Micah Malcolm

Micah Malcolm is a Han Athabascan elder from Eagle Village, Alaska. He was born in 1943 to Sarah and Edward Malcolm, one of eleven children. Micah grew up in Eagle Village living a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, trapping and fishing. His father died in 1948 when Micah was five years old, so he learned many of his traditional skills from his older brothers. He started duck hunting at age six, and followed his older brothers to go moose and caribou hunting, fishing, and to run a trapline. When he was seven years old, Micah became his mother's main helper and learned to tan moose hides and make babiche and birch bark baskets by watching her. He later used his observational skills and artistic talents to become a skilled woodworker and carver, making everything from his own toys, to wood hauling sleds, furniture and fish wheels, to detailed carvings of dogteams, model airplanes, and village dioramas. He started school in Eagle in 1953, when he was ten years old, and in 1960 was sent to Sheldon Jackson School and then Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska. From August to December 1962, Micah worked in Los Angeles, California through a BIA jobs program, and returned to Alaska to live and work in Fairbanks. Micah returned to Eagle in the mid-1960's when he got a job on construction of the new school, and settled into a quiet subsistence-based life with time to focus on his artwork.