Dark teal copies of “Alita’s Curse” were circulating around the Unalaska Public Library on Aug. 28 as people waited in line to have their books signed by Unangax̂ author and filmmaker Beverly Morris.
A couple dozen people gathered at the library for the event, hosted by the Museum of the Aleutians.
Morris read from her historical fiction book, “Alita’s Curse”, which follows the lives of her great-grandparents, Alita Kochutin-Berikoff and Emilian Z. Berikoff.
Morris said the book was initially inspired by the Cuttlefish Project, a collection of oral stories gathered by Unalaska City School students in the 1970s and 80s.
“I decided that I would write a historical fiction, and it was influenced by Ray Hudson, who was a teacher here,” Morris said. “And in the 80s, he had his students do oral histories with the elder community.”
One of those stories was about her great-grandfather and a sea otter hunt, Morris said. The story was told by Henry Swanson of Unalaska.
A photograph of her great-grandmother also inspired the story.
“She's crocheting a rag rug, and so I had a photograph of her, and then I had a story,” Morris said. “So I created this story around a sea otter hunt that takes place in 1904.”
The book features woodblock prints by artist Charles D. Jones that allude to life in the Aleutians during this time period. The illustrations depict hunters in iqyax̂, or sea kayaks, whales and traditional sod homes.
Morris is the daughter of Emily Mae Dyakanoff and Harvey Wright. She spent part of her childhood on the island and now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Morris said she is working on a longer project that would condense several periods of Unangax̂ history, including pre-contact, the 1918 flu epidemic, the WWII bombing of Dutch Harbor, and the relocation of Unangax̂ people during the war.
