Alumni

ALUMNI | GOING PLACES

Call of the Wild
State writer laureate Jerah Chadwick ’78 makes a remote island in Alaska his home and inspiration.

By Yereth Rosen

A distant, storm-tossed island off the mainland of the nation's most remote state might seem a good site for exile. But for watching how the land, the sea, and people mold each other, the Aleutian Islands are ideal, says Jerah Chadwick ’78, Alaska's state writer laureate.

From his perch on Unalaska Island, about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage, Chadwick sets to verse his observations about life on one of the world's great biological and cultural crossroads.

His adopted home, an island whose original Native name translates to “the shore where the sea breaks its back,” is a bundle of contradictions. It is stark yet beautiful, treeless and inhospitable yet a cornucopia of sea life, sparsely populated yet a longtime center of international commerce and cultural mingling. Its physical drama—erupting volcanoes, periodic earthquakes, and frequent storms—combines with a long history of warfare, conquest, and economic booms and busts.

Rather than the ends of the earth, Chadwick argues, Unalaska, population 4,400, could be seen as the center of everything. “They say it's on the edge,” he says. “It's on the edge in a good way. It's between East and West, the Bering Sea, and the Pacific. It's ideally situated for contact with other cultures, fishing, and resource development.”

Admirers say Chadwick's grasp of history, the environment, and myth shines through his work, which includes four published volumes of poetry, one volume of art and writing that he edited, and a sixth poetry volume in progress.

That is true whether he is writing about Unalaska, his Irish heritage, or any other place or culture, says Peggy Shumaker, his former creative writing professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “I'll just say that he's highly susceptible to landscape,” she says. “I think it's critical to him to know the place where he is."

Chadwick says his writing is guided by an Irish concept, called dinn seancha, meaning “hole stories” that are hidden away because they are treasures or worse, and a parallel Aleut concept, called tanaang awaa, meaning “this is a creation of my country.”

Just how Chadwick settled in Unalaska 24 years ago could itself be considered a creation of the country.

After leaving his Seattle newspaper job for what he thought would be a brief Aleutian adventure, Chadwick set up in an abandoned World War II-era Quonset hut that was little more than a metal tunnel in an area called Morris Cove, an eight-mile hike from town. There, he subsisted on food and milk from his goat herd, gathered driftwood for fuel, collected drinking water, and fended off small invaders.

In the isolation of Morris Cove, Chadwick focused on his writing. The focus intensified when he took a temporary hiatus from Unalaska to earn a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

His interest in poetry started while growing up in Tucson, Arizona, and was stoked at Lake Forest College, where he majored in English and sociology and reveled in the intimacy of campus life. He participated in student readings at the home of local author Julia Bartholomay ’70 and took part in workshops at the home of Philosophy Professor Bill Gean. English Professor Ann Hentz “endured numerous independent studies with me on contemporary poetry,” he says, and took him to readings in Chicago. 

Three years on the College's literary magazine, Silenus, had him rubbing shoulders with celebrated authors. “Gosh, I underage drank with Diane Wakoski, hung out with Margaret Atwood, spent a lot of time with Bill Stafford and Thom Gunn,” he says. Sociology Professor Leo Van Hoey inspired his interest in diverse cultures. “He taught us about the relevance of culture and how to see the bigger picture,” says Chadwick, who pursues his interest in culture at his day job. Upon receiving his MFA in 1988, he was hired to run the Aleutian/Pribilof Center, an extension of University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Areas of study at the Center range from practical skills, like lifesaving and welding, to cultural enrichment, like Native lore about medicinal plants and traditional kayak-making techniques. Students include local leaders trying to enhance professional skills and young people exploring options for the future. Chadwick also helps out in cultural education. He served as an apprentice to the late Andrew Gronholdt, an Aleut hat maker who revived the traditional art among local residents.

His teaching ability, in addition to his writing accomplishments, convinced the Alaska State Council on the Arts to select him in 2004 as the 11th writer laureate, says Charlotte Fox, executive director. The position runs for two years; its duties include acting as a statewide ambassador to encourage literary efforts—something Chadwick was already doing in a variety of community activist positions.

During a recent poetry reading at an Anchorage martini bar, he told the standing-room-only audience about life in Unalaska and how he tries “not to talk bad about the weather, which is a cultural value—kind of hard to abide by.”

He also spoke of how the abundance of Alaska literature about glaciers, scenery, wildlife, and finding oneself contrasts with a paucity of writing about the north's endemic social ills, like alcoholism, depression, and violence.

In response to that imbalance, he read his poem “Homeland Security,” which draws parallels between current wars and the historic military assaults on the Aleutians, including detonation of nuclear weapons on Amchitka (another Aleutian Island). The poem reads, “nuclear test sites leach, repeating lessons history should teach.”

“It's not a poem, but it's an honorable impulse,” Chadwick told his audience. “So please follow your own honorable impulses, even if they suck.”

Yereth Rosen is a freelance writer based in Anchorage, Alaska.