Authentic Alaska II: Voices of the Far North

by Susan B. Andrews (Editor), John Creed (Editor)

"Authentic Alaska II" offers an inside look into some of the most exotic places in America's largest yet most sparsely populated state. Life outside Alaska's urban centers embraces a northern land where most folks travel from place to place by aircraft or on trails and waterways. This volume showcases writers from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the rainforests of Southeast Alaska a thousand miles away. Their stories recount Inupiaq elder Nellie Woods's sojourn in the 1930s, driving reindeer from northern Alaska to fellow Eskimos in northern Canada; a young Alaska Native man's struggle with drug and alcohol addiction; the vagaries of Southeast Alaska, where mushing is so soggy the dogs need foot powder; a mother's attempt to steer her son to college when he'd really rather be a fisherman; and the many uses of the common Eskimo expression, "adii," This anthology, a worthy sequel to the first "Authentic Alaska," features both Native and non-Native writers living mostly in remote rural communities off of Alaska's road system. They weigh in on contemporary issues such as global warming and the political complexities of rural education.

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008