We Took to the Tundra: An Osteopathic Family Among the Yup'ik Eskimos

The adventures of family practice for a physician and his family in Alaska, among the scarcely known Yup’ik Eskimos is chronicled in We Took To The Tundra. As an osteopathic family physician in Maine, Dr. Bergen yearned to do something else before he grew too old to do something else. Having sold his Clinic in Kennebunk, Dr. Bergen took his wife and daughter to live for the next five years in a Yup’ik Eskimo community four hundred miles from the nearest road. The book recounts the exciting times they experienced, explores the traditions and culture of these little known people, and exposes the fundamentals of philosophy and practice of an osteopathic physician. Dr. Bergen’s tale enjoys the heartwarming moments of a cozy family life in the climatic Arctic, the excitement of the caribou hunt in the wilderness, the largess of the subsistence salmon fishery, and the struggles of an isolated people to retain their dignity and traditions in a harsh, rapidly evolving modern society.