It’s Always Uphill from the Dock, by Ann B. Irish

It’s Always Uphill from the Dock, by Ann B. Irish Here is a look at the Puget Sound islands throughout history—the San Juan Islands, Whidbey Island, Bainbridge and Vashon Islands, and many others. Featured are the people who have come to the islands: Native Americans, explorers, entrepreneurs, settlers and visitors. We learn of the Native…

Read More

The Rocky Mountain Revolution, by Stewart Holbrook

Harry Orchard, professional killer, rolled up a record in the days when the mine owners and the labor unions waged what was virtually civil war. That Orchard outlived the Western Federation of Miners and that he held one of the top records for length of terms a life prisoner–all this is unimportant compared to the…

Read More

Little Annie Oakley and Other Rugged People, by Stewart Holbrook

From the brick-paved streets of Boston and New England, to the deserts of Arizona, to the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest, beloved author and columnist Stewart Holbrook takes his readers down uncharted paths in a series of delightful pieces. Little Annie Oakley and Other Rugged People (210 pages) is pure Americana that delves into…

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

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

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.”…

Read More

Red Thunder, by David Matheson

Red Thunder (280 pages) is a memoir of a People. The story draws from the oral history of the Schi-tsu-umsh Indians, now called the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in Northern Idaho. This unique portrayal of pre-European Native Americans is an authentic work displaying the rich cultural teachings behind Native American life. Red Thunder is not only about courage, love…

Read More

In Search of the Kuskokwim, by Stephen Spurr

The United States knew relatively little about Alaska prior to the turn of the century when the Klondike Gold Rush was about to attract thousands of stampeders north, many of them spilling over into Alaska as more gold was discovered on the Yukon River and her tributaries. The government had few reliable maps of the…

Read More

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