Posts Tagged ‘History’
The Spill, by Sharon Bushell and Stan Jones
Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, sixty-two men and women share personal stories of what they saw, how they reacted, and how they coped with North America’s worst tanker oil spill. Their anger and anguish had receded from view like oil seeping into rocky crevices on the beaches of Prince…
Read MoreReaching for a Star, by Gerald Bowkett
In 1955, with the drive for statehood stalled, a group of men and women from all over Alaska, delegates with strong convictions, given to strong, often colorful expression, created a state constitution that is now considered a model. Reaching for a Star (176 pages) follows the long road of proving that Alaska was politically mature,…
Read More49 at Last! by Claus-M Naske
49 at Last! (350 pages) reads like a plot-line for a political thriller; author Dr. Claus-M. Naske reveals how the Alaska statehood movement struggled through most of the 20th Century, decade after decade, always blocked by powerful special interests. Finally, the unrelenting pro-statehood forces won support from President Dwight D. Eisenhower–a breakthrough for their cause–and…
Read MoreEchoes of Fury, by Frank Parchman
Former investigative journalist Frank Parchman becomes embedded in the lives of eight people whose fates are profoundly altered and ultimately become intertwined in the aftermath of the volcanic fury in southwest Washington state. The story begins on March 20, 1980. After 123 years of geologic tranquility, a swarm of earthquakes signals that America’s youngest and…
Read MoreA Cheechako Goes to the Klondike, by C.W. Adams
The Klondike Stampede caused a transportation boom in the north, where in its thrilling heyday about 250 wooden steamboats operated in the Yukon River drainage of Alaska and the Yukon. The sternwheelers became gold rush icons. But the hardy, pragmatic entrepreneurs who ran the boats were lured by profits, not romance. In 1901, a passenger’s…
Read MoreGood Time Girls, by Lael Morgan
In the boomtowns of the Alaska-Yukon stampedes, where gold dust was common currency, the rarest commodity was an attractive woman, and her company could be costly. Author Lael Morgan takes you into the heart of the gold rush demimonde, that “half world” of prostitutes, dance hall girls, and entertainers who lived on the outskirts of…
Read MoreCrude Dreams, by Jack Roderick
In February 1968, the rumors became reality: An ARCO drilling rig has struck oil — lots of oil — on Alaska’s remote North Slope. Jack Roderick’s Crude Dreams: A Personal History of Oil and Politics in Alaska (448 pages) reads like a novel as he tells of the risky, expensive, and mostly frustrating search for…
Read MoreCheating Death, by Larry Kaniut
A chilling collection of survival stories from pilots, hikers, hunters, climbers, boaters, and fishermen who confront their mortality — and live to tell about it! You will be astonished by the close calls of a young man who clings desperately to life on an iceberg in the lower Susitna River… a woman who struggles frantically…
Read MoreAmazing Pipeline Stories, by Dermot Cole
In the 1970s, the world’s largest construction companies invaded Alaska in a wild rush to build the 800-mile $8 billion trans-Alaska pipeline. Workers by the tens of thousands headed north, hoping to make their fortunes working on the pipeline, in a stampede that dramatically affected Alaska. Amazing Pipeline Stories (224 pages) explores the avalanche of…
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