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Cold Mountain Path: The Ghost Town Decades of McCarthy-Kennecott, Alaska
We all have ghost towns. Impermanent places we dream of returning to. Here was Alaska’s.
In 1938, the last copper train left the Wrangell Mountains. But the spirit of the old days—free-wheeling, self-reliant, bounty-blessed—lived on in the remote town of McCarthy. The valley’s few holdouts were joined over time by a gallery of prospectors, grifters, back-to-the-landers, dreamers, escape artists, hippies, speculators, preachers, and outlaws. While the rest of Alaska boomed in the new oil age, an old and makeshift way of life persisted against the quiet undertow of the past, that ebbing toward the wilderness that was here before us. Then the modern world found its way back in. A road, a bridge, a national park. A mass shooting that left six dead.
Cold Mountain Path is a deeply American saga of renunciation and renewal—a rollicking local history that is also a lyrical exploration of time, loss, and change ... and a pulsating account of the morning that brought Alaska’s ghost town decades to an end.
In 1938, the last copper train left the Wrangell Mountains. But the spirit of the old days—free-wheeling, self-reliant, bounty-blessed—lived on in the remote town of McCarthy. The valley’s few holdouts were joined over time by a gallery of prospectors, grifters, back-to-the-landers, dreamers, escape artists, hippies, speculators, preachers, and outlaws. While the rest of Alaska boomed in the new oil age, an old and makeshift way of life persisted against the quiet undertow of the past, that ebbing toward the wilderness that was here before us. Then the modern world found its way back in. A road, a bridge, a national park. A mass shooting that left six dead.
Cold Mountain Path is a deeply American saga of renunciation and renewal—a rollicking local history that is also a lyrical exploration of time, loss, and change ... and a pulsating account of the morning that brought Alaska’s ghost town decades to an end.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
330 pages, Paperback
Published October 5, 2021
24 people are currently reading
418 people want to read
About the author
Tom Kizzia
6 books41 followersTom Kizzia traveled widely in rural Alaska as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He has written for The New Yorker and The Washington Post and been featured on CNN. Tom is a former Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and a graduate of Hampshire College. His stories about the Pilgrim Family won a President's Award from McClatchy Newspapers. His first book, The Wake of the Unseen Object, was named one of the best all-time non-fiction books about Alaska by the state historical society. He lives in Homer, Alaska.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 12, 2022
Another very enjoyable non-fiction book about Alaska. Fascinating local history about a unique place. I have liked Tom Kizzia's unbiased journalistic talent and eloquent writing style since reading "The Wake of the Unseen Object". He jumps around quite a bit in this book, as the chapters are organized in thematic rather than chronologic order, and there are a lot of characters involved. I found myself flipping back and forth referencing things, or reminding myself when and who was talked about, but this really doesn't take away from the quality of the book. I was also having fun comparing the McCarthy/Kennecott of 1938-1983 to memories and pictures of my visits to the area in 1996 and 2010. The only thing that could have improved the experience would have been a map of the town (showing then and now and in-between - I love maps...). Maybe another assignment for the talented illustrator Kristin Link for a future edition?
February 4, 2024
I had great hopes for this tale that was sold as a non-fiction account of the McCrathy murders. Instead it was a historical narrative of ever McCarthy settler and their grudges. If I wanted details on irritable, illogical feuds between isolated individuals; I would visit a girl's middle school. I've enjoyed this authors other work and look forward to other tales from him.
May 2, 2022
Interesting and engaging, compassionate throughout.
May 25, 2024
super interesting book on one of the most fascinating towns I’ve ever been to
May 1, 2022
Intriguing Alaskan history that's skillfully written for a captivating read.
April 4, 2022
This piece of narrative nonfiction deserves a place among Alaska history texts. The amount of research and thoughtful synthesis of those varied sources really made this book come to life. If you have any interest at all in Alaska history in general, or specific interest about McCarthy's recent past, the years between the Kennecott Mine shut-down around 1940 and the mail day murders of 1983, get your hands on this book. If you're just looking for a good read about interesting characters and the small town roles they play, get your hands on this book. If you want to know more about the weirdness and eccentricity that makes Alaska seem ethereal, get your hands on this book! Be careful; this book will have you yearning to travel to McCarthy, whether you've been there or not.
September 21, 2022
Kizzia is a long-time reporter for ADN who has deep ties to McCarthy, having reported on (and lived) in the area as early as the '83 "Mail Day" sextuple murders and the aftermath. The narrative is structured in three parts: the "last train out" 1938 through 1972, 1972-1983 ANILCA/NPS influence, and a coda detailing the aforementioned massacre. Developed from the scraps of his earlier Pilgrim's Wilderness, it stands on its own as a history of place but does not reach the highest highs of the original. For someone who has invested heavily in reading about Kennecott/McCarthy there are still a number of interesting nuggets* pulled together from numerous sources; as he is writing for a more general audience it is hard to gauge how cohesive the narrative/characters would be because he covers a lot of ground.
For a Copper River Valley wonk like me, I'd have been happy with the first two segments of the book as standalones. The lurid details regarding March 1, 1983 seem almost separate from the rest, taking on a choppy, journalistic tone in contrast to the sketched narrative spanning decades prior. Kizzia does his best to tie it all together as a story of McCarthy's modern rebirth-qua-rebuilding through the lens of the Kennicott River tram (and later, the footbridge).
Walking through town in 2021 without a historical lens, McCarthy seemed a dream. 2022 with some context, one notices much more: anti- or pro-NPS signs, notices about right-of-ways and private property, roaring ATVs skirting legality, and an uneasy feeling that--even in a National Park--tourists are an intrusion into a way of life that was perhaps *the* last frontier community in the States. While still off the beaten path, hordes of (largely Alaskan, at least) tourists descend on the town every summer in a culmination of what old-timers had been worried about all along. And McCarthy, as always, undergoes another change.
RIP Jim Edwards
*Nuggets:
--In the passage about John Denver's Alaska, The American Child (1975) Kizzia recounts that the locals pranked he and his crew while the cameras weren't rolling. "Two locals who had been bickering got in a loud argument. One of them, the bartender, drew a knife, and the other pulled a .44 and fired. As the film crew rushed out the door, the bartender staggered to the floor in a pool of blood. Fake blood, it turned out. Jimmy Galzinsky was firing blanks and the bartender was in on the spoof. The point...was either to reclaim the pool table from the movie crew or to give them a taste of their own fake movie reality." Denver was not happy, according to his autobiography, and they got out of dodge quickly after. I suppose things don't change, as reality TV has seeped into every corner of the State including a short-lived show based in McCarthy. Perhaps there is no "old" or "new" McCarthy; just variations on a theme of boom and bust. Fitting for a copper town.
--Modern visitors to McCarthy might notice the second footbridge into town spans over a sunken patch of grass, with a pleasant swimming hole to the north. A footbridge would be wholly unnecessary in the present day, a gravel path would easily suffice--but less than 25 years ago before increasingly rapid glacial retreat this area was a second channel of the roaring glacial river. Wild. Now the lake where Kennicott and Root Glaciers sputter out is increasingly large. Who knows what the footbridge at the "end of the road" will span over in another decade.
--A lot more history in the Community Church than you'd think, thanks to the Kenyon family. This book doesn't touch on that much, but in summation with the Pilgrim book, reading between the lines in this one, landrights blogs, and Wrangell-St. Elias news clippings/editorials...hooo boy.
For a Copper River Valley wonk like me, I'd have been happy with the first two segments of the book as standalones. The lurid details regarding March 1, 1983 seem almost separate from the rest, taking on a choppy, journalistic tone in contrast to the sketched narrative spanning decades prior. Kizzia does his best to tie it all together as a story of McCarthy's modern rebirth-qua-rebuilding through the lens of the Kennicott River tram (and later, the footbridge).
Walking through town in 2021 without a historical lens, McCarthy seemed a dream. 2022 with some context, one notices much more: anti- or pro-NPS signs, notices about right-of-ways and private property, roaring ATVs skirting legality, and an uneasy feeling that--even in a National Park--tourists are an intrusion into a way of life that was perhaps *the* last frontier community in the States. While still off the beaten path, hordes of (largely Alaskan, at least) tourists descend on the town every summer in a culmination of what old-timers had been worried about all along. And McCarthy, as always, undergoes another change.
RIP Jim Edwards
*Nuggets:
--In the passage about John Denver's Alaska, The American Child (1975) Kizzia recounts that the locals pranked he and his crew while the cameras weren't rolling. "Two locals who had been bickering got in a loud argument. One of them, the bartender, drew a knife, and the other pulled a .44 and fired. As the film crew rushed out the door, the bartender staggered to the floor in a pool of blood. Fake blood, it turned out. Jimmy Galzinsky was firing blanks and the bartender was in on the spoof. The point...was either to reclaim the pool table from the movie crew or to give them a taste of their own fake movie reality." Denver was not happy, according to his autobiography, and they got out of dodge quickly after. I suppose things don't change, as reality TV has seeped into every corner of the State including a short-lived show based in McCarthy. Perhaps there is no "old" or "new" McCarthy; just variations on a theme of boom and bust. Fitting for a copper town.
--Modern visitors to McCarthy might notice the second footbridge into town spans over a sunken patch of grass, with a pleasant swimming hole to the north. A footbridge would be wholly unnecessary in the present day, a gravel path would easily suffice--but less than 25 years ago before increasingly rapid glacial retreat this area was a second channel of the roaring glacial river. Wild. Now the lake where Kennicott and Root Glaciers sputter out is increasingly large. Who knows what the footbridge at the "end of the road" will span over in another decade.
--A lot more history in the Community Church than you'd think, thanks to the Kenyon family. This book doesn't touch on that much, but in summation with the Pilgrim book, reading between the lines in this one, landrights blogs, and Wrangell-St. Elias news clippings/editorials...hooo boy.
January 10, 2023
A chronicle of small-town McCarthy, focusing on the 'ghost town' years of 1938-1983. After the copper mining operation shut down (in 1938), a handful of residents remained, and lived a substinence existence.
"In the geography of Alaskan romance, McCarthy had a reputation as a hermit kingdom, contrary and self-reliant, where settles tougher than the rest of us were salvaging, in postapocalyptic fashion, the rusted relics of a profligate past." Due to its history (as a copper mine), location (in the beautiful Wrangell mountains), and inaccessibility, it created a unique environment. "The combination may have no equal on the American continent. Here in a single place three intertwined eras in Alaska's history lay almost literally one atop the other—the pristine wilderness, the intrepid exploitation of mineral wealth, and bush Alaska in its authentic late-twentieth century form." Effectively, McCarthy was "a rare window into a way of life that was supposed to have disappeared long ago."
A solid read. More thoughts on my blog.
"In the geography of Alaskan romance, McCarthy had a reputation as a hermit kingdom, contrary and self-reliant, where settles tougher than the rest of us were salvaging, in postapocalyptic fashion, the rusted relics of a profligate past." Due to its history (as a copper mine), location (in the beautiful Wrangell mountains), and inaccessibility, it created a unique environment. "The combination may have no equal on the American continent. Here in a single place three intertwined eras in Alaska's history lay almost literally one atop the other—the pristine wilderness, the intrepid exploitation of mineral wealth, and bush Alaska in its authentic late-twentieth century form." Effectively, McCarthy was "a rare window into a way of life that was supposed to have disappeared long ago."
A solid read. More thoughts on my blog.
August 29, 2024
Very interesting to me since I have been bringing small groups to McCarthy and Kennecott for 25 years now and always wondered about the "ghost town years".
If it wasn't for a blown transmission I would have been there the summer of '97, last year of the handtram.
Some people showed up towards the book's end that I met those first years going there. Although the book builds to the tragedy of the shooting it is really more than that--- Kizzia tells a big sprawling history with a journalistic economy.
I just found myself interested in more info on the infrastructure changes but that's probably because I've driven that road a hundred times and run the Copper a half dozen times and been going to the backcountry for a number of trips as well so I'm familiar with the land and places mentioned.
If it wasn't for a blown transmission I would have been there the summer of '97, last year of the handtram.
Some people showed up towards the book's end that I met those first years going there. Although the book builds to the tragedy of the shooting it is really more than that--- Kizzia tells a big sprawling history with a journalistic economy.
I just found myself interested in more info on the infrastructure changes but that's probably because I've driven that road a hundred times and run the Copper a half dozen times and been going to the backcountry for a number of trips as well so I'm familiar with the land and places mentioned.
June 2, 2024
A shocker from the book:
""The official visitors on the McCarthy-Kennecott tour (1957) were scientists and engineers from the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Livermore, California. They were looking for a place to detonate a nuclear bomb."
The idea was to place a bomb in one of the abandoned copper mines. Fortunately, the Californians wanted nothing to do with the ice, cold, snow, and brutal temps. They got back on their plane to the desert southwest and never came back.
Most of the book gave the complete history of every small-town grudge held by almost every resident of the McCarthy-Kennecott area.
""The official visitors on the McCarthy-Kennecott tour (1957) were scientists and engineers from the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Livermore, California. They were looking for a place to detonate a nuclear bomb."
The idea was to place a bomb in one of the abandoned copper mines. Fortunately, the Californians wanted nothing to do with the ice, cold, snow, and brutal temps. They got back on their plane to the desert southwest and never came back.
Most of the book gave the complete history of every small-town grudge held by almost every resident of the McCarthy-Kennecott area.
July 24, 2022
Very interesting, especially because we were able to visit McCarthy and the Kennicott mine while I was reading the book. Lots of history and names of people spanning the past 100+ years…I tend to get lost/bogged down with too many names/characters so had to push myself through sections. Overall very well-written history of an unusual town and the people who are drawn to it!
November 3, 2022
An engaging tale of community and change
This story is well told and captivating. A tale of adventure, of a resourceful community and of human frailties. Most people long for independence, respect and acceptance; all part of this story in different degrees. How these folks survive the climate, the beauty and the conflicts could provide a good lesson for today.
This story is well told and captivating. A tale of adventure, of a resourceful community and of human frailties. Most people long for independence, respect and acceptance; all part of this story in different degrees. How these folks survive the climate, the beauty and the conflicts could provide a good lesson for today.
July 18, 2025
Someone gave this book to me after they found out that I'm interested in Northwest history and ghost towns. Tom Kizzia's in-depth research and storytelling abilities from his experience as a newspaper reporter shine in this book. Not only does he thoroughly cover history of McCarthy-Kennecott, Alaska, but he also shares many anecdotes from the people who lived there.
August 19, 2025
Amazing stories of a place and time unique to Alaska
Absolutely loved this book. So well researched and written without being slow, keeping one turning the pages to see what happens next. Well worth reading to get more insight into this part of Alaska’s history and the people drawn to it.
Absolutely loved this book. So well researched and written without being slow, keeping one turning the pages to see what happens next. Well worth reading to get more insight into this part of Alaska’s history and the people drawn to it.
February 4, 2023
Interesting characters presented in a rather episodic writing style. His time as a reporter shows through a bit too much for my taste. It does present a look at a time and place where people did whatever they wanted without government interference.
December 7, 2023
I enjoyed this book which did a great job at describing this colorful history and remoteness of the area. I had a difficult time keeping track of all the different people and by its theme, it could seem a little disjointed.
March 21, 2025
Excellent retelling of a forgotten time about a forgotten town with forgotten people. My interest in all things Alaska only grows continually delving into the history and foundation of the most underappreciated area in the country.
December 20, 2022
If you are VERY interested in the history of McCarthy this book is for you.
January 5, 2025
Excellent narrative about the history and the interesting people that have lived in and impacted the Kennecott/McCarthy area. Very well researched and written.
June 18, 2025
Read more like a history if every person who’s ever lived there and their personal gripes, so if that’s what you’re into 🤷🏼♀️
January 15, 2022
Good view of people doing the best they can in isolation. Felt long. People dealt with sensitivity.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews