Alaska Teacher Placement
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Featured Bush Educators

Welcome to a page that features the blogs and books current and prior Alaska Bush educators. Blogs first, and then books written by teachers. Our intent is to feature those who have stories to tell that help potential new teachers to our state get an image of working and living rural Alaska. Hopefully their images, video clips and first person teacher written thoughts will help you visualize yourself in their shoes!

The people linked here have some interesting stories to tell. Some blogs are current, and others are left linked here for the archive of what they showed about life as a teacher in rural Alaska.  If you know of another Bush teacher blog, please see the submission link below!

Bush Teacher Blogs

Last update: 10/22 - Alaska School District for teacher indicated

How Do I Nominate Someone?

We encourage you to nominate noteworthy current or former teachers or school administrators for inclusion here by emailing us at atp@teachers4schools.com. Use the subject "Featured Educator Update". 

Books About Teaching in the Bush

Some rural Alaskan teachers over the years have written about their experiences. Here are some examples, with links. Take a peek at the "Look Inside" on Amazon, or buy a book to read.  ATP does not receive any referral compensation. We just want you to see a sampling of how very  different an education career could be for you in rural Alaska.

Call of the Last Frontier - Cover

(2021)
It’s all here—living in bush Alaska, fighting off men, packing a pistol for bear protection, suffering the ravages of weather, flying with white-knuckled fear, facing down hundred-mile an hour winds as well as fearing erupting volcanoes. And that’s only part of their journey...In 1995, Melissa Cook and her young family moved to the tiny village of Nelson Lagoon on the Bering Sea coast and later to Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest, where they measured rain in feet. She discovered humor in unique situations found only in the Last Frontier. Her true story captures the essence of bush life, intriguing neighbors, and life with multiple sclerosis. Historical tidbits are sprinkled throughout this riveting tale where adventure arrived on the Cook’s doorstep daily for twenty years in this world of few luxuries or conveniences. This tale is sure to delight Alaska and adventure fans.
Angie Alston - The Transplant Teacher - Cover

(2021)

Angie lands in rural Alaska for her first teaching job, expecting adventure and a chance to change the world. The reality of her new life leaves her disillusioned and miserable. There’s the toilet in her living room, it costs $60 to ship a bottle of lime juice, and she has to keep her students inside due to polar bear warnings.

If you’ve ever found yourself in an unfamiliar setting, you will relate to the trepidation and awkwardness that Angie experiences on her journey. With examples from her life in Alaska (like the time she accidentally danced like a man or when she wore springtime boots in the fall), Angie introduces strategies to help other teachers rise to the challenges of living and teaching in new places.

Tisha - Cover

(1984)
 Anne Hobbs was only nineteen in 1927 when she came to harsh and beautiful Alaska. Running a ramshackle schoolhouse would expose her to more than just the elements. After she allowed Native American children into her class and fell in love with a half-Inuit man, she would learn the meanings of prejudice and perseverance, irrational hatred and unconditional love. “People get as mean as the weather,” she discovered, but they were also capable of great good.
 
As told to Robert Specht, Anne Hobbs’s true story has captivated generations of readers. Now this beautiful new edition is available to inspire many more.
Hannah Breece - Cover

(1996)

 When Hannah Breece came to Alaska in 1904, it was a remote lawless wilderness of prospectors, murderous bootleggers, tribal chiefs, and Russian priests.  She spent fourteen years educating Athabascans, Aleuts, Inuits, and Russians with the stubborn generosity of a born teacher and the clarity of an original and independent mind.

Jane Jacobs, Hannah's great-niece, here offers an historical context to Breece's remarkable eyewitness account, filling in the narrative gaps, but always allowing the original words to ring clearly.  It is more than an adventure story:  it is a powerful work of women's history that provides important--and, at times, unsettling--insights into the unexamined assumptions and attitudes that governed white settler's behavior toward native communities at the turn of the century.