Posts Tagged ‘wilderness’
Bering Sea Blues, by Joe Upton
This a gripping memoir of a winter season of crab-fishing in the Bering Sea, filled with scary moments, killer ice, dangerous work, and-for the lucky ones-financial rewards. For others, survival was their reward. Just 25, Joe Upton was the youngest guy aboard when the 104-foot Flood Tide pulled out of Seattle in March 1971 headed…
Read MoreIn 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 MoreYukon Quest, by Lew Freedman
Over beer and hamburgers at the Two Rivers Lodge near Fairbanks, Alaska, a small group of mushers conceived a gutsy idea for a new sled dog race that would be more challenging than any other marathon race in the Far North. In 1984, mushers organized the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race between Fairbanks and…
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 MoreSurviving Alaska, by Mary Ames
One can only hope never to face the many life-threatening dangers and just plain annoyances that journalist, pilot, and outdoorswoman Mary Ames warns about in Surviving Alaska (160 pages), a guide that is both useful and entertaining. You’ll learn… what to do if you find yourself in the path of an oncoming avalanche… what to…
Read MoreAlaska Blues, by Joe Upton
This is Upton’s award winning account of a commercial fishing season in Southeast Alaska – the lonely hours at sea as well as the close community of the fishing fleet; the sudden, violent storms and glorious days of sun; the difficult, frenzied work and quiet moments of contemplation. In this new third edition from Epicenter…
Read MoreSisters, by Samme and Aileen Gallaher
In 1926, Aileen Gallaher, a beautiful young woman, runs away from her difficult life in California, traveling alone by train to Seattle, then by steamship to Valdez, Alaska, where she is met by trapper Clyde C. “Slim” Williams, and travels deep into the Copper River Valley. There, Aileen finds an even more difficult life. Slim…
Read MoreViews: Washington (revised 2nd edition)
Photos, like the written word, tell a story. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all. Views: Washington (80 pages) collects color photographs of Washington State by 28 area photographers. From the Columbia River in the South to the Cascades region in the North; from the coastal waters of the Oympic Peninsula in the West, to…
Read MoreOn the Edge of Nowhere, by James Huntington and Lawrence Elliott
For sheer excitement and adventure, few novels match the true-life story of James Huntington. The son of a white trapper and Indian mother, Huntington learned early to fight for survival in Alaska’s remote Kuskokwim region, where life was hard. Huntington’s mother once walked 1,000 miles in the dead of winter to return to her family.…
Read MoreStrange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon, by Ed Ferrell
From the pages of early-day northern newspapers comes a startling collection of accounts of the extraordinary and the unexplained: Mammoths discovered frozen whole in the icy grip of a glacier. A tropical valley hidden deep in the wilderness. Sea serpents sighted off the Bering Sea Coast. A ghostly maiden’s endless search for the young miner…
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