Posts Tagged ‘Memoir’
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…
Read MoreDreaming 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…
Read MoreEskimo 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…
Read MoreGoing to Extremes, by Joe McGinniss
This is the fourth edition of Going to Extremes (306 pages) a work that always has been controversial in Alaska. Yet, it is an important and highly readable classic work that captures a portrait frozen in time of a raw state in turmoil during the oil boom. McGinnis went north to find out if there…
Read MoreThe 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 MoreSurviving the Island of Grace, by Leslie Leyland Fields
Surviving the Island of Grace (352 pages) is a powerfully rendered story of a twenty-year-old newlywed transplanted from New Hampshire to a remote island in the immense Gulf of Alaska. Here, she must learn to live communally with her new family in primitive conditions without running water, electricity, or contact with the outside world. Even…
Read MoreSaving for the Future, by David Rose
David Rose became the first director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, playing a crucial role in managing the multi-billion dollar savings account created by voters after the discovery of oil. Saving for the Future (254 pages) is his account of the formative days of the fund and the inner workings of a truly unique institution.…
Read MoreMoments Rightly Placed, by Ray Hudson
Along a thousand-mile chain of treeless and windswept islands, Unalaska is perched at the end of the world, or, as some prefer to say, the beginning. In 1964, Ray Hudson, 22, landed in Unalaska village with a brand-new college degree, eager to teach. The Aleuts had seen many outsiders who had come but seldom stayed…
Read MoreBoom Town Boy, by Jack de Yonge
This is the witty, ironic, and deliciously outspoken coming-of-age memoir of Jack de Yonge set in Fairbanks, Alaska–a once thriving little mining town slowly dying in the remote center of the vast territory in 1934. As Jack’s dad liked to say, no matter what direction you went out of town, you soon arrived in Nowhere.…
Read MoreTales of Alaska’s Bush Rat Governor, by Jay Hammond
Jay Hammond’s hilarious, adventure-packed autobiography is filled with candid insights on the independent people and faraway places of our nation’s largest state. “In 1946 Hammond, a Methodist minister’s son from New York State and a Marine pilot during WW II, realized his dream of moving to Alaska. Once there he had many jobs, including trapping,…
Read More