"Luke knows his Iñupiaq name is full of sounds white people can't say. So he leaves it behind when he and his brothers are sent to boarding school hundreds of miles away from their Arctic village. At Sacred Heart School, students -- Eskimo, Indian, White -- line up on different sides of the cafeteria like there's some kind of war going on. Here, speaking Iñupiaq -- or any native language -- is forbidden. And Father Mullen, whose fury is like a...

Ten-year-old Fred (short for Frederika) narrates the story of school and village life among the Athapascans in Alaska during 1948 when Miss Agnes arrived as the new teacher.

Julie's decision to return home to her people is not an easy one. But after many months in the wilderness, living in harmony with the wolves that saved her life, she knows the time has come. Julie is not prepared, however, for all the changes that she finds. Her father has forsaken many of the old Eskimo traditions. He has given up his sled dogs for a snowmobile, and now look after the musk oxen that serve as the village's income. He will do anything...