Travelers' Tales Alaska

C
RITICAL
A
CCLAIM FOR
T
RAVELERS
'
TALES

“The
Travelers' Tales
series is altogether remarkable.”

—Jan Morris, author
of Journeys, Locations,
and
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

“For the thoughtful traveler, these books are an invaluable resource. There's nothing like them on the market.”

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The Global Soul

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Foreign Service Journal

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Travelers' Tales
…before reading a guidebook, before seeing a travel agent.

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is a valuable addition to any predeparture reading list.”

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delivers something most guidebooks only promise: a real sense of what a country is all about.…”

—
Hartford Courant

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Travelers' Tales
series should become required reading for anyone visiting a foreign country who wants to truly step off the tourist track and experience another culture, another place, firsthand.”

—
St. Petersburg Times

“If there's one thing traditional guidebooks lack, it's the really juicy travel information, the personal stories about back alleys and brief encounters. The
Travelers' Tales
series fills this gap with an approach that's all anecdotes, no directions.”

—
Diversion

T
RAVELERS
' T
ALES
B
OOKS

Country and Regional Guides

America, Australia, Brazil, Central America, Cuba, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Spain, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey; Alaska, American Southwest, Grand Canyon, Hawai‘i, Hong Kong, Paris, Provence, San Francisco, Tuscany

Women's Travel

Her Fork in the Road, A Woman's Path, A Woman's Passion for Travel, A Woman's World, Women in the Wild, A Mother's World, Safety and Security for Women Who Travel, Gutsy Women, Gutsy Mamas

Body & Soul

The Spiritual Gifts of Travel, The Road Within, Love & Romance, Food, The Fearless Diner, The Adventure of Food, The Ultimate Journey, Pilgrimage

Special Interest

Not So Funny When It Happened, The Gift of Rivers, Shitting Pretty, Testosterone Planet, Danger!, The Fearless Shopper, The Penny Pincher's Passport to Luxury Travel, The Gift of Birds, Family Travel, A Dog's World, There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled, The Gift of Travel, 365 Travel, Adventures in Wine, Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures, Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why

Footsteps

Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, The Sword of Heaven, Storm, Take Me With You, Last Trout in Venice, The Way of the Wanderer, One Year Off, The Fire Never Dies

Classics

The Royal Road to Romance, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, The Rivers Ran East, Coast to Coast, Trader Horn

T
RAVELERS
' T
ALES

ALASKA

T
RUE
S
TORIES

T
RAVELERS
' T
ALES

T
RUE
S
TORIES

Edited by

B
ILL
S
HERWONIT
,

A
NDROMEDA
R
OMANO
-L
AX

AND
E
LLEN
B
IELAWSKI

Series Editors

J
AMES
O'R
EILLY AND
L
ARRY
H
ABEGGER

T
RAVELERS
' T
ALES

S
AN
F
RANCISCO

Copyright © 2003 Travelers' Tales, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction copyright © 2003 David Roberts

Travelers' Tales
and
Travelers' Tales Guides
are trademarks of Travelers' Tales, Inc.

Credits and copyright notices for the individual articles in this collection are given starting on page 286.

We have made every effort to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material and to secure permission from copyright holders. In the event of any question arising as to the ownership of any material, we will be pleased to make the necessary correction in future printings. Contact Travelers' Tales, Inc., 330 Townsend Street Suite 208, San Francisco, California 94107.
www.travelerstales.com

Art Direction: Michele Wetherbee

Interior design: Kathryn Heflin and Susan Bailey

Cover photograph:© Steven Nourse/Getty Images. Aurora Borealis, Alaska Range.

Page layout: Cynthia Lamb, using the fonts Bembo and Remedy

Distributed by:
Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Travelers' Tales Alaska : true stories / edited by Bill Sherwonit, Andromeda Romano-Lax, and Ellen Bielawski.— 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-6095-2072-4

1. Alaska—Description and travel—Anecdotes. 2. Alaska—History, Local—Anecdotes. 3. Frontier and pioneer life—ALaska—Anecdotes. 4. Outdoor life—ALaska—Anecdotes. 5. Alaska—Biography—Anecdotes. 6. Travelers—Alaska—Biography—Anecdotes. 7. Adventure and adventurers—Alaska—Biography—Anecdotes. 8. Travelers' writings, American. I. Sherwonit, Bill, 1950- II. Romano-Lax, Andromeda, 1971-III. Bielawski, E.

F910.5 .T73 2003

917.9804'51'0922—dc22

2003014901

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

 

…
Who comes here, to this whiteness, this far and frozen place, in search of something he cannot name? Not wealth, it may be, but a fortune of the spirit, a freshness denied him in the place he came from.”

—J
OHN
H
AINES
, “Stories We Listened To”

The Stars, The Snow, The Fire

Introduction

DAVID ROBERTS

Part One

E
SSENCE OF
A
LASKA

Sixty-Five

JEFF FAIR

Surrounded by Bears

ED READICKER-HENDERSON

The Flyboys of Talkeetna

JON KRAKAUER

Kayaking through a Timeless Realm of Rain, Bugs, and B.O.

BARBARA BROWN

Eating Edward Curtis at the Ugruk Café

DANIEL HENRY

The Only Place Like This

KATHLEEN DEAN MOORE

From Scratch

SUSAN BEEMAN

Part Two

S
OME
T
HINGS TO
D
O

The Great White Philharmonic

TIM CAHILL

Woe Is Me

IAN FRAZIER

Camping at Wal
Mart

ELLEN BIELAWSKI

Taking on the Kenai

TOM DUNKEL

Hell Can't Be Worse Than This Trail

STEVE HOWE

Downtown Duel

NANCY DESCHU

Point Retreat

ERNESTINE HAYES

Part Three

G
OING
Y
OUR
O
WN
W
AY

The Blood of Fine and Wild Animals

PAM HOUSTON

On the Pack Ice

HEATHER VILLARS

In God's Back Yard

NILES ELLIOT GOLDSTEIN

Seeking Paradise

ANDROMEDA ROMANO-LAX

The Last Road North

PHILIP CAPUTO

Everything's Oishi

MIKE STEERE

Shot Tower

DAVID ROBERTS

Part Four

I
N THE SHADOWS

Hairy Man Lives