This unlikely cast of characters, by working collaboratively in a trusting learning community, was able to identify an approach to teaching rational numbers through measuring from the everyday practices of Yup'ik Eskimo and other elders. "The beginning of everything," as named by a Yup'ik elder, provided deep insights into how practical activities were conceptualized and accomplished by means of body proportional measuring and nonnumeric comparisons. These concepts and practices shed light on the importance of measuring as comparing and the importance of relative units of measure, and helped us imagine a way to establish an alternative learning trajectory and school-based curriculum that begins with the insights gained from Yup'ik and other elders. This approach may well provide teachers a way to teach aspects of elementary school mathematics in an integrative and elegant way. [For the complete proceedings, see ED583989.]