Alaska Books

A newly-wed couple arriving in Norther Alaska in 1942 might have perished in a blinding blizzard during their first dog-team trip but for the sixth-sense of their Eskimo musher. Other harrowing experiences included landing in a small plane that had lost one wheel in flight, a close encounter with death in a savage storm on the Bering Sea and being caught aloft in a bush plane during a perilous "white-out" snow storm. But mostly this book is about a decade of hands-on service among the Eskimos in three villages in the land of long summer days and long winter nights - memoirs of heart-ache, joy, humor, friendships and great rewards.
--- from book's back cover

Northern Harbors & Small Ports by harbor master and port director Alan Sorum (Valdez, Alaska) is an informed and informative documentation of the day-to-day operation and long-term maintenance of the harbors of the northern regions of Alaska. Introducing the reader to techniques, maintenance, repair, materials, structures, hazardous materials, utilities, harbor economics, and safety from the knowledgeable perspective of Valdez Alaska's harbor master, Northern Harbors & Small Ports acts as an excellent and reliable reference. A seminal contribution to professional, corporate, and academic library Nautical Studies reference collections, Northern Harbors & Small Ports is confidently recommended to all readers with an interest in harbor-economics, as well as those seeking a greater understanding of all that it means to make their living in harbor-based operations.

In this book a distinguished historian tells how devoted citizen activists persuaded Congress to save the greatest landscapes of Alaska. The Alaska Lands Act saved more than 100 million acres in national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas. The author traces the story of this law from its roots in the 1960s to its enactment in 1980. This book amazed me with its rich and accurate details about the work done by conservation groups, ranging from Alaska grassroots groups to the national Alaska Coalition. (I was a minor player in this campaign in the early years and later was an observer from my job in the Department of the Interior.)

The author has a rare understanding of how citizen groups function. He describes how people from diverse backgrounds and different generations, with diverse skills, can pool their efforts to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The author tells much about the interactions among the crucial players working to save wild Alaska: Alaskan conservation activists, national conservation leaders, the two crucial congressional leaders John Seiberling and Morris Udall, Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, and President Jimmy Carter. He gives credit to the millions of people all over the country who wrote letters, spoke at public hearings, and buttonholed their congressmembers.

"Northern Landscapes" is worthwhile reading for anyone who wants to help save wild places. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is constantly threatened by boomers proposing oil drilling, and the rain forest of the Tongass National Forest still needs more defenders. From Maine to California, each of us in our own part of the United States can find wild places worth saving, and we can join hands with local groups who are organizing to save them.

Now in an updated second edition, Not Just A Pretty Face: Dolls And Human Figurines In Alaska Native Cultures is a striking showcase of dolls and dollmaking, exploring their role in the lives of native Alaskans from ancient ivory carvings to the modern tourist market. Filled with color photographs, Not Just A Pretty Face is both an artistic and anthropological showcase. The text surveys the history of dolls and dollmaking, and includes interviews with dollmakers as well as speculations upon the future of native arts. A lay reader-friendly showcase for anthropology shelves, Native American studies shelves, and doll collector shelves alike.

Helge Ingstad, a Norwegian adventurer with extensive experience in Arctic living, spent the winter of 1949-1950 with the Nunamiut Eskimos, a nomadic caribou-hunting band living in the Brooks Range of Northern Alaska. Ingstad was a keen observer who was accepted by the Nunamiut and allowed to live and hunt with them. The result is a fascinating account of a people long adapted to the challenges of a tenuous life in the high Arctic.

Ingstad recounts the difficulties of life in an region where temperatives are below zero for months at a time where virtually all resources had to be earned from the environment. As Ingstad notes, store-bought goods beyond rifles and catridges were rare; the Nunamiut were highly proficient caribou hunters and made good use of the few resources offered by their immediate environment, such as willow wood for tools, fire, and tent poles, and moss for weatherproofing caribou skin tents. The Nunamiut displaced periodically by dog sledge to track the caribou or to camp near sources of wood. Ingstad's accounts of hunting trips are especially vivid, as the Nunamiut practiced skills honed over generations.

Ingstad did his best to capture the dynamics of the small community in which he lived. The Nunamiut, without television or radio, relied on traditions of story-telling and song to entertain each other and to train their children. Ingstad is successful in sketching some of the social customs that allowed the Nunamiut to live in close quarters and depend on each other without a formal structure of government.

Ingstad's account is especially poignant in that the nomadic lifestyle of interior Alaska was dying out even as he made his observations. Contact with the European communities would bring a adaption to more permanent settlements.

This book is highly recommended to those interested in life at high latitudes. Ingstad's account is limited in the sense that he could only observe the Nunamiut for a relatively short time, but it is a highly readable and sympathetic portrait that he provides.

This is a beautiful book of photos relating to the Pacific Northwest. I live in Yakima and was happily surprised to find "Y is for Yakama" - they even spelled the Yakama's name with the newly adopted spelling. It goes through listing animals, geographic features and native people. This is a fantastic book for anyone, but especially those wanting to teach their children about the Pacific Northwest. . and Yakima!!

This book provides an excellent overview of Plate Tectonic processes, using one proposed line of events which may have led to the formation of present day Southcentral Alaska. The book also gives locations and descriptions of geological sites in the Sound, for those lucky enough to cruise there. For people interested in learning about the geology of Southcentral Alaska, this book is a great place to start.

The most powerful earthquake in US history happened in Alaska in 1964 and generated the world's most powerful tsunamis, killing over a hundred Alaskans. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the disaster, this video offers interviews recorded in 2002 and 2003 with some of those who observed - and escaped - the tsunamis that day. Their details come alive with photos and 3D computer graphics which cover the science of tsunamis and how they form and strike. Running Time: 25 minutes

In her several essays on the landscapes through which Carolyn Servid has traveled, from India to Alaska, she lets us understand her secret longing, the drive of her restlessness and her seeking for something outside herself. She also takes us into the journey with memories and descriptions that are powerful and simple. She describes India so you feel the heat and hear the music. She gives us Alaska as close to the way it is, which is impossible to capture completely, but Carolyn comes as close as anyone I know.

The economy in Southeast Alaska depended for a long time on timber harvest as one of its foundations. That is changing and has changed. In her chapter "Thoughts on Trees: Who Could Live Without This Grace?" Carolyn takes us on a very different journey than one might expect. This is no purely "greenie" diatribe but a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about value, comunity, value-added, nature and humanity in its intricate struggle for survival and our constant battle to find and place meaning where it can do either harm or much good.

It is clear throughout this book that Carolyn loves this land and its people and its problems. Falling in love with the landscape over and over again, she reminds us how fragile we are, how implacable are all of nature's forces, and how, if we listen, we can learn.

This is on my "I recommend this book to everyone I know" list. It is also a very good introduction to life in Southeast Alaska.

This book is very entertaining. It's full of laughs with a good measure of suspense and adventure mixed in. The book is mainly a collection of the experiences of Bob Bell, an Alaskan Bush Pilot, who shares a lifetime of misadventures in the Alaskan bush. It's well written with a down to earth style that leaves you feeling like you've known the author for years. For those who might someday actually find themselves in the Alaskan bush,you might even learn a few things that could save your life!