Nikki Corbett was frustrated.

Mother and Small Business Owner She had searched online and in stores near her home on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula but couldn’t find any books to teach her young children the Yup’ik language.

Corbett says she became more fluent in the language growing up — in part because she lived in a largely Yup’ik community in Bethel, Alaska.

“And obviously being immersed in it makes you understand more and speak more,” Corbett says. “But being away from it — in the community I live in, it’s not a language that’s commonly spoken.”

So Corbett and her friend, Katie O’Connor, a painter and mother, decided to create the portrait. Your own Yup’ik alphabet coloring book.

Nikki Corbett (left) and Katie O’Connor (right) won a fellowship from the Rasmuson Foundation to create a Yup’ik book for young language learners.

Courtesy of Nikki Corbett

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Courtesy of Nikki Corbett

There is a market for such primers in Alaska.

More than 20% of the state’s population is indigenous. 21,000 Alaskans who consider themselves YupikAbout half the people speak this language.

In fact, Yup’ik is the language that The most widely spoken Native language in Alaska.

Corbett may have been immersed in Yup’ik culture when she was growing up in Bethel. But that’s not the case for every Alaska Native.

Corbett says the subordination of Native Americans and hostility toward native language and culture played a major role in this.

“The younger generation, like my generation, in some of those areas, they don’t know the language because their parents were punished for speaking Yup’ik,” Corbett says. “And so I think they were afraid to teach their kids because they didn’t want their kids to be punished for speaking our language.”

There are immersion schools in Alaska that have Yup’ik teaching materials, but Corbett says it’s nearly impossible to get those books outside of the classroom.

“If you go into a store and look at the kids’ section and look at the educational materials, you’ll see French or German or Spanish,” says Corbett. “Wherever those things are, we want to create something similar in the Yup’ik language.”

A page from a Yup’ik coloring book.

Courtesy of Nikki Corbett

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Courtesy of Nikki Corbett

Katie O’Connor an inupiaq artist Located in Nome, Alaska.

O’Connor says while growing up, she didn’t learn much about her Inupiaq culture until after high school.

“There’s not a lot out there. And then, when you start to dig into it, the literature, the books that are out there about Alaska Native culture, most of them are written by non-Native people,” O’Connor says. “Most of them are written by people who aren’t from Alaska, and some are written by people who have never even been to our area.”

Corbett and O’Connor, who had met at the Iditarod, worked together and Applied for fellowship To create your book.

The result was 27 pages, each featuring a letter of the Yup’ik alphabet and illustrations celebrating Yup’ik culture and heritage.

“The letters of the Yup’ik language are so connected to our culture, like you wouldn’t see a coloring book that had fry bread in it,” Corbett says. “And so these are images of us as Alaska Natives.”

Corbett says she’s had between 700 and 1,000 bulk order requests for the coloring book — including from an Alaska school district.

“Our culture is very strong and our people are resilient and that’s it, you know, it’s just a coloring book. But for us, it’s more than just a coloring book,” Corbett says.

Corbett and O’Connor hope to release their next coloring book in the Inupiaq language.

Majd al-Wahidi edited this article.