Intertribal Life Newspaper -

photography by David Uttley

Even in summer, Togiak, Alaska, is effortlessly quiet, mostly empty of human voices. The stillness is punctuated occasionally by the rattle of all-terrain vehicles, gulls overhead, and that beautifully haunting, hollow call the ravens make from roof crests and lamp posts. A few dogs may bark aimlessly and sometimes a plane lands with a buzz on the airstrip.

Perhaps it's a quiet that the village naturally maintains around non-natives who inevitably find their way up to the tundra for fishing, hunting, curiosity, or, in the case of Samaritan's Purse, to c...