My Reading List
As with all my other trips, I have done extensive reading in preparation for my trip to Alaska. As the departure date approached, and the pile of books grew, I can reflect how the whole body of reading has developed my knowledge and understanding of what Alaska is about – its history, it’s people, its wonders and its challenges.
So, I have decided to share my list, including a brief overview, plus my favourite quotes from some of the books.
“Alaska – Not For a Woman” by Marey Carey
I started with Mary Carey’s biography – what a pioneering woman! It was 1962 when Carey first moved to a place which was long considered the domain of men. (Hence the title). Carey made a mark which is still recognised and revered today. Her book is peppered with extraordinary adventures, plus insights to what it was like living in Talkeetna at a time when there were few services which we take for granted these days.
When the Great Alaska Earthquake hit in 1964, Carey was in a car driving from Talkeetna to Anchorage, and described the incident in her book. They had no idea what was going on…..
“This road couldn’t be this rough,” I complained as I checked to see if I had broken a setting of eggs.
“No back seat driving,” came the comment from the front as the fender of the bug scraped snow from one bank and lurched toward the other.
“I can’t even keep my place in my book,” I kibitzed, and with cause. “I thought you could drive this thing.”
“I did, too,” Bruce said meekly. “Must be something wrong with it. I can’t even hold it in the ruts,” he admitted as we hurtled downgrade from snowbank to snowbank. We were swaying and the car bucking so that Bruce started to stop, then said we would never make it up the next grade if he slowed at the bottom.
This earthquake, at a magnitude of 9.2, is the second largest earthquake recorded (since 1900), after the 1960 earthquake in Chile which was 9.5.
I then read the first Dana Stabenow book, “No Fixed Line”. Stabenow was raised by her single mother, and spent her early years living on a fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. (A fish tender is a commercial boat which transports fish between the fishing boats and the processing plants.) Stabenow’s crime fiction novels are based in Alaska and draw on her life experiences there. When I was reading for my Arctic trip last year I discovered a Danish author who wrote crime fiction set in Greenland. Christoffer Petersen incorporated local traditions and described social issues into his stories. Since then, I try and include local fiction writers into my research list to round out my reading.
“Race Across Alaska” by Libby Riddles and Tim Jones
A standout read was undoubtedly Libby Riddles’ book “Race across Alaska. First woman to win the Iditarod tells her story.” The book is about her win in 1985.
I knew that the Iditarod was a gruelling challenge. But at that point I didn’t realise just how difficult and dangerous it was. Her story was gripping, from start to finish. It was in this book when I first understood the extent of the bond between the musher and his/her dogs. About how the training and preparation are not just about building fitness and technique. They are about building trust. There are occasions on the trail, when visibility is poor (i.e. just as far as the musher’s headlamp will show) and the musher must trust the leaders to take them the right way. (More often than not the track markers are barely noticeable).
On the section between Unualakleet and Shaktoolik Riddles encountered a blizzard. In the end, her decision to leave the checkpoint and venture out, knowing that the weather was going to be bad, contributed to her win since the others chose to wait it out. However, it could have been disastrous, and there were many who thought that she couldn’t possibly have made it.
“There I was, out in the middle of nowhere in the worst storm I’d ever seen. It was dark. The temperature was dropping. I was nailed down for the night. And now, despite my best efforts, I was beginning to feel cold. As these realizations came over me, the tingles of fear came, too.
Everything I’d learned during my few years in Alaska came into play. Everything I knew about cold weather and arctic survival applied now. Any little mistake could turn my tenuous position very serious very quickly. It was all up to me. It was the next thing to impossible for a rescue crew to even find me…if anybody even knew I was in trouble. No, I was on my own and responsible for my own mistakes” (p. 186)
Most of the books I have bought second hand, some of them delivered from the various places around the world (mostly from the US, though, given the Alaska theme). When this book arrived, I was surprised to see that it had been signed by co-author Tim Jones!
“Two Old Women” by Velma Wallis
The next book was a diversion into Alaskan myths. “Two Old Women” by Velma Wallis was absolutely delightful! Wallis is an American writer of Gwich’in Athabascan Indian descent. This book is a retelling of a story which was told to her as a child. It was my first dive into what life was like for the nomadic native Alaskans. And it prompted me to do some research in the Athabascan native history. Plus source another book on myths and legends.
“Alaska Women Write” edited by Dana Stabenow
I then read “Alaska women write” edited by Dana Stabenow (yes, the crime fiction writer). This was a delightful insight into women’s accomplishments. The book was published in 2003 and it is amazing to read how each woman succeeded in making a life in Alaska, often breaking down barriers as they went.
“Four Thousand Paws” by Lee Morgan
Next on the list was another book written by an Iditarod volunteer – more specifically a vet. “Four Thousand Paws” by Lee Morgan describes what it is like to be a vet on the Iditarod. In the early years of the race there were some unfortunate outcomes where dogs died on the race. A great deal of criticism was directed at the race organisers, who responded by introducing rules designed to protect the dogs as much as possible. This includes having a team of vets at every checkpoint, whose job it is to inspect every dog on every team to provide an all-clear on their health before the team can proceed. If they determine that a dog is not fit to carry on (e.g. a damaged paw, the onset of fatigue, or more serious issues) then the musher needs to “drop the dog”. This book was a terrific read, providing a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Iditarod.
There was so much fascinating information in the book, from the early vet selection process, through the preparation to the on-scene tasks and challenges. However, I decided to include a quote from page one, where Morgan describes the start of the race…
“The start is always complete bedlam. Drunk on adrenaline, the dogs whip themselves into an almost insane state of anticipation. They strain at their harnesses; some jump and leap into the air, howling with excitement. Bark for bark, they match the enthusiasm of their human spectators, who cheer as if they’re at a homecoming football game. While we wait for the start signal, I scan the sea of dogs. There’s pure joy on each and every face – and absolutely no doubt in my mind that they’re smiling. Of course, I’m smiling, too; I’m one of hundreds of volunteers who work to ensure that the race runs smoothly.”
“Alaskan Myths and Legends” selected and edited by Katharine Berry Judson
At this point I started reading “Alaskan Myths and Legends” this is a compilation put together by Katharine Berry Judson and published in 1911. Judson (1871 to 1956) was a professor of history at the University of Washington. The stories are akin to Norse mythology in that they describe creation stories and legends, rather than the moralistic story about the Two Old Women. The style of writing is not as engaging as in “Two Old Women”, as Judson was documenting the oral histories, rather than re-writing them into stories. In this I applaud Judson, as in so many cases in the history of our indigenous peoples, the “documenting” of native oral histories ends up being a process of ‘sanitising’ or ‘Christianising’. (See my post about the Viking Women Warriors and Norse Mythology)
“The Cruelest Miles” by Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury
This book told such an extraordinary story that I decided to give it its own blog post.
“Winterdance – the fine madness of Alaska dog-racing” by Gary Paulsen.
This was a fantastic read, which kept me on the edge of my seat, as I was simultaneously horrified and entertained by Paulsen’s story.
There are so many hilarious parts of his story that I found my self laughing out loud as I read each quote I had bookmarked. Consequently, I have had to include more than one here; I hope that you let yourself laugh out loud as well!
In the first quote Paulsen is describing his training days, when he was trying to control the dogs (which I have come to understand from all my reading is a near-impossibility when they realise that they are about to depart)…
“In subsequent runs I left the yard on my face, my ass, my back, my belly. I dragged for a mile, two miles, three miles. I lost the team eight, ten times; walked twelve, seventeen, once some forty-some miles looking for them. The rig broke every time we ran, torn to pieces, and I finally borrowed a welder and rebuilt the thing every night. Every farmer within forty miles of us knew about me, knew me as “that crazy bastard who can’t hold his team.” I once left the yard with wooden matches in my pocket and had them ignite as I was being dragged past the door of the house, giving me the semblance of a meteorite, screaming something about my balls being on fire at Ruth, who was laughing so hard she couldn’t stand.” (p. 85)
The next quote is describing how Paulsen tackled Happy Canyon, a notorious stretch of the trail, which includes a near-vertical drop down a cliff…
“Cookie, realizing that to survive she would have to stay ahead of the suddenly falling team, sled, and musher, said to hell with the trail and jumped off the edge, aimed straight down. The team, used to following her blindly, jumped off after her.
I grabbed the handlebar of the sled with both hands and hung on, dragging my stomach as we careened, flopped, rolled, and tumbled some five hundred feet down to the frozen river below.
I would like to say that because I kept my wits about me and was cool in the face of a crisis, I used my body as a living sled drag, which kept the sled from running over the dogs, and through a series of delicately performed maneuvers, we came smoothly to a stop on the river ice below.
I would like to say that, but it would be a lie. While in reality that is exactly what happened, it was all accidental. As soon as we started down, I closed my eyes. I may have screamed, as two mushers who were on the ice repairing broken sleds said, but I can’t remember doing so. When I opened them, I was lying on the river ice, the dogs were lined up in front of me perfectly, and the sled – wonder of wonders – was upright and all the gear intact.
Off to the side, the two mushers stood clapping softly. One of them smiled and nodded. ‘Far out – I’m going to do it that way next year.’” (p. 178)
“Murder on the Last Frontier” and “Borrowing Death” by Cathy Pegau
It was time for a light interlude from the emotional rollercoaster of the Iditarod. So I raced through these (pardon the pun). These fiction murder mysteries are set in Alaska in 1919 and 1920.
“Ada Blackjack” by Jennifer Niven
I was well and truly ready for something a bit more informative, and I chose a book which I had purchased when I was researching for an expedition travelling the north east passage across the top of Russia. COVID and then the start of war in the Ukraine put a permanent halt on this voyage. Now that expeditions are no longer being offered in this area, it is something which I will never get to experience, unfortunately. The expedition was going to visit Wrangell Island, the setting for a big part of Niven’s book.
The book is an extraordinary story. Books about the ill-fated Wrangel Island settlements usually concentrate on expeditions, which took place between 1913 and 1923. This book, as the name suggests, is about Ada Blackjack, who went on Vilhjalmur Stefannson’s expedition in 1921 and was the only survivor. More than just the story of the expedition, though, the book delves into Blackjack’s life before and after the expedition, going into a lot of detail about her life as a native Alaskan and the discrimination against her as a result.
The quote I’m including here is also the final paragraph in the book
“Twelve years had passed since her face had appeared almost daily in magazines and newspapers, but the figure was clearly that of Ada Blackjack. The world had lost touch with her. The press speculated in later years about what had happened to her. There were rumors – she was wasting away from tuberculosis; she was struck dead by a car; she changed her identity; she vanished. Yet here she was.
When Miller spoke to her, she gave him the same cool gaze she had given to reporters all those years earlier when they had wanted her picture. She did not smile or make conversation. She merely waited patiently and politely while Miller spoke of Wrangel Island, her former Arctic home, and of the small colony of Russians that now occupied it.
After he was through, she shifted the gunnysack of driftwood beneath her arm and began to walk away. “I really will have to be going,” she said. “I should have gathered this driftwood earlier.” “ (p. 382)
“A Cold Day for Murder” by Dana Stabenow
The story of Ada Blackjack’s life left me feeling in need for some light entertainment.
“White Sky, Black Ice” by Stan Jones
You might wonder at the number of crime fiction novels I bought? I admit that I possibly overdid it? Nevertheless, I still manage to extract something from each one, even if it is only some vague context.
“Running with Champions” by Lisa Frederic
A friend lent me this book, which is another biographical account of participating in the Iditarod.
Lisa Frederic started her mushing life working in the kennels of Jeff King, an Iditarod champion. Frederic was given the job of training the puppies, and eventually took a team of these puppies on her first Iditarod race.
“I always let them fly the last miles approaching camp. Knowing the trail was wide and safe, I loved turning off my headlamp and hurtling through the darkness like a ship with the stars and planets speeding overhead. There were times with the moon when it was almost too much, though. Too much beauty combined with the intense cold sometimes made me feel like a reluctant visitor when I stepped back to earth.” (p.86)
“Murder on the Iditarod Trail” by Sue Henry
This was the last of my crime fiction novels. I had saved the best for last, and even thought that I would keep it until I was on my trip. But it was beckoning. I have to say that Henry capitalised on the dangerous nature of the race, and invented a number of grizzly murder scenarios! It was a short page-turner, and the culprit was uncovered within a few days of reading.
“The Tao of Raven” by Ernestine Hayes
This was a late purchase, which I identified while doing research for my post on mythology and shamans. Ernestine Hayes is an Emerita professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. As a member of the Kaagwaantaan clan of the Eagle moiety of the Tlingit Nation, Hayes brings a special significance to her writing. “The Tao of Raven” is her second book (the first is “Blonde Indian”) which combines biographical insights with Tlingit oral history of Raven, also incorporating a fictional story about a young girl experiencing the impact of colonisation in the 20th century.
The book drove me to find out more about this remarkable woman. This article published on the First Nations website will give you an idea of what I mean.
Hayes writes: “In any institution situated in a colonized place, it is even more important for people in power to recognize Alaska Native intellectual authority.
Indigenous history, Indigenous philosophy, Indigenous intellectual understanding, are qualities that settlers and their descendants find threatening. Nevertheless, these are plain truths. I am here because of unacknowledged warriors like my mother and others like her, people who held their places in spite of injury and loss, in spite of cultural battery that would have undone others. Many families lost their art, their language, their history, their health, but they passed to us the awareness of power. We follow the footsteps of the walking wounded in this cultural war, and everything we are able to accomplish now we owe to them.” (p 158)
There is only one book left in my reading list.
“Flight of the Goose: a story of the Far North”, written by Lesley Thomas, is a fictional story set in a remote indigenous village. It is tragic love story within the context of ecological challenges, cultural conflict and shamanism.
I saved it to read while I travelled, and so have just started it. Given that I am leaving this afternoon, I have managed to get the timing right perfectly!
As I write this, I look back on all this reading. While I don’t profess to remember even a fraction of what I have read, there is absolutely no doubt that it has given me a much deeper understanding and appreciation of Alaska; its people, its history, its stories, and of course the gruelling and exciting challenge which is the Iditarod Dog Sled Race!