VICKY MONAHAN

“I was born and raised here, in 1966. Before the school was built, my grandfather and my great-grandfather had two sod houses behind where the school is now and that is where I was born. So I call that my landmark. My mom passed away in ‘92 and when she died, I left the village and met my husband. We moved to the east coast, Rhode Island, for 17 years. Then I came back. Our son wanted to spend a semester with his grandpa. He wanted to do his senior year here and I didn’t want to miss out on my only child’s senior year so we moved back here. Then we got jobs here and now our son is completing his sophomore year at UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks). Since I came back here, this job at the museum opened up and now I have been here for three years. The best part about working here is they named the museum in honor of my grandfather, Simon Paneak. I am the museum intern. I do most of the office work. We are busiest in the summer when we get all the tourists. I do all the tours in the gallery and we do evening tours, they come in so late at night, we get one or two planes from 9pm-10:30pm at night, six days a week in the summer. Last year, from June until mid September, I gave 575 tours.” — Vicky Monahan is Inupiaq and lives in Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska. She was photographed in the museum next to the portrait of her grandfather, Simon Paneak, who the museum is named after.