In ancient Alaska, before it was known to anyone but the Inuit people, a child Umiak is the only survivor of a starving clan who ventured too far onto dangerous, unknown waters to find food. Washed ashore with nothing but her raven-feather talisman, she is discovered by strangers, taken to their village, and forced to serve the elderly shaman. During her lonely, perilous ordeal with the hostile tribe, Umiak is visited by the Raven Mother, who bestows upon her the spirit of the Raven Woman, a power that is to be passed down through the generations to come. Now Umiak must find the strength to survive and pass on her influence and power to her own daughter when the time comes.

Pinkie Paranya gives the reader a magical, mystical journey, blended with humor, adventure, and heartbreak, but always with a faith in the future, in this first award-winning book of the trilogy, WOMEN OF THE NORTHLAND.