Fans pick 85 books like Alaska Wilderness

Before “Mardie” Murie became the guardian of America’s conservation conscience, she was a young bride traveling halfway across Alaska to marry a man she barely knew. Together Olaus and Mardie Murie lived a wilderness life always awed by the landscape and its wild inhabitants. Did things “change with children?” she was once asked. “No," Mardie smiled sweetly, “we just took them with us.”

This is the Muries’ story from those early years through their travels in the Arctic National Wildlife Area (ANWR) and support for the Wilderness Act. I first read this book long before I battled mosquitoes on the Koyukuk River, as they had on their honeymoon, and hiked up Double Mountain above their 1956 camp on the Sheenjak. Hosting Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas that summer, their joint efforts led to the creation of ANWR.

Mountaineering is at the core of Alaska’s history. Many books—old and new—chronicle amazing exploits throughout the state; however, at all levels of audacity, tragedy, a bit of luck, and ultimate triumph, the first winter ascent of North America’s highest summit rises to the top of the heap. Art Davidson’s writing is as gripping as the story itself. 

In 1967, a summer ascent of what is called by its Athabascan name, Denali, was still considered unusual; any winter attempt was judged suicidal. Three team members reached the top only to have their lives hang in the balance on the descent. Originally, published soon after the climb, Minus 148˚ has remained in print for more than fifty years, a testament to its staying power, just like that of Art Davidson and his two companions.

Alaska’s politics have always been a blood sport, in part because participants are usually down-to-earth, no-nonsense Alaskans bound and determined to do what they think is right no matter the consequences—even if it costs them an election. 

A former Marine pilot with the famed “Black Sheep” squadron, Jay Hammond came north as a bush pilot and at statehood in 1959 was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives. His self-deprecating accounts of the political battles of the next quarter of a century, including the Permanent Fund, are sure to bring more than a chuckle. I once looked out an aircraft window to see a small plane upside down on a dirt runway at Hamond’s homestead some miles from Port Alsworth. Inquiring, I was told, “Oh, don't worry, Jay’s fine; he just bounced on a bad landing.”

There are many books recounting living the wilderness lifestyle in Alaska. At the top of the list is probably Dick Proenecke’s One Man’s Wilderness. But The Hard Way Home deserves to be there, too. Steve Kahn has an engaging personal writing style that makes you think you are sitting by the fire in his cabin listening to his tales. 

And there are some whoppers: from boating on Lake Clark in imprenatrable fog to tramping the hillsides in search of Dall sheep, to being forced to walk miles through an unexpected autumn snowfall to be flown out from a hunt. Remembering idyllic summers at Farewell Lake to the horrors of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and much in between, Kahn writes like a guy who knows the real Alaska.

Hoping to gain perspective on his troubled marriage, the deaths of friends, and the vagaries of middle age, charter-boat captain Lynn Schooler commits to a walkabout along the “Lost Coast,” one of Southeast Alaska’s wildest stretches.

What begins as a voyage of introspection soon becomes a grueling march—through pelting rain, jungle-like brush, and ankle-busting boulder fields—that climaxes in a long face-off with a rogue bear and the terrifying crossing of a meltwater torrent.

Just getting to this trail-less wilderness in Glacier Bay National Park tests Schooler's mettle; waves pound his small vessel, and boat-swallowing currents threaten his entry into Lituya Bay. On my Brooks Range traverse, I too was moving steadily toward home (in my case, Nome) a knowledge that powered each step and oar stroke.

Having climbed North America’s highest peak 3 times, Denali’s Howl describes a horrific situation on a mountain I’m all too familiar with.

The weather patterns, distance, and size of Denali make it an unforgiving peak to climb. I couldn’t put this book down as Hall recounted the dire scenario the climbers went through resulting in tragedy.

Although I happen to know that poet Anne Coray intended this to be an environmentalist novel (a town threatened with doom by a giant mining operation), this beautifully written story set in the fictitious town of Lost Mountain in remote Western Alaska is an example of how Alaskans come together in the face of threats to the beauty and natural wonder of our great land. It may be about the land, but it is the cast of quirky characters that makes it human. 

Also environmentally themed (a town threatened by a giant clear-cutting lumber operation), Whispering Alaska is ultimately a family story of twin sisters coming to Alaska. I loved the way Jones depicts the vastly different twin girls: one compliant and friendly, the other withdrawn and driving her father nuts. Tolstoy famously said all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. Well, this family is struggling with the loss of the girl’s mother on top of trying to find their places in the rainy Southeast coastal town. Listed as “middle-grade” Y/A, it’s a great read for adults interested in Alaska too. 

Small town that you will want a realtor for: Sunset Ridge, AK

I actually read this book after I started my Darling Men series, and it’s a good thing it happened in that order. Because if I had read Moose Be Love beforehand, I don’t think I would’ve bothered writing my series at all.

This book perfected the Alaskan small-town sweet romance! I definitely recommend it if you aren’t sure if you would rather get lost in a heartwarming story, or go on a vacation to Alaska. Good news, you don’t have to choose! Not with Moose Be Love in your personal library!

McPhee refers to the “gin-clear” water of Alaskan rivers, and his prose is equally lucid. It is also dense with facts, each sentence packed like a canoe or loaded raft. Serialized in the New Yorker in the 1970s, the “The Encircled River” section describes his canoe journey down a 60-mile segment of Salmon River, the most northern river above the Arctic Circle.

With four others who worked for the U.S. government, they studied the river as a national wild river Congress would be voting on to become part of the Kobuk Valley National Monument. The legislation passed under Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. Pair with his Survival of a Birch Bark Canoe.