Dancing on the Tundra

Dancing on the Tundra, the sequel to Walking on Ice and Nesting on the Nushagak, is the final book in a trilogy of memoirs by Emma Stevens recounting her adventures of life and love in the Alaskan wilderness.

Emma’s husband is now superintendent of nine village schools based in Dillingham, a small hub city in southwestern Alaska. As a bicultural coordinator, Emma flies to remote village schools to work with local Yup’ik Eskimo people, inspiring an inaugural Spring Festival to unite the villages in a huge dance celebration.
After a particularly perilous flight in a tiny bush plane, the couple decides to relocate to Chevak, a remote Cup’ik Eskimo village in western Alaska. Shortly after arrival Emma is surprised by a Cup’ik elder holding a Māori tokotoko who declares, ‘We’ve been waiting for you.

In Chevak, when temperatures plummet and houses are buried by blizzards, the couple must once again deal with the realities of subsistence survival. After two years in Chevak, the life-threatening dangers of remote living force Emma to leave her beloved bush Alaska and return with her husband home to New Zealand.

EXCERPT: "The small plane gradually righted itself but we were sinking into a canyon with walls of sheet ice. If the window had been open, it seemed I could have touched the mountainside with my hand …"