Dancing at the Odinochka

by Kirkpatrick Hill

Nearly 150 years ago, when Alaska belonged to Russia and was called Russian America, Erinia Pavaloff lived at the Nulato odinochka on the banks of the Yukon River. Owned by the Russian American Company, an "odinochka" was a trading post where native people traded their furs for precious Russian supplies.Erinia is always busy -- learning to make fur clothing, emptying buckets of snow into water barrels, helping Mamma, gathering spruce boughs to make fish traps, and grinding paint for a new canoe. It seems that Erinia works all the time. So she can hardly wait for visitors -- the company men who bring stock for trading, or the Indians who come to fish or sell furs. When visitors come, Erinia and the others are delighted to listen to old stories and music, and everyone dances at the odinochka.

Life has a good sameness that Erinia counts on...until the day when American Western Union Telegraph men arrive. Sent up north to build a telegraph line, the men bring news of the outside world, new inventions, and customs unfamiliar to Erinia's people. Everyone at the odinochka listens to the Americans' stories, learns their funny songs, and dances the waltz that the telegraph men teach them.

But as suddenly as they've come, the telegraph men leave -- their telegraph line abandoned -- and Erinia is bereft. Word comes that the United States has purchased Russian America from Russia; Erinia and her people have become American Alaskans. Their lives will never be the same, as they struggle to find their place in this American world that doesn't care about the old ways. Will there ever again be dancing at their odinochka?

Inspired by a five-page memoir written in 1936 by the real Erinia Pavaloff, a relative of the author's stepfather, "Dancing at the Odinochka" is a stunning story of family, culture, and hope that will leave no reader untouched.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Realistic Fiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 2005

About the author

Kirkpatrick Hill lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. She was an elementary school teacher for more than thirty years, most of that time in the Alaskan "bush." Hill is the mother of six children and the grandmother of eight. Her three earlier books, Toughboy and Sister, Winter Camp, and The Year of Miss Agnes, have all been immensely popular. Her fourth book with McElderry Books, Dancing at the Odinochka, was a Junior Library Guild Selection. Hill's visits to a family member in jail inspired her to write Do Not Pass Go.

Reviews

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the fact that this was based on a true story.

One interesting tidbit is that the Russians treated the mixed children well, educating them, and employing them. When Alaska became a part of America, that caused a rude awakening for many people.

[AnnaRichelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written historical fiction drawn from a five page journal written by the author's great aunt. That is, if I interpreted that lineage correctly from the author's note at the end of the book. A small girl growing up on a trading post in Russian America, as Alaska was known at the time, takes us through a few short years there, before Russia sold the land to the United States, portraying what it was like growing up most of the time with only 10 people around you. The story takes us through the time in the mid 1800s when they went from belonging to Russia to then learning that they now belonged to America. It was a very hard transition. Erinia, the original journal's author, was a child of a Russian father and an Athabascan mother. Her father worked for the Russian American Company and ran the trading post where Erinia grew up. After the transition, they had to leave the trading post and went to live and work in St. Michael, probably a more urbanized town compared to what they were used to. Erinia died in 1955, at the age of 95. What a fascinating story! I wanted to read more and would not have minded at all if the book was double it's 260 pages.

[Kienie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had bad luck with this book for a long time. First, I couldn't find it. Then, I couldn't find the time to read it. Finally, I spilled tomato soup on it.

It's the life of a girl who lived in a time and a place I can only vaguely imagine. But it's very close.
Still, what prevents me from loving this book is its lack of ending. It's based on the life of real people, sure, and it doesn't go all the way to the person's death, but that doesn't give an excuse to tell a fictionalized story without having an ending.

[Jennybeast · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting counterpoint to both westward expansion children's lit (Wilder et al.) and miner stories from the Yukon. More of a nonfiction account than most of Hill's other work, in that it is a narrative with a real historical personage as the subject. Parts are harsh, parts are beautiful, but the central themes of familial love and changing times remain strong and bittersweet.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odinochka was a Russian trading post where natives could trade their furs for tea, tobacco, and the like. Here, at the Nolato odinochka, we're introduced to people who lived under both Russia and the United States. This is the only book I've read set during this time period. I appreciated the author's note, explaining her research and the line she had to draw between fact and fiction.

And, as I usually try to do, I noted several passages that I particularly liked.

p 89: Erinia liked to put her ear against a tree trunk and listen. When you did that, you could hear wonderful noises from inside the trees, just the way she could hear gurgling when she put her ear up against the belly of a puppy. Inside themselves, the trees hummed and screaked and almost whistled. ...

p 91: Erinia had to keep a piece of shelf fungus burning on a piece of tin so the smoke would drive the mosquitos away.

p 147: When she finished reading the last page of the last chapter, Mikhail looked at her sadly. "When a book ends," he said, "it's like someone has died." Erinia felt the same way, and so she said maybe they should just start all over again right away. Everyone thought that was a good idea, ...

And one final quote, that is sad but true, I'm sure. p 181: The Americans call us half-breeds and it is said with a sneer, though most of us are better educated and have better skills than the American soldiers, who seem to be almost illiterate.

It took 50 pages or so before I was hooked, which is why this book didn't get five stars.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book. It is approximately 250 pages of historical fiction based on a 5 page recollection of a Russian Creole of her time at a Russian American trading post. It covers a span of roughly 5-6 years at the tail end of Russian occupation and the purchase of Alaska by the American government. Hill weaves the real memoir with historical observations and fictional conversations between people in the memoir which culminates in tragedy. The story is very engaging. I wish it was an autobiography of this woman who lived well into the 20th Century.

If you like a good coming of age story on the frontier or a good story about an aspect of Alaskan or American history that is seldom told this is an excellent book to read.

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book. The author gives so many details and I appreciate that. I enjoyed hearing the story from a little girls point of view.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Fascinating slice of history!

[Mara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that I call a "life-time story" - a book that doesn't particularly have one important plotline, but rather describes certain points in the life a person from when they are very little to some later point in their older life. So if you're looking for a "plot-line" book, this will disappoint you.

Me, personally - I sometimes like "life-time stories". They often give very interesting insight into different cultures and ways of living; the backbreaking work that accompanies such rugged life that is not advanced in its "technology." As a person who finds different cultures fascinating, these sorts of reads can keep me engaged for hours.

But this one didn't. The age range for this book is 9-14, but the writing style seems very childish even for 9-year-olds. I constantly felt that there ought to be little pencil drawings like in a child's picture book to accompany many of the passages. It annoyed me and detracted from what could have been very engaging descriptions of Russian, Indian, and some Eskimo traditions and beliefs.

This is based off a true story, but on top of the writing style was the fact that all of the characters (except maybe one or two) are good people. It made it feel even more as a work of fiction and less as if it were based off a true story. There is also a prevailing air of political correctness to the entire narration; this constant feeling of "oh, it's their culture, so it is okay, and in no way did Alaska benefit from becoming an American State." Perhaps it would have been different had it been written in first person - no doubt there were some people who did feel like that. But written as a third-person narration, it felt as if the author were giving more of a lecture; like it was a belief that was shared by everyone.

I was disappointed with Dancing At the Odinochka. By Chapter Two, I was having a hard time becoming attached to any of the characters and engaged in what was happening - mostly because of how it was written. I do not think that I will add it to my collection.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

Starts out sort of like Little House on the Prairie in Alaska, with lots of descriptions of daily routine. Apparently it does go in a different direction, but it was moving too slowly for me.

[Kirsten Buckmaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending was abrupt, but the story was descriptive and gives the reader an idea of what life might have been like in the Yukon during the 1800's.

[Robyn]

good

[Kelley Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good story, and I always like gaining some cultural perspectives for up here.