The Accidental Adventurer, by Barbara Washburn

Barbara Washburn never set out to become a mountaineering pioneer, but she wasn’t content to be a stay-at-home wife, either. In 1947, defying social convention, Washburn became the first woman to climb Alaska’s Mt. McKinley. Accidental Adventures (192 pages) chronicles her journeys with her husband, Bradford Washburn, on other expeditions to Alaska, the Grand Canyon,…

Read More

Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis

Based on an Athabascan legend passed along from mother to daughter for many generations on the upper Yukon River in Alaska, this is the tragic and shocking story–with a surprise ending–of two elderly women abandoned by a migrating tribe that faces starvation brought on by unusually harsh Arctic weather and a shortage of fish and…

Read More