By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

After Dr. William Bergen, 76, of Presque Isle toured Alaska for five weeks in an RV with his wife Mary and daughter Jane they settled down in Bethel, Alaska in 1991 for five years. Now, Bergen has written “We Took to the Tundra,” a book about his experience providing health care for the Yup’ik Eskimos and non-native residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Western Alaska. 

Before traveling to Alaska, Bergen earned his bachelor of science in biology and chemistry in 1953 from the University of Detroit and then a doctorate of osteopathy from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1959. By 1961 he established a family medicine practice in Kennebunk, which he operated for another 30 years. Besides maintaining his own practice, Bergen was an attending staff physician at Brighton Medical Center in Portland, served as a state medical examiner between 1975 and 1991 and was a key founder of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of New England in 1978.

“Back in the late 1960s, we found that potential osteopathic medicine students from Maine were being shut out of other schools because the states of those schools wanted them to take students from that specific state,” Bergen said. “As the secretary for the New England Foundation of Osteopathic Medicine, it became my responsibility to find a place for a school in Maine.”

At the time Bergen was living across the street from Saint Francis College President Jack Ketchum. They decided to “give it a shot,” and matriculated the first class in 1978 with 36 students and a budget of $2.25 million.

Today the College of Osteopathic Medicine provides an education to nearly 500 medical students and has an annual budget of more than $100 million, he said. 

 Despite years of working in the Kennebunk community, by 1991 Bergen said he was looking for something else to do to make his life meaningful.

“I had reached my mid 50s and I wanted to do something different before I grew too old to do something different. I was looking into going to the Peace Corp when my son [a student in University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine] brought home info about the needs in Alaska,” Bergen said. 

Bergen left the family practice in Kennebunk to head to Alaska and help a community in need of medical professionals.

Initially, Bergen said he was the only physician in a small clinic dedicated to providing modern medical care to non-natives in the area, but natives who practiced their traditional methods of medicine would also take advantage of his services. 

Bethel, Alaska had a population of 4,800 at the time, and Bergen said it was the largest of 50 communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, which covered an area of tundra approximately the size of New England.

He said because the Alaskan Mountain Range and Bering Sea encircle the delta, there are no roads into the area or within the villages. 

“There were no roads, which made it really challenging but exciting,” Bergen said. “It was a fascinating experience to live that way. If there was a surgical problem you had to get yourself to Bethel by single engine airplane, snow machine or dogsled, then pray the weather was good and wait for the plane from Anchorage.”

While living in Alaska among the Yup’ik tribe, Bergen was able to provide health care to non-natives and the Eskimo population, as well as experience their way of life.

The entire population on the delta was about 20,000, and of that only 2,000 were non-natives, which left Bergen in the minority. He said as a white Christian “from the lower 48” it was his first time being a member of the minority.

“It gave me a broader look at humanity, feeling for other people and other cultures. It made me more tolerant of people who are different than I am. The Yup’ik tribe are grand people, and one of the sad things is nobody really knows about them,” he said. 

Bergen said he could not pick just one experience as his favorite, but said in his book, he details when he went caribou hunting on snow machines in January with one of his Eskimo friends, Gene Peltola.

“Gene really lived the spirit of the Eskimo during that 100 mile hunting expedition. They have a real feeling of oneness with the animals and nature.

To them, everything has a spirit within it. When we shot the caribou on the tundra, Gene made a pile of the entrails and hooves. He covered the entrails with the hide and placed the head of animal on top of the pile facing north. It showed respect for that animal’s spirit,” Bergen said. “It was a beautiful, spiritual experience.”

Bergen returned to Maine so his daughter could attend high school and began practicing at Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle.  He tried to retire in 2000, but said he missed his patients too much. 

Since then, he has been practicing two days a week and has written and published “We Took to the Tundra.” Aside from Bergen’s medical background, he also has a bachelor of arts in anthropology from the University of Southern Maine.

His professor, Diana Crader, encouraged Bergen to keep journal entries while in Alaska to inform her of his adventures while he was there, and those entries make up the book.

“I’ve had a lot of people urging me to market it, but I’m never going to make any amount of money out of this book and I don’t really care about that. I care to spread the word about the Yup’ik. They are good people and they have hard days in front of them,” Bergen said. 

He said not many people in the contiguous states know about the Yup’ik, and said the University of Maine at Orono did not have information on the Eskimos prior to his speaking with the curator. He said he hopes to share his book with museums, libraries and colleges to raise awareness about the Yup’ik Eskimos and their way of life.

“We Took to the Tundra” is on sale for $24.95 at the Kennebunk Book Port in Shopper’s Village and Bergen will be signing books at the book store from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6.

For more information about the book signing, call 467-3300.