The Flight of the Arctic Tern, by Constance Helmericks

In June of 1947, Alaskan adventurers, Constance and Bud Helmericks, returned to the arctic wilderness in their first airplane. Originally published in 1952, Connie’s fifth book, The Flight of the Arctic Tern (342 pages), chronicles their lives from constructing a log cabin in the Brooks Range to flying the Arctic coast in search of their Inuit…

Read More

Down the Wild River North, by Constance Helmericks

In suburban Arizona, 1964, Connie Helmericks announced to her two daughters, 12-year-old Ann and 14-year-old Jean, “We’re going to make a canoe expedition to the Arctic Ocean.” And for two successive summers, that’s exactly what they did. Down the Wild River North (328 pages) is the vividly told story of their adventures in the remote northern reaches…

Read More

Riding the Wild Side of Denali, by Miki and Julie Collins

Identical twins Miki and Julie Collins trap, hunt, fish, and garden in Alaska’s wilderness just north of Denali National Park in Alaska’s vast interior. Their closest companions are loyal sled dogs and Icelandic horses, which eat fish and can withstand northern extremes. Whether taking a 1,900-mile excursion around Alaska by dog sled, defending their huskies…

Read More

James J. Hill: A Great Life in Brief, by Stewart Holbrook

James J. Hill (158 pages), the “Empire Builder,” (1838-1916) was a Canadian-American railroad executive with the Great Northern Railway, responsible for building railways across the northern US. Part visionary, part robber baron, part buccaneer, Stewart Holbrook brings his story to life, in brief, as well as the lives of the other movers and shakers in…

Read More

Iditarod Memories, by Jon Van Zyle

Iditarod Memories (168 pages) is a celebration of beloved musher-artist Jon Van Zyle’s years of annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race posters. This 40th anniversary nostalgic collection includes Jon’s first 40 years of Iditarod posters, and, published for the first time ever, 40 years of limited edition lithographs. With stories written by his wife, Jona Van…

Read More

Spirits of Southeast Alaska, by James Devereaux

Ghostly footsteps and flickering lights, a silhouette in the window of an abandoned building, a restless presence at the scene of a sunken ship, spectral wails and poltergeist theft of office supplies, mythical Native American legends, and other paranormal happenings scattered across the Alaskan panhandle come together in Spirits of Southeast Alaska (140 pages), a grand…

Read More

Holy Old Mackinaw, by Stewart Holbrook

Holy Old Mackinaw (256 pages) is the rough and lusty story of the American lumberjack at work and at play, from Maine to Oregon. In these modern days timber is harvested by cigarette-smoking married men, whose children go to school in buses, but for nearly three hundred years the logger was a real pioneer who ranged…

Read More

Alaska-Yukon Place Names, by James Phillips

Romantic history-filled names have long fired the imagination of every reader and visitor to the Northland. In Alaska-Yukon Place Names, author James W. Phillips takes the vacationing tourist, historian, and armchair traveler through the most memorable places in the Alaska-Yukon region. Since the most popular routes north to Alaska and the Yukon are the Marine Highway…

Read More

People of the Noatak, by Claire Fejes

In 1946, Clair Fejes moved from New York City, where she had been exhibiting in the A.C.A. Gallery, to Fairbanks, Alaska. She ultimately became an artist in a pioneering community, and traveled to a Noatak hunting camp on the edge of the Kotzebue Sound, where she was irrevocably inspired by the people and landscape of…

Read More

Alaska’s Artist Jon Van Zyle, by Jon Van Zyle

As a youth, Jon remembers his artistic mother encouraging him and his twin brother to express their creativity. It worked. Both Jon and his twin brother are professional artists: Jon in Alaska and his brother in Hawaii. His love of the outdoors lured Jon to Alaska and the entire 49th State has become his inspiration. …

Read More