BOOK ON INUPIAQ WINS TWO NATIONAL AWARDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2000

Fairbanks, Alaska - "The Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska" by long-time arctic researcher Ernest S. Burch Jr. has been chosen for Choice magazine's prestigious Outstanding Academic Titles list for 1999. Selection criteria include excellence in scholarship and presentation; significance with regard to other literature in the field; and recognition as an important, often the first, treatment of a specific subject in print or electronic format. Fewer than 10 percent of the titles selected for review in Choice magazine are chosen for this honor.

This is the second award Burch's recent book has garnered; it was also the recipient of the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Award-Multicultural Category. The Benjamin Franklin Awards are sponsored by the Publishers Marketing Association, and celebrate excellence in editing and design.

Published by the University of Alaska Press, "The Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska" lays the groundwork for an understanding of how Iñupiaq societies from that region operated in their internal and external relationships during the 19th century. The book contains a wealth of precise detail attributed to the thoroughness of the author's interviewing techniques, and the confidence placed in him by the elders upon whose information Burch's work is largely based. Burch supplemented his fieldwork with extensive library and archival studies, and is enhanced by numerous maps and photographs. It is considered a benchmark in Alaska history and of critical importance to understanding long-term social change in the region.

Choice magazine, of the American Library Association, describes the book as "exemplary of the emerging body of scholarship that is both respectful of and responsive to the needs and perspectives of Iñupiaq, who are not just subjects but participating scholars." "Written with clarity and simplicity," it goes on to say, "the book will be accessible to a variety of readers."

This opinion is shared by Kerry Feldman of the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Anthropology: "This volume is one that anyone interested in the Arctic and its people will want to examine for its plethora of detail regarding land and sea use and seasonal movement of Iñupiaq in the 19th century. The Iñupiaq would, I think, also enjoy reading this masterful synthesis of their elders' history as recorded by an admiring student of their life and history."

Burch, who has spent more than 30 years investigating northwest Alaska, is a social anthropologist and social historian specializing in the study of the aboriginal peoples of northern North America, particularly Eskimos. He has made 22 research trips to the Arctic, ranging in length from one week to eleven months. His investigations have covered a wide variety of topics, from social organization and religion to human ecology and economics.

The Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska is available from the UA Press in paperback for $31.95, or in a clothbound edition for $49.95.

The UA Press at the University of Alaska Fairbanks publishes and distributes works of scholarship increasing knowledge about Alaska and the North, with a particular emphasis on circumpolar regions. For more information or to order, call toll free at 1 888-AKBOOKS (1-888-252-6657) or visit the UA Press website at: http://www.uaf.edu/uapress

-30-

CONTACT: Pam Odom, University of Alaska Press, at (907) 474-5832.

DPD/2-3-00/00-044