The last frontier

Review by Booklist Review

These 58 stories first saw publication in Alaska Magazine (or its predecessor, The Alaska Sportsman) between January 1935 (the first issue) and March 2002. These mostly first-person accounts tell of wolf packs in the wild; hunting for gold, walrus, salmon, moose, and bears; life among the Inuit; trapping foxes with the help of Eskimos; and the killing of grizzly bears by Koyukon Indians. Others discuss long summer nights where it never really gets dark, dance-hall girls, hiking trails, rock and snow avalanches, surviving an attack by mosquitoes, and an ascent of Denali by dogsled. Environmentalists may be upset by some tales in which the writers boast of killing animals, but the stories, overall, are pleasant reading. The book includes 16 pages of magazine cover illustrations. --George Cohen

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Taken from the pages of Alaska Magazine and its predecessor, The Alaska Sportsman, these stories represent 67 years of work by Alaskan writers. The tales are as diverse as the writers themselves, ranging from a memoir piece by a nurse who managed a hospital in Barrow in 1921 to a present-day account of a bear-watching trip to Mount Katmai by mystery writer Dana Stabenow. One chapter recounts the exploits of the 97th Division of the Army Corps of Engineers, an all-black unit that helped build the Alaska Highway in 1942-43. Another tells the frightening tale of a man trapped beneath a capsized fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska. Selected for their clear depiction of Alaska, past and present, the 59 stories are accompanied by reproductions of Alaska Magazine covers dating from 1935 to 2002. A noteworthy addition to any travel collection owing to the unique nature and diversity of the material. Mary V. Welk, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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