Fifty Miles from Tomorrow by Iggiagruk Willy Hensley was a pleasure to read. The title was a clever way to start his story. It reminded me of how Yup'ik stories begin, Ak'a tamani, A long time ago at that place expressed the importance of our land and a sense of time. His description of his early years brought back my own memories of growing up on the land at a time when we felt that the land was ours at least in the rural parts of our homeland. Willy recalled how most of our culturally strong elders emulated the best of our people and in an unsaid way those values were embedded subliminally within his inner being. It was this connection to his past that would influence him later in his life in the way that he viewed his place in the present history of our people and Alaska. Inupiaq was his heritage language and English was his second so he is bilingual. He took language lessons in the Russian Language.

Many changes occurred during his life time and his world view was influenced by the strong life ways of his Inupiaq relatives. He saw the joy on being on the land with his family. He also began to see the negative distraction that occurs with the clashing of opposing cultures. He openly described how his own mother had become dysfunctional due the scourge of alcoholism and unfortunately as did many others. Willy could have fallen by the way side and maybe have become a part of the negative statistic of the deficit model of Alaska Natives. Destiny had other directions for him, namely getting a western education in Tennessee. He became a man who learned to live in two worlds knowing also that he was of mixed blood. His Inupiaq culture taught him to be non-confrontational but when needed to be assertive diplomatically to express his point of view as well as that of the people he was speaking for. He had learned his lessons well in the two worlds he lived in.

He ventured into unknown territory that of running for public office. He became one of a handful of Alaska Native trail breakers by being elected to office in Juneau. Fast forwarding to his later years, while studying Constitutional Law his keen eye for detail saw how the United States government acquired the Lower 48 American Indian lands by declaration of war what others refer to as divine right of conquest. Other Nations also used the argument of the right of discovery to claim the land as theirs. Being aware of what happened in Alaska, he saw that Alaska was not discovered by the U.S. and that official war was not declared by Congress. As I recall before he wrote this book and telling me when he saw the difference said, "This sucker is ours." He wrote his paper stating this case for his Constitutional Law class and the rest is history. I wished he had used this phrase in his book but being the statesman that he is made his statement more diplomatic so that tender eyes and ears would not be offended. There have been many historians, academicians, research scholars and those with Juris Doctorates who did not see this difference.

Representative, Senator, lobbyist, arbitrator, mediator, high school football star, undergraduate, graduate student, Honorary Doctorate in Law, Banker, Business Man, Writer, Poet, Lecturer, Hunter, Fisherman, Arctic Winter Games athlete, International Traveler, Inupiaq Dancer, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Native Leader and now Alaska Native Elder Iggiagruk Willy Hensley deserves to be given the credit for his research discovery that is the roots of the Alaska Native Land Claims. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a biography that speaks from the heart with dignity and humility.

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Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People