Elnguq, An Alaskan Girl's Childhood in the Alaska Wilderness is a translation of the first novel written in the Yup'ik Eskimo language of Southwestern Alaska. Its author, Anna Jacobson, was born and spent her early years in a small, remote and now long abandoned Native settlement in the vastness of the mountains, rivers, forests, and tundra of Southwestern Alaska. As a girl, the author imagined that the few inhabitants of her settlement surrounded as they were by seemingly endless wilderness -- were the only people in the world. This book, though a work of fiction, draws on those early memories, portraying a traditional Native Alaskan way of life. "Elnguq," the name of the young girl who is the main character of the story, is the Yup'ik Eskimo word for "birch tree," and it also means "strength through flexibility." Coincidentally, "Elnguq" has another meaning: "that which is.".