For many centuries, successive waves of humans have tried to claim Alaska’s natural bounty. Like other locations in the global history of settler colonialism, this corner of North America has produced untidy stories. Close study of class, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexuality in other places has revealed the circumstances of settler colonialism, how Indigenous Peoples were displaced and dispossessed, but also how subalterns, including Indigenous people, contributed to dispossession.1 Alaska’s past also contains these topsy-turvy stories, but its historiography has usually overlooked the messiness in favor of narratives that pit victimized locals against evil outsiders. Purvis’ Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves is the most recent example of this simplifying tendency, which is unfortunate because she uses a clever methodology to pursue themes often marginalized in previous works, even if the result is worn and unsatisfying.

The book’s greatest achievement is also, paradoxically, its greatest weakness. Purvis has mined secondary...

You do not currently have access to this content.