not be forgotten: once Sa' and Ch'idzigyaak are abandoned, it is traditional methods of hunting and shelter-building that turn out to be their saving grace, and it is perhaps no coincidence that they are elders, who are meant to be repositories of old wisdom and knowledge.

As literature, Two Old Women isn't much. It has a pleasing clarity of voice, and honed but simple language that well reflects the nature of the story, as well as the landscape. It's most interesting, perhaps, as a reflection of the difficult choices made by those living traditionally in the Alaskan interior, and the way these communities prosper and thrive even in conditions that seem, to us down here, entirely unliveable.