I have worked and lived at sea for months at a time, and I have many memories of the sea, good and bad. I have lived through extreme Alaskan storms, fished in remote coves, and worked beyond exhaustion over and over. Working at sea taught me some important lessons about life and the possibility of sudden death. I experienced the romance of the sea from a young age, and it has inspired my writing.
Spike Walker is another writer that has inspired me. Working at sea in Alaska is to tempt fate amid the savage spectacle of nature in raw form. Men are trapped on boats for weeks and even months. Even a safe journey can drive men to the edge. However, in Alaska, disaster can arise at moment’s notice—and often does. Walker tells Alaska sea stories better than anyone. In Nights of Ice, he shares seven amazing stories of disaster and survival. The stories come alive, as Walker has worked on the edge himself. Now he tells some of the greatest Alaskan sea stories ever.
Spike Walker has spent more than a decade fishing in the subzero hell of Alaska's coastal waters. This collection--coming on the heels of his classic memoir Working on the Edge--is a testament to the courage of those who brave nature's wrath each fishing season, and to the uncontrolled power of nature herself.. The crewmen in Nights of Ice face a constant onslaught of roaring waves, stories-high swells, and life-stealing ice. Tested by the elements, these seamen battle for their vessels and their lives, on every page evincing a level of courage and a will to live seldom found elsewhere in…
I've been captivated with legends of witches, vampires, faeries, fae, and most magical beings since childhood. Studied and wrote about them with a mysterious twist most of my life. I spent eighteen years as a paralegal in a criminal law firm. Also animal and wildlife rescue is my passion. Working with sanctuaries gives you an up close and personal understanding of why these institutions are necessary. The first book in my second series, A Witch’s Journey, documents a witch who is passionate about animal rescue, and her efforts to build a sanctuary on her family’s enchanted land with the help of her family, friends, and a former Navy SEAL.
I love paranormal stories about, vampires, werewolves, faeries, you name it, if it’s done well I’ll read it.
Molly Harper tells them well and interjects them with snarky humor. You will laugh out loud at times. Her characters are wonderful and her descriptions of places, characters, and situations will make you feel like you are there.
Even in Grundy, Alaska, it’s unusual to find a naked guy with a bear trap clamped to his ankle on your porch. But when said guy turns into a wolf, recent southern transplant Mo Wenstein has no difficulty identifying the problem. Her surly neighbor Cooper Graham—who has been openly critical of Mo’s ability to adapt to life in Alaska—has trouble of his own. Werewolf trouble.
For Cooper, an Alpha in self-imposed exile from his dysfunctional pack, it’s love at first sniff when it comes to Mo. But Cooper has an even more pressing concern on his mind. Several…
When I was a youngster, my parents took me on 6-week journeys across the United States by car. We'd stop in a small town each night, and I would explore on foot and meet other kids at the swimming pool or ice cream shop. That slow mode of travel has become my default, and I've spent years exploring back roads, small towns, and bywaters by car, bicycle, and sailboat. I write about the strangers I've found and the "candy" I've gotten from them: strangers have lessons for all of us and are not as dangerous as we've been told.
Sometimes, when we read history, it seems so dry and different from our own lives that it's hard to comprehend. In the 1920s and 30s, June Burn homesteaded on an island in the San Juans, lived in Alaska, and traveled across the country with a donkey cart. Yet I can envision myself in her adventurous life because her views were so much like my own. She was a feminist and a strong, brave woman who used her writing as an excuse to talk to strangers.
Courage, gaiety, and a fresh approach to life are reflected in this unconventional autobiography. It is a story of twentieth-century pioneers as resourceful as ever they were in the days of the old frontier. June Burn and her husband Farrar determined to go their own sweet way, enjoying first hand living and not surrendering to the routines of a workaday world. Through the years they had some high and glorious adventures, which included homesteading a gumdrop in the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, teaching Eskimos near Siberia, and exploring the United States by donkey cart with a baby…
She’s hiding from pain. He’s lost everything but his dog. When fresh air and second chances bring them together, can they rediscover true love?
If you enjoy kind-hearted heroes, small towns, and more humor than heat, you’ll adore this contemporary Alaskan romance! A Darling Handyman is the feel-good first book in the Darling Men series. All books in the series can be read alone and in any order.
I’m the author of 25 children’s books, and I recently moved to a small mountain town that has come to co-exist with wild black bears by learning how to properly store and dispose of our food (rather than the alternative, which was to eliminate the bears!). Ever since I’ve lived there, I’ve been fascinated by human-bear interactions, having a few of my own now! When Yosemite Conservancy put out a call for children’s stories, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about—how people can help keep bears safe and wild through proper food storage. I’m a huge advocate for bears and all wildlife!
What I found most enjoyable about If I Were a Bearis that it uses a rhyming text to share simple facts about various Alaskan bears. It’s a lovely combination of lyrical writing and nonfiction, with soft watercolor illustrations by Erik Brooks. Young children love hearing rhyming texts (their brains actually need rhythm and patterns for healthy development!), so whenever I find a book with well-written rhyme that conveys factual information, it’s a winner in my book!
From the author and illustrator of If I Were a Whale and If I Were A Bird, comes this colorful, rhyming board book that playfully features bears found in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. Beautiful watercolor illustrations of bears of all sizes are sure to delight readers young and old.
Toddlers will love this fun introduction to bears, in this beautifully illustrated board book that shares facts about these amazing animals in an imaginative way.
If I were a polar bear my ears would be small, my feet would be furry, I'd have barely any tail at all.
I followed the call of the North from Germany to Alaska in 1989—too much Jack London in my formative years, you might say. After living in a cabin without running water and getting a degree in anthropology in Fairbanks, I drifted into the world of wilderness guiding and outdoors instructing, which for the next twenty-five years determined the course of my life. Human-powered travel, on foot or skis, by raft, canoe, or kayak, has fascinated me ever since. At the same time I became immersed in wildlife and natural history, which, despite threats to the Arctic, still largely play out as they did thousands of years ago.
For five months, the wildlife biologist and his filmmaker wife, on skis and on foot, shadowed the Porcupine caribou herd’s spring migration from boreal forest wintering grounds to their nursery on Alaska’s tussock-studded tundra—“North America’s Serengeti,” or, to the Gwich’in Indians, who depend on the animals for subsistence and spiritual nourishment, “The Place Where Life Begins.”
The couple’s journey impresses me as a long-distance feat, and with its poetic rendering, but foremost with its conservation angle. They raised awareness of fossil fuel extraction that threatens lifeways, both the Gwich’in’s and the caribou’s; after their trip, they ventured to Washington D.C. to lobby for the wildlife refuge’s protection.
The book’s highlight for me is the couple tentbound, whispering—out of consideration—amidst thousands of birthing caribou cows.
For eons, female members of the Porcupine caribou herd have made the journey from their winter feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds-which happen to lie on vast reserves of oil. They once roamed borderless wilderness; now they trek from Canada, where they're protected, to the United States, where they are not.
In April 2003, wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer and filmmaker Leanne Allison set out with the Porcupine caribou herd. Walking along with the animals over four mountain ranges, through hundreds of passes, and across dozens of rivers-a thousand-mile journey altogether, from the Yukon Territory to the Arctic National Wildlife…
I have loved animals my entire life. I know first-hand the calming influence the unconditional love of a dog can bring to a person. In contentious Teams meetings on the computer, I pet my dog to keep calm. If I am sad or anxious, I grab the squeaky toy, and we play tug-of-war. I volunteered at the Animal Welfare Association, a no-kill New Jersey Animal Shelter. Through my work, I gained an understanding of how to assess the non-verbal cues of a dog. I’ve learned that it is essential to understand an animal’s body language more so than the standards and behaviors associated with breeds of dogs.
Kate Shugak, a park service ranger in Alaska, solves crimes with the aid of her canine companion, Mutt. Having a part wolf, part dog companion is integral to the story as Kate finds herself in precarious situations amongst the solitary and foreboding landscape. Kate will draw on her Native American heritage and culture to help her find an ancient artifact that has been missing for decades. Mutt leaps to Kate’s rescue as she uncovers the clues that villains are desperate to keep hidden.
In the newest entry in Dana Stabenow's "New York Times" bestselling "Kate Shugak" series, Kate and the rest of the Park rats are stunned by the death of Old Sam, Kate's eighty-seven-year-old uncle and foster father. In his will, he leaves almost everything to Kate, including a homestead deep in gold mining country that no one knew he had and a letter that reads simply, 'Find my father.' Easier said than done, since Sam's father is something of a mystery: an outsider who disappeared shortly after learning about Sam's existence, he took with him a priceless tribal artifact, a Russian…
Every book on my list has a personal connection. I’ve either been to these locations, have had similar experiences, or have met the authors. The connecting threads of my list are perseverance over incredible odds, survival in a harsh landscape, and the courageous and undefeatable spirit of the characters. I love all these books because they tell great stories about amazing people in the land and environs that I have made my home for my entire life.
William, an Inupiaq Alaskan native, grew up in a sod home on the shore of Kotzebue Sound above the arctic circle. Childhood was a traditional subsistence life, living off the land. Starvation, sickness, and death were real and present threats. His early life contrasted greatly with the rest of his life. William was a crucial negotiator in the Alaska Native land claims settlement, one of the largest and most important in U.S. history. He went on to serve in the Alaska state house and senate. A fascinating story of a struggle for equality and the fight for a better future. This is a classic David and Goliath epic. I’ve worked in Kotzebue and many other Alaska villages, and I see the fruits of Williams's labors everywhere I go.
An alternately charming and harrowing account of over 50 years of one remarkable native Alaskan's life – from living off the land north of the Arctic Circle, to the Alaskan senate, Hensely is a huge hero to his community.
Born twenty-nine miles north of the arctic circle, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley was raised to live the seminomadic life that his Iñupiaq ancestors had lived for thousands of years. In this stirring memoir, he offers us a rare firsthand account of growing up Native Alaskan, and later, in the lower forty-eight, as a…
As a scientist, I love hard science fiction, especially when the story makes me think about the true nature of reality or takes me on an adventure to places unknown. We’ve all read the classics from Clarke, Heinlein, Bear, or Asimov. But books written decades ago are becoming increasingly dated as society progresses into a new century. (Will people of the future really chain smoke? And why are all the characters men?) Never fear, modern hard sci-fi is alive and well. Here are five recent books that tell an intriguing, uplifting, or awe-inspiring story. Even better than the classics, it’s hard sci-fi for the 21st century!
Kathryn is the best sci-fi author you haven’t read. How do I know? I was her critique buddy. We traded chapters as we wrote, each acting as advisor to the other.
I really liked Monkey Girl, a great choice for teen girls. But Project Hannibal is my favorite. Kathryn works at a zoo, so she knows a lot about animals. In Hannibal, she asks, could DNA from extinct woolly mammoths be used to impregnate a modern elephant? And if you could produce mammoth offspring, why do it?
As it turns out, mammoths might be exactly the wildlife our neglected planet needs. Join a flying doctor and her teenage assistant in a grand adventure across the wilderness of Alaska.
I’m a historian who knows women have long lived not-sad lives without children. I’ve spent years researching the full and vibrant lives women without children lived throughout history—lives that often were only possible becausethey didn’t have the responsibilities of motherhood. I’m also a woman living a decidedly not-sad life without kids. And yet, in popular imagination, a woman without kids must be longing to be a mother or grieving the fact that she isn’t. I know firsthand that it can be isolating not to have kids. But in writing about the sheer variety of lives non-mothers lived in the past, I’m trying to show that we’re not alone.
Unlike Ivey’s other book The Snow Child, which grapples with the grief of infertility (a book I also love!), this book considers the opportunities a life without children allows for.
It opens with Lieutenant Colonel Allan Forrester as he prepares to lead an expedition into Alaska in 1885. His wife, Sophie, is an explorer in her own right and plans to accompany him—until they realize she’s pregnant and decide she has to stay behind.
Spoiler: Sophie miscarries and learns she will likely never be able to carry a baby to term. But this isn’t an endpoint for Sophie: instead, it sets her on a path toward professional and creative success, as well as love and happiness in her marriage.
We’re used to reading about how motherhood gives life meaning—I loved Ivey’s portrait of how nothaving kids can do the same.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS 2016.
Set in the Alaskan landscape that she brought to stunningly vivid life in THE SNOW CHILD (a Sunday Times bestseller, Richard and Judy pick and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Eowyn Ivey's TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF THE WORLD is a breathtaking story of discovery set at the end of the nineteenth century, sure to appeal to fans of A PLACE CALLED WINTER.
'A clever, ambitious novel' The Sunday Times
'Persuasive and vivid... what could be a better beach read than an Arctic adventure?' Guardian
I've never been anything but a writer, despite growing up and spending my first 50 years in Alaska. Alaska has been my major topic—what else could it be in that overwhelmingly powerful place?—but it has also been my frustration, because Alaska is a real place that exists in most readers’ minds only as a romantic vision, and they resist any other version. Like the real Eskimos in my book, whose world is melting from climate change as they pump millions of barrels of crude oil from their homeland. The writers I chose are all Alaskans, like me, who tell those stories about the magical, terrifying place that lies behind the Disney version you already know.
Kizzia’s prose and reporting are unequaled, but this dark, Gothic tale is hard to read because of the real-life horror it exposes. The Pilgrim family came to Alaska in 2002, wrapping themselves in fundamentalist Christianity and fighting with the federal government like true pioneers in the wilderness—they became a cause for the right because of how they seemed to fulfill Alaska’s frontier myth. But it turned out the patriarch of the family had created a weird prison of rape and abuse for his uneducated children, which Kizzia was able to get inside with vividly told scenes. And that truth tells us even more about Alaska, which has the worst rate of rape in the nation and a shocking level of child abuse.
Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness—and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.
When Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and their fifteen children appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy, their new neighbors saw them as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal. But behind the family's proud piety and beautiful old-timey music lay Pilgrim's dark past: his strange connection to the Kennedy assassination and a trail of chaos and anguish that followed him from Dallas and New Mexico.…
