1918, Spanish Influenza was introduced to Inupiaq in Alaska.

They did not have enough resources or knowledge on this sickness. So 199 people from Teller and 197 people from Wales died from this disease.

Nurses could only provide comfort to the survivors as best as they could. 

Young boys were asked to kill reindeer so the broth could feed motherless babies and sick adults. 

Dead bodies were moved to vacant school rooms, and eventually moved to the church. 

Sled dogs broke tethers and roamed the streets looking for food. Fed on frozen human remains in abandoned homes.

Rumour was that a bad spirit had come from an unknown area. 

Several months later, a relief team arrived in Wales with flour, tinned milk, sugar and coffee for the survivors. And shovels to bury the dead.

Kevin (superintendent) was assigned to go to the communities and marry widows and widowers. Told them that they had to marry and take in orphans who lost their parents. If not, the kids would be sent to an orphanage far away.

Widows (or young women) were told to go to one side of the room, and widowers (young men too) went to the other side. The men were them asked to select a wife, they went to the front, gave their names to the secretary who wrote them onto a marriage certificate.

If any man hesitated, a spouse was picked for him. They also did all this while friends and family were still in the chapel, dead, waiting to be buried.

A story is then told about how a 50 year old man did not want to choose a new spouse. So one was picked for him, someone much younger than he was. They later had a divorce, and the girl was able to marry the man of her choice. While the man did not marry ever again.