Sled Dog Wisdom, by Tricia Brown

Mushers love to share stories of the rare relationships they have with their sled dogs, whether they’re in the dog lot, out training, or competing in sprint, mid-distance, or thousand-mile races. As mushers learn time and again, the heart of a sled dog is filled with loyalty, determination, and full dose of quirkiness. This newly…

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Cold Starry Night, by Claire Fejes

Young Claire Fejes was a promising sculptor and painter in New York City in 1946, when her husband gave in to “gold fever”. She held the unconventional view that her career was as important as his. But in those days, a woman followed her husband, so Claire did – to Fairbanks, last stop on the…

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Dead Man’s Dancer, by Tom Brennan

Mechele is young, attractive, and looking to cash in on her aesthetic assets when she moves from New Orleans to Alaska in 1994 to earn money for college tuition. Her charms ensnare the affections of three men, and the combined effects of jealously, lust, and greed take a deadly turn in this true crime story.…

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Dreaming Bears, by J. Michael Holloway

Dreaming Bears (208 pages) is the true story of the rare friendship that develops between a young medical student with deep roots in the South and an elderly Indian couple in the wilds of northeast Alaska. In 1961, Mike Holloway, his brother Ted, and a college friend set out from South Carolina to spend the…

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Bad Friday, by Lew Freedman

On March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake lasting more than five minutes rocked south central Alaska, leveling waterfronts, collapsing bridges, and crumbling landscapes. Bad Friday (265 pages) relives the most powerful quake in North American history, and the ensuing tidal waves that left homes broken, children orphaned, and infrastructure decimated. Yet, from within the…

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The Tlingit Indians, by Aurel Krause

In 1881, two German geographers were on their way to the continental United States from the Bering Sea Coast when they came upon a Native population in southeast Alaska that had formed a society far more complex than those of most other North American tribes. Upon return to Germany, Aurel Krause published “The Tlingit Indians.”…

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Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon, by Mary Albanese

Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon (216 pages) follows a young upstate New York woman who begins the adventure of a life-time as she moves away from her safe and conventional path.  She is unable to resist the excitement and challenge of a chance to become a geological explorer in Alaska, where she maps remote wilderness areas…

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Cold River Spirits, by Jan Harper-Haines

Cold River Spirits (192 pages) is a wryly humorous and inspirational story about a proud Alaska Native family struggling to survive in two worlds. Sam and Louise Harper and their ten children make a soul-grinding transition into a modern white-dominated society where they face bigotry, poverty, and illness. Yet, Louise, the Athabascan matriarch, remains in…

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Hooked! by Leslie Layland Fields

The rousing sea stories are all here: The dramas of near-death battles, the sickening tragedy of lovers and friends lost to the waters – but this is not the whole story. Hooked! (172 pages) represents an extraordinary holistic view of Alaskan fishing: Not just the dying, but the living; not just the obsessive doing of…

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Eskimo Star, by Lael Morgan

The blazing marquee of the plush Astor Theater in New York City billed the 1933 premier of “Eskimo” as “THE BIGGEST PICTURE EVER MADE,” propelling an 27-year-old Inupiat Eskimo from Candle, Alaska, to overnight stardom. The handsome actor was not only the first Alaskan to become a Hollywood movie star but also the first non-white…

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