Mail Order Nurse to the Arctic is the lively memoir of a young, city-bred nurse who flew to Kotzebue for her first job in 1969. It is an engaging read about ingenuity in medical care, the author’s fascination with the land and her cross-cultural pleasures and mishaps. The book covers the first two years of her nursing career, including time in Barrow [Utqiavik]. It benefits from the author’s photos and from her current perspective as a long-time Alaska nurse. Highly recommended for readers interested in Alaska history, medicine, and memoir.

—Sarah Crawford Isto, MD, author of The Fur Farms of Alaska: Two Centuries of History and a Forgotten Stampede and Good Company: A Mining Family in Fairbanks, Alaska

Settle in for a fascinating tour of a culture on the edge of the world, the Inupiat people of Northwest Alaska. Join Sue in fun activities from partaking in a caribou hunt, to racing across the sea ice behind a dog team, to learning cultural differences like why the Inupiat never say goodbye. Sue also shows us another side of life in this remote region, from struggles with alcohol, to culture shock to murder. All in all, it is a riveting read delivered by an empathetic observer of a tough and hardy people legendary for their survival skills in one of the harshest environments on earth.

— Stan Jones, author of The Nathan Active Arctic mysteries

Sue Lium willingly immersed herself into the diverse culture and lifestyles of the Native residents above the Arctic Circle in the American Inupiaq village of Kotzebue. For two years, Lium embraced and explored their unique way of life while being continually tested by harsh arctic weather blended with the intricacies of practicing frontier medicine and life by airplane, dog sled and skidoo. A wonderful story of adaptation and adventure.

— John Kinnear, Canadian historian and columnist, Crowsnest Pass Herald