Farewell Putyuk
WE BETTER GET GOING,” ALVIN WILLIAMS SAID “Daylight’s burning.” A dozen of us stood with shovels and axes on a snow-covered knoll on the south side of the Kobuk River, five miles below the Inupiaq village of Ambler. Weathered wooden crosses rose through the drifts; before us, a rectangle of cleared ground. My companions had known Clarence Wood all their lives. I, the oldest and sole naluagmiu—white man—had known him four decades, as my traveling partner and friend. Most of…