Storytelling is a universal activity and may well be the oldest of the arts. It has always provided a vehicle for the expression of ideas, particularly in societies relying on oral tradition. Yet investigation of what contemporary storytellers actually communicate to their listeners occupies a restricted place in anthropology. The growing literature on small-scale hunting societies pays careful attention to their subsistence strategies but less to ideas that seem peripheral to their economic activities. A gap remains in our knowledge about the contribution of expressive forms like storytelling to strategies for adapting to social, cultural, and economic change.

The life stories appearing in this volume come from communities where storytelling provides a customary framework for discussing the past. Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith and Annie Ned are three remarkable and gifted women of Athapaskan and Tlingit ancestry who were born in the southern Yukon Territory around the turn of the century. Their life stories tell us as much about the present as about the past, as much about ideas of community as about individual experience; they call our attention to the diverse ways humans formulate such linkages.

Julie Cruikshank's profile page

• Winner, Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, Canadian Historical Association

Of Athapaskan and Tlingit ancestry, Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith, and Annie Ned lived in the southern Yukon Territory for nearly a century. They collaborated with Julie Cruikshank, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, to produce this unique kind of autobiography. Cruikshank’s books include The Stolen Woman: Female Journeys in Tagish, Tutchone Narrative (1982) and Do Glaciers Listen?

Life Lived Like a Story is not a standard biography or autobiography. Instead, it remains true to the native way of recounting the past by giving appropriate weight to stories and songs as well as reminiscences … The charm, the wisdom (and often cheekiness) of these three women rings clear.

The Montreal Gazette

There is pure gold here for those who want to understand the rules of the old ways … [The book] has a convincing sureness, an intensity which cannot be denied, a strong sense of family … Candidly, and often with sly humour, the three women discuss early white-Indian relations, the Klondike gold rush, the epidemics, the starvation, the healthy and wealthy times, and building of the Alaska Highway … Integrity is here, and wisdom. There is no doubting the authenticity of the voices. As women, they had power and they used it wisely, and through their words and Cruikshank’s skills, you will change your mind if you think the anthropological approach to oral history can only be dull.

Globe and Mail