80 books like Being Caribou

No list like this would be complete without a great mountaineering book.

The story of North America’s deadliest climbing disaster, in 1967, serves as a reminder how quickly even well-planned adventure can turn into tragedy. Hall, the five-year-old son of the park's superintendent at the time of the events he describes, puts you squarely into the boots and onto the crampons of these mountaineers.

Having climbed Denali myself once, with a buddy, under atrocious conditions, this book again brought home the fact that small decisions can have unforseen, lethal consequences, especially on a mountain that brews its own weather. I have seen snow and clouds roll in and blanket the view within thirty minutes, up there in the “death zone.”   

I know this book’s journalist co-author, so I may be a bit biased. But I’ve also had scary grizzly encounters—many during my arctic traverse—and few books capture the terror as does this account of a twenty-five-year-old blinded permanently in a bear attack.

Dan Bigley had not embarked on a grand adventure; he was on a trail through the woods, returning from a day of salmon fishing. Like me, Dan used to take troubled kids into the outdoors, so I easily identify with him. His true adventure, and true courage, shows in how he mended his life and even gave it new meaning.

After five reconstructive surgeries, he reconnected with a woman he’d fallen for just before the trauma and resumed his role as a caring member of his community.  

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.

This is a small gem of a book that I’ve had for years and have read multiple times.

It’s a retelling of an Athabaskan legend that has been passed from mother to daughter for generations on the upper Yukon River in Alaska. The old women of the title belonged to a large migratory tribe that was slowly starving to death in a bitter Arctic winter. The chief and his male council determined the tribe had a better chance of survival if it left the useless old women behind to die.

What happened next? Read the book. I know you’ll love it as much as I do. It’s a triumphant story of the courage of women set against the inadequate leadership of men.

The highly readable Wealth Woman, by longtime Alaskan Deb Vanasse, fills a major gap on the Klondike bookshelf. It is the first full biography of Kate Carmack, the Tagish woman who was wife, sister, and aunt to the men whose discovery launched the gold rush. And it flips the conventional Klondike narrative on its head and considers the event from the generally overlooked perspective of the Indigenous communities and individuals whose territories were overrun by gold-seekers.

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. 

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. 

I first read this novel when I was 11–my parents had it in the study, and for some reason, I picked it up one day–probably because there was nothing on TV, and I couldn’t stop reading. I was captivated by this book; it was like nothing I’d ever read, describing a place that was so different from my midwestern home.

It’s the story of Alaska and its history–told in a pacy, thrilling way. I still remember this book 40 years on, which says something! 

Alaska’s Indigenous people—expert storytellers and artists—have yet to author many works of fiction, so it’s a pleasure to have discovered this new novel by a writer of Inupiaq heritage.

Set in 1893 during a smallpox epidemic, Sivulliq features two viewpoint characters—an Inupiaq mother whose small daughter is kidnapped by a commercial whaling captain and a Black whaler on the whaling ship. The fast-paced plot follows the family’s efforts to find the ship and rescue the child, while life aboard the ship is narrated by the reluctant whaler.

The historic truths brought to life here include the devastation of Native Alaskans from disease and famine, the prevalence of Black whalers and the often-brutal conditions on board, and Inupiaq spiritual connections (then and now) to the land and ancestors. 

Before I went to Alaska for the first time, I did some background reading and thankfully discovered this book and the writing of John McPhee. He and Alaska were made for each other. He’s the kind of writer who is interested in everything, and everyone, and conveys his curiosity and his discoveries with enthusiasm. Alaska is unique, as is McPhee’s style of writing, jumping from topic to topic as the mood – and his journey – takes him, and hauling the reader along with him. He’s the kind of traveling companion who’s forever saying: let’s see what’s down there, I wonder how that works, let’s go talk to that guy.