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Unearths early writings that offer a broad view of American encounters with Alaska accompanied by Meaux's lively and concise introductions

Table of Contents

Foreword by Stephen Haycox

Preface: Jumping Off the End of the Earth

Acknowledgments

Note on Original Sources

PART I. ROMANTIC VOYAGE: A TOUR OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA

1. John Muir, Fort Wrangel, Alaska, August 8, 1879

2. Charles Hallock, A Great Day in Sitka

3. C. C. Hine, The Patriarch and His Little Detective

4. Septima M. Collis, The Alaska Barnum's Dancers

5. Charles M. Taylor, Jr., Riding the Rails through White Pass Canyon

PART II. UNTAMED ALASKA: INTO THE VAST UNKNOWN

6. Caroline Willard, Chilcat Mission, Haines, Alaska

7. Lieutenant Henry T. Allen, Living Upon the Country

8. H. W. Seton Karr, Escape from Icy Bay

9. John Bremner, Living Off the Enemy

10. Herbert L. Aldrich, Whaling with the Fleet of 1887

11. Harry de Windt, Perilous Crawl Up the Chilkoot

12. Captain William Abercrombie, One Night on Valdez Glacier

13. Robert Dunn, From Nowhere to Nowhere

14. Agnes Herbert, Invitation to a Card Game

15. Hudson Stuck, Mistakes at Sixty Below

PART III. INEXHAUSTIBLE OPTIMISM: THE MAD RUSH FOR GOLD

16. Ernest Ingersoll, Outfit for an Argonaut

17. Robert C. Kirk, Heartbreak on the White Pass

18. Mary E. Hitchcock, Ho for the Land of Gold!

19. J. D. Winchester, The Mosquitoes' Bugle on the Koyukuk

20. Josiah Edward Spurr, A Bureaucrat Comes to Call

21. Joseph Grinnell, Pluck on the Kowak

22. May Kellogg Sullivan, No Time for Sonatas

23. M. Clark, Playing for Stakes

24. Edward J. Devine, The Great White Silence

25. Addison M. Powell, The Alien God of Gold

26. Arthur Arnold Dietz, On the Other Side of Disenchantment Bay

27. John F. Stacey, Twenty-One Days from Rampart City

Epilogue: A Cabin on the Edge of the Forest

Chronology of Alaska History through 1910

Bibliography

About the Author

Jean Morgan Meaux lived in Alaska from 1971 to 1985, where she earned a master's degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage and did freelance writing for the Anchorage Daily News.

Reviews

"In Pursuit of Alaska….is clearly a labor of love beautifully realized by the University of Washington Press."
*Western American Literature*

"In Pursuit of Alaska: An Anthology of Travelers’ Tales, 1879-1909 is a lively and fascinating collection filled with exceptional prose that will give modern readers a taste of Americans’ first encounters with the North…For anyone interested in Alaska history, or even just exceptional writing, In Pursuit of Alaska is an absolutely essential volume."
*Fairbanks Daily News-Miner*

"Offers travel writing by explorers, tourists, adventure seekers, and gold miners who traversed Alaska when it was truly the last frontier."
*Publishers Weekly*

"Theirs are voices not often heard, but which illumine an important period of Alaska's development with color and verve. A collection compiled with intelligence, and well worth trekking into for all those intrigued by our still-enigmatic uppermost corner."
*Foreword*

"This is a terrific book, with archival photographs and smart, informative introductions for the various travelers' accounts."
*City Living*

"Each excerpt is supported by notes about the writer's background that - along with historical photographs - complement these accounts of the lives of early Alaska visitors."
*Alaska Airlines*