Young Royce Rock assists his aaka (grandmother), Ramona Rock, by holding down the pattern that will make the shapes to cover his foot as she traces it onto a section of polar bear hide. She is making making mukluks for him.
A couple days later, the mukluks are done. Royce lifts up his foot as Aaka Ramona prepares to encase it in the left mukluk.
Royce takes his first stroll in his new mukluks. His aaka is Athbascan, raised in Nenana as the daughter of a river boat owner and pilot. Although her father is gone now, The Ramona, the river boat that he named for her, still plies the Tanana and Yukon Rivers.
Ramona adjusted well to life on the Arctic Coast and for years has been the Point Hope high school Tikigaq Harpooners girls basketball coach, often co-coaching with her son, Rex Jr., Royce's dad.